HELLO!

Our Dinner Theatre offers our first public presentation Wednesday night, April 15^th. If you have tickets, I will see you. Between Wednesday and our two sold out performances on Friday and Saturday we have sold 568 tickets. I am amazed. This is our first Dinner Theatre experience at Woodlawn United, though several of our church neighbours regularly do this. We are learning the ropes. Growing pains are part of this process. Please be patient with us tomorrow night and Friday and Saturday. I want to thank Barry Zwicker who has been amazing with his patience, expertise and the moving of chairs and tables in the sanctuary. I know I referenced the three wise women; Bethe, June and Fay in an earlier blog but I also want to thank Barry for all his efforts. If we didn’t have Barry, there would be no show. And he has many lines, dance moves and a solo.

I confess there were nights, many rehearsals, when I didn’t know if we would get here. The talent, except for me, was always there, in spades. The 18 member cast features many talented singers, dancers, musicians. We are full of talent. But acting in a play requires something many people find challenging, public speaking, memorizing lines, performing on a stage. This is the only part of our production where I do bring experience. I could tell people were feeling anxious, and when you are nervous the first thing to notice is how quiet their voice becomes. I note that people who normally have big voices, speak much more quietly, and they remain unaware of this. As a result, we are using microphones for all but one cast member. Further, in amateur church Dinner Theatre audiences do not come for the inspiring scripts or award-winning acting skills. They come to…laugh. Thus, over the top, presentations are what people remember. When you are nervous, that is more difficult to manage. I was delighted that one of our late replacement actors, Nancy Allen, has understood this expectation from the beginning. She brings a lot of energy and fun to her role. I also love how all the soloists are coming to life in their characters.

June has brought out the best in our singing and dancing. As Bethe knows, I still dance like an animated character from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. And I sing like someone who is the birthchild of Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Bob Dylan (not to mention Tom Waits). But the rest of this very talented cast should make up for my offering. I also have this confession. I am not a fan of the 50’s. When I think of that decade my mind goes to the movie, “Pleasantville”. Enough said. Lucian says you can tell what decade people like best by what decade they experienced when they were 20. That is true for me, my favorite decade was the 80’s.

See you soon. Peace, Kevin

PS My brother Chris and my child Lucian will be there on Wednesday night. I am not nervous, just embarrassed about my singing and dancing.