December 9, 2006--Opening night of "It's a Wonderful Life"

Last night was the opening night of our play. I was pleased with it, overall, although we did have a few glitches. The microphones had their issues, some feedback now and then, and one of them broke in the middle of the play. I lost the clip to mine and had to use a bobby pin to hang it on my clothes through three-quarters of the play.

We also had a glitch with one of the sound effects. It's on the moonlight path, when George and Mary are throwing rocks and the old Granville house. George picked up his "rock" and threw it, and...nothing. No sound effect. So he said, "Well, I guess I must have missed. Let me try that again." He picked up and threw another rock, and again no sound effect. He said, "Let me try again, I must have missed again. I guess I'm not very good at this!" and he threw again. Still no sound effect. At that point he gave up and said, "I think I might have chipped it."

We continued with the dialogue from there, and then it was my turn to throw a rock. At that point I had no idea what was going to happen if I pretended to throw my rock, or what I would say if nothing happened, but I threw it anyway. CRASH! The sound effect was perfect. George turned to me and said, "Wow! Good shot!" It was funny, even it didn't exactly happen the way it should have.

I don't think anything else really went wrong with the play, except for small things. My sister tell me she could hear some people whispering backstage a couple of times because they didn't mute their mics when they were done, and I didn't get my sleeves buttoned up in time for one scene and I was trying to discreetely button them onstage. I don't think anyone noticed that one, though.

Oh, and another thing that happened wrong was that my husband (Potter's Goon--the guy who pushes the wheelchair) didn't get his make-up done in time and missed the first scene. Potter just wheeled himself out there. The make-up ladies were very apologetic.

Overall, it went great. I remembered all my lines! There was one duet with George that I was exceptionally happy with, because we had never done it right all the way through before last night. Uncle Billy was hysterically funny. We had Clarence the angel fly down from the sound booth suspended from a cable at the end (after he gets his wings) and the audience loved it. The kids all did a good job, too. It was fun, even though I'm starting to get tired after practices every night since Monday. We have two nights to go. We had nearly a full house last night---I'm not entirely sure how many tickets they had available for each night, but we could have only fit in about five more from what they said.

They forgot to put me in the program, though. I guess they did in a hurry. Everyone else was in it, even Erick (although they spelled his last name wrong!) I told Erick I should tell them that they'd better fix it or I won't be in it tonight. That would be funny. Oh well, I don't really care all that much. I'm just happy to be the play itself, let alone the program.

My sister took a bunch of pictures, but I guess the auto-focus wasn't on, so the pictures didn't turn out very good. They are very blurry. Some of them look like pieces of impressionist art work. Oh well, I'll try and get some better ones if I can find someone willing to take them. I'm sure other people will be getting pictures, too. I want to get some up here if I can. I've got a couple from last night that are so-so that I'll use if I don't get any better ones.