First Week Wrap-up

I bought a new camera today. I'm going to be traveling around the state (in some instances, following the touring company as they travel from Kansas town to Kansas town) taking pictures of the things that are mentioned in the show. We won't be able to do it for this season, but the next time we do this show, we'll have big screens on either side of the stage with pictures and video clips of the people/events that are being covered. It will be an unbelievable addition to the show. If it wasn't for the fact that I lived in Iowa, 8 hours away, until just a couple months ago, we'd have that in THIS production now. Better late than never I guess. This will be a very expensive addition to the show-- the projectors, screens, computer, software, etc)-- probably costing about $15,000-- I'll start saving up now... Hellooo macaroni and cheese! HA.

My copy of the script is in color: important names and events are in RED and important mentions of towns are in BLUE. This helps me make sure these things are given weight during the show. An actors natural tendency is to deliver lines-- particularly names and terms that are familiar to the character but perhaps foreign to the audience-- as conversational as possible, not stressing names and events. But we need to do a bit of that so the students will recognize the names and events they've heard in class. Anyway, today I began making sure the important things were being stressed as they were working their way through the script.

I've had emails from a couple teachers asking about getting tickets to see the show. I guess they don't understand that this is a TOURING production. They can't see it unless they contact Wichita Children's Theatre (http://www.wctdc.com/contact.htm) and book the show to come to their school. We're working on the possibility of adding a couple local (Wichita) performances of the show-- but that's still in the works. This is such a popular show, almost all the available dates are taken already. We may be able to add some additional dates in March.

It will be unfortunate some schools won't get to see this show-- particularly since I spent so much time contacting Kansas history teachers last year asking for suggestions during my preparation in writing the script. Well, if the response is great enough, I'm sure WCT will be offering this show again very soon.