We’re 10 years old! Hard to believe that so much time has gone by, yet it’s been over 2500 performances and we’re still rolling along.
It seems like just yesterday that we were hitting the newly painted stage for the first time – an audience of mostly invited friends and family – and a hope that we would stay open, at least until the new year.
Now looking back at the dozens of talented performers we have had over 10 seasons and well over 150,000 audience members, we’re humbled by the sheer volume of it all.
Looking back at everything that we were fortunate enough to accomplish, it’s hard to pick out a single moment that stands out among all the rest.
On a purely emotional level – it had to be our shows that we did three days after 9/11. We shared a moment of connection with our audience as we all struggled to find a respite to our sorrow that weekend. We sang the national anthem the first night and all cried and then spent the evening laughing and trying to move forward. It was surreal being onstage that weekend when all we wanted to do was pull the shades and stay inside. However, there was something remarkable and cathartic about sharing a positive moment with an audience that knew we had to keep doing what we all do.
For adventure – it was certainly our 4 tours that we did for Armed Forces Entertainment. We performed for our troops stationed in such places as Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Bahrain, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Egypt, Holland, Qatar, Dubai and Belgium. We are very proud of the time we spent overseas, and we met thousands of fascinating and brave individuals during our tours. Plus one of the bases that we visited in Iraq was shelled while we were there. We didn’t take it as a criticism of our performance…
For variety – the winner has to be any of our special event shows. Over the years, we’ve done spoofs of Survivor and The Weakest Link, presented our acclaimed couples show – House of Cards and yearly have hosted the infamous Spooktacular. It’s always memorable when we shake up the foundations of our regular shows and the inevitable disasters that occur during these events keeps us humble. Some day, the fog machine will work flawlessly on Halloween…
Among other things that we have experienced at the theatre over 10 years have been blackouts, floods, leaky air conditioning, a skunk under the stage, broken furniture on stage, holes punched through our back wall, a marriage proposal during a performance, a large variety of injuries on stage, three children born to players, a name change for the show, the addition of a college team, high school league and Sunday company and dozens of events to numerous to list here. It has been enormously eventful, and we wouldn’t change a minute of it.
Finally, to everyone who has attended one of our shows, workshops, classes or private events, we would like to extend an enormous THANK YOU. We couldn’t have done it without you.
