Tag: Anne of Avonlea (2008)

Kudzu Family Playhouse presents Anne of Avonlea

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Finally Over

We finished up Anne of Avonlea last night. The last two shows were for a house full of Girl Scouts. A lot of the humor in Anne is geared towards older audiences, jokes that the kids would not catch on. With that in mind, I thought the last two shows would be very quiet. I was surprised. Last nights show was very funny. I found myself gearing some of the lines towards the younger people by changing the inflections just enough. I notices a lot of the cast members doing this. It really was a great show and a great way to end the run.

The Girl Scouts had a patch made for the event and the cast members were given one. I will scan it and post is soon.

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Final Weekend for Anne of Avonlea

There is always a sense of emptiness and sadness that comes with the end of run. In some way though, this is different only because audience turnout has been so low. It’s almost a relief to be finished. We do have 5 more shows: three this weekend and one each on Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday and Thursday shows are private showings for Girl Scouts, I believe. Sold out or near that anyway.

I had been trying to find a show to do between this one and Barefoot in the Park which rehearses in June and runs in July. So know what do I do for the next month; I feel the withdrawals coming on.

I so could do this full time!

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The Show Must Go On

This past weekend for Anne of Avonlea had it’s ups and downs. Actually, the weekend started out very good and went down hill from there.

The Saturday, 2 PM show had a group of Seniors from a local church. So we had over 50+ people (literally and figuratively). This was our best show to date. There is a lot of humor that kids seeing the show would not laugh at. This was the first show where we had to pause for laughter. And the energy the actors get from a responsive crowd makes the show even better.

Candy Cain Spahr, who was one of the directors and who had been out of town for all the run, was also at this performance.

The Saturday, 7:30 PM show was, I suppose OK. There was not much of a crowd and they were not nearly as responsive as the 2 PM show.

The Sunday show, well was, let me just say we did a show. With 5 minutes till curtain, there was only 2 people in the audience. My thought was “let’s give back there money and free tickets to next weeks show”. With 2 minutes left, 2 more people arrived. Then 5 other family members arrived for a total of 9 people in the audience. It was a very empty theater and our voices seemed to echo. I must say, as small as the audience was, they were very responsive and really seemed to enjoy the show.

We have 3 more public shows left and then two sold out shows for the Girl Scouts. And not that I don’t mind a theater full of kids, it sure is nice having a treater full of adults who get the humor.

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Anne’s Second Weekend

The first show after the first weekend, if there is a break, is always the hardest. The first opening weekend is always preceded by a weeks worth of rehearsals. Then you make take a break of a few days (in our case: 5 days) then do another show. That 5 days is a long break. You tend to forget lines unless you are diligent and study during the break. I was very pleased I did not forget any thing on that Saturday.

This weekend went very well. We had a large crowd of Girl Scouts on Sunday that made up most of the audience. About 90 people total. Having a large, responsive audience makes a huge difference in the performance level of the cast. At one point, I am on stage with ANNE and we are discussing daydreams, that it felt great being on stage. And I was thinking how much I love acting.

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Anne of Avonlea Opening Weekend

Anne of Avonlea opened this past weekend. The crowds were small, but this was Easter weekend. We did OK. I shaved my head on Friday night with the exception for fringe around the ears and back of the head. Pictures coming soon.

I ran line with Lizzie (ANNE) so that could get used to my not having any hair. We did laugh, but thankfully not during the show.

Remember my last post about not being very professional? This is where having lines so thoroughly memorized is needed. Cast members will forget lines but you are less likely to forget if you really really know your lines. I forgot some of my lines this weekend and Lizzie and I skipped half a page.

I will study my lines this week, but my priority now is to memorize my second monologue for the Atlanta Unifieds next Tuesday.