The Cadi Corner: Summer Lovin' Had Me a Blast...

Well here we are, friends. The season is closing and so I give you my final blog of Summer ’09. I realize I have lapsed in my entries and I do apologize to you readers out there. I know there are literally tens of you.

I’ve never stuck around for the season close up until now. It is a very strange sensation. We’ve already said goodbye to The Paul Mills Holmes who has returned to his post as PSM at Actors Theatre of Louisville. We’ve kissed goodbye to Zack and Mel, two interns who in the off season are co-eds at Evansville University in Indiana. We’ve wished a bon voyage to Sam, a local gal and our resident story teller who has headed down south to sunny Florida to begin a new collegiate year. And Michael 'hot legs' Domue our Production Manager has traded in his clipboard for booby tassels and will appear as a kit kat dancer in Trinity Rep’s upcoming production of Cabaret in Rhode Island. The rest of the staff is here until closing day of I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change! I hope you get down here to see the show. It’s like a musical on wheels, it never stops moving. There are 153 costumes, 47 costume changes, and 30 pieces of furniture set on 87 casters. And if that’s not enough excitement, it’s about Love! Amore! You can bring your main squeeze or come alone and squeeze a stranger it’s a lot of fun!

Now, besides the show playing on the boards, there is still work to be done. We still have to screw down the louvers, store the lawn furniture, and more importantly, make our staff sign. Now, it is one of our long standing traditions at Totem Pole that at the end of the summer, the staff makes a sign commemorating their year. There is always a theme and it’s filled with funny quotes and memories from that particular season. We hang them in the shop and so it has been done for decades and decades. TOTEM POLE FUN FACT: We give the Totem Pole summer camp kids a tour of the theatre every year and the shop portion of the tour is always the shortest because inevitably we get kids at a fourth grade reading level excitedly shouting, “I just read a dirty word!” and “Is that a butt?!”

Anyway…this year we’ve decided that “Under Construction” should be the theme for our staff sign. A tribute to the endless road work that was plaguing, I’m sorry I mean stimulating our economy on Route 30 in front of the theatre and in front of some staff housing. Also, a shout out to the ever evolving levees and trenches we built this summer to protect the theatre from flooding during all that rain. (Our Lighting Designer Michael Domuwitz thought God was smiting us for making him design Cotton Patch Gospel). We thought this theme also fit because this was Ray Ficca’s inaugural summer as Artistic Director and he encouraged us to try out loads of new things this year like Movie Night and this blog. That man is a genius, no?

I’d say the summer was a huge success. I know I’ve made memories and friends I will not soon forget. I hate goodbyes so I’ll say so long for now and thanks to everyone who made 2009 so special, detours and all.