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.