Though the Municipal Auditorium is an echoey building it is an honor to perform in one of the oldest and honorable buildings in Oroville. It's a pale shadow of what it was; it once had a facade that looked like a giant juke box and had a second mezzanine level. But with the history of what was once known as the Exposition Building, built to house the annual Orange and Olive Festival of 100 years ago, and has seen famous vaudeville act, boxing tournaments, and the march off of the Dough Boys en route to the battlefield in WWI, it was and honor to perform there.
We produced this show for the school children on Oroville and invited all the schools..at only $2.00 a head it's not like we are going for a gold mine or a profit. We just like to take this time each year (during our slow season) to give the community an inexpensive way for schools to have fun. A lot of the stuff in our show can't be done on school grounds anymore due to the zero tolerance for fire, machete, axes, etc. Hard to believe kids in this area used to take squirrel guns to school with them and go shooting rats near the river on their way home. So much has changed.
Today's show went well. With so much new stuff there were glitches but the audience was generally unaware of them. The biggest glitch was the need for everyone in our cast to be mic-ed up. The opening Foy routine played well but with the echoey building the music over played the singing voices in the opening song. The jokes, and silliness got laughs and the dancing was charmingly bad...exactly what the Foys did a hundred years ago.
Victor's $100 rope tie challenge ended with me relinquishing $400 of products from out magic shop as Victor failed to get out of the rope but only because the ropes were hung up in his pants and he refused to drop his drawers so daddy had to pay.
Mami, aka Juggling Mama, juggled well and received much applause from the welcoming crowd. her largest audience in 13 years.
Titus was thrilled to perform his animal tricks as his class room showed up with full enthusiasm. It was nice to have him in the show. During the show he like to watch the show but his view was blocked by a backdrop and that set him to crying. Fortunately the audience was unaware as the music drowned out the crying. Had he been able to see the stage better he would've been happier. This is one of the difficulties of working with a special needs child.
The local news showed up and filmed nearly the whole show and interview many kids from the audience and then me afterwards. I will see if I can get the footage.
A good start to what promises to be our best year ever.
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