November 25, 2014
Good morning, everyone, and what a morning it is! We are experiencing a wild ride with MARY POPPINS, our biggest, most complex production ever! Think about what that means considering the shows you’ve seen here, and you get an idea just how big, big can be! It’s THAT BIG! Technical difficulties and delays have required that we make the call yesterday morning to cancel our opening matinee tomorrow at 1:30. A very tough call to make. But our marketing and public relations staff immediately sprung into action, and calls and mass e-blasts have gone out to every audience member providing them with options to book another performance, refunds, complimentary tickets, all in the effort to make good on our apologies for the inconvenience. Our Subscriber Concierge Department, in top notch form, is personally making calls to every ticket holding patron, and Jim Jarvis, VP of Marketing, asked me first thing in the morning to make the announcement by video for the countless numbers of viewers who watch his behind-the-scenes interviews and updates. Click here to see the video. If you have tickets to the first Wednesday matinee, click here for more info.
The cast and crew, design team and production staff are working overtime, around the clock, but no cost is too much to ensure the safety of our actors onstage and our running crew supporting every scene shift and special effect. And they are special effects aplenty! There has never been more scenery on or off stage or in the air than there is now, ladies and gentlemen. We need that day tomorrow to make sure this week of previews is most effective, artful and above all, safe, and bring us to the hard earned success of Press Night on Sunday. We take full responsibility for the goodwill provided by our audiences for our past work and ask for your continued support. The upside of this challenge is the dedication and perseverance demonstrated by every individual in this company. A demanding situation as this is, it brings out the best in everyone, and the feeling of how blessed we are to have who we have on board is not lost and most significant. By the grace of God, everyone’s talent and skill and love for what they are doing, this ship will sail tomorrow night!
Could I be more inspired or enthusiastic about what this has wrought? I don’t think so! Every performance in this show is a star performance. A cast full of principal players, each of them leaders to what is going to be the most breathtaking Paramount production to date!
This morning, we have our first rehearsal with the full cast singing with the Paramount Orchestra conducted by Musical Director Tom Vendafreddo. I heard a bit of the orchestra rehearsing yesterday and again am confounded how choked up I get hearing that first full live sound of them soaring out of the pit. We continue the tech process later this afternoon and tonight and tomorrow morning. The finishing touch is the final dress rehearsal putting it all together tomorrow afternoon. Keep a good thought as we present Preview #1 tomorrow night! A thrill ride for our first audience!
Love & thanks,
Jim
