Gridiron Report
Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:28 am
The third and final performance of the Gridiron Show, an annual political satire presented since 1928 (with the exception of a couple of years during WWII), was held tonight. My life is my own again, for a while, anyway.
We moved the production from a theatre in Oklahoma City to a stage on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and from show dates in the first week of February to the first week in June. The location change seemed necessary when the "old" theatre wanted to double our rental rates, and the date change was mandated by the academic calendar for the "new" place. The purpose of the show is to raise money for scholarships. The changes, however, made a loss of part of our traditional audiences more or less inevitable. Nevertheless, we seemed to have made money again this year, even if it wasn't as much as we would have liked. We're already discussing ways to build new, larger audiences for the future.
I'm happy to say that the people who did attend were receptive and responsive to the songs, dances and characterizations that were presented by the cast members, laughing loudly at almost every scripted joke and ad lib offered. Once again, I played the lovely Nancy Pelosi, plus an array of other minor characters. To my astonishment, they even used my photo (wearing my Nancy suit and pearls) on both the postcard sent to previous ticketholders and the web site. This made me feel happy and important for a good five minutes until I realized they were desperate for new photos this year.
The Edmond Lady (a recurring character) was a highlight, as always. Being on her home turf, so to speak, she was proud to point out the superiority of the facilities we were in, including the orchestra pit, which she described as "a place to store your little musicians." Despite the calendar, she also modeled her trendy fur coat "made of chupacabra."
One of the band members told me it was the funniest show he'd seen in the ten years he'd been connected with Gridiron. Bless him. It's over.
We moved the production from a theatre in Oklahoma City to a stage on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and from show dates in the first week of February to the first week in June. The location change seemed necessary when the "old" theatre wanted to double our rental rates, and the date change was mandated by the academic calendar for the "new" place. The purpose of the show is to raise money for scholarships. The changes, however, made a loss of part of our traditional audiences more or less inevitable. Nevertheless, we seemed to have made money again this year, even if it wasn't as much as we would have liked. We're already discussing ways to build new, larger audiences for the future.
I'm happy to say that the people who did attend were receptive and responsive to the songs, dances and characterizations that were presented by the cast members, laughing loudly at almost every scripted joke and ad lib offered. Once again, I played the lovely Nancy Pelosi, plus an array of other minor characters. To my astonishment, they even used my photo (wearing my Nancy suit and pearls) on both the postcard sent to previous ticketholders and the web site. This made me feel happy and important for a good five minutes until I realized they were desperate for new photos this year.
The Edmond Lady (a recurring character) was a highlight, as always. Being on her home turf, so to speak, she was proud to point out the superiority of the facilities we were in, including the orchestra pit, which she described as "a place to store your little musicians." Despite the calendar, she also modeled her trendy fur coat "made of chupacabra."
One of the band members told me it was the funniest show he'd seen in the ten years he'd been connected with Gridiron. Bless him. It's over.
