'Little Mary Sunshine' is last hurrah

HURON, Ohio -- At last we're winding down to the final week here at the Huron Playhouse. "Little Mary Sunshine" opens tomorrow night and runs through Saturday, at which point we'll begin final strike. Final strike consists of insane last hours at the playhouse, bringing down the last of everything we put up and reverting the playhouse back to McCormick Middle School. We'll get less than six hours of sleep before heading to Bowling Green for final load-out on Sunday.

Since "You Can't Take It With You" ended, we've been working absolutely non-stop on "Little Mary," a musical lampoon of old time operetta that is set in Colorado. Everyone -- men, women, townies (Huron residents in the show) -- has insane amounts of music and dance steps to learn. Today the women went through dance rehearsal for over six hours, the men for over four. It will be amazing to pull the show together before opening night, but it looks like we're going to succeed.

"Little Mary" is perhaps the most difficult of all of the shows we've had to put on. Our time constraints have been nuts, and the sheer scope of the show -- our cast numbers more than 50 -- is enormous. It takes repetition to be precise with all of the show's aspects. No one can be off or the audience will immediately realize it.

"You Can't Take It With You" was a huge success. Meagan was excellent in her role as Essie, and Dave Schneider (2001 Southeast graduate) also did a great job as Henderson, an IRS agent. Not one of the nights had under 450 people, which is spectacular for a straight show.

Everyone at the Playhouse is a little more upbeat this week for the most part. We're going to begin taking daily trips back to Bowling Green, slowly dismantling the Playhouse piece by piece in such a way that everyone gets a day off. A day off at the Playhouse is essentially the equivalent of finding a hundred dollar bill on the street. It makes everyone so happy.

We're all beginning to look towards home. People are incessantly talking about missing their family, their friends, their beds, their bathtubs. In a week we will be back to somewhat normal life. Everyone will be sad to leave the Playhouse, to leave the friends we've made here. But we realize that our time here is almost up, and it's time to start looking ahead.

The company is also using this as a last hurrah. Every night this week there will be company members going out to bars, dance clubs, and beaches to take everything in that the area has to offer us before all is said and done. There will be (the Playhouse veterans say there always is) an enormous final gathering for the ending goodbyes.

We're all just hoping to make it through this week, to make it through "Little Mary"'s cheesy forest ranger grins, innocent young ladies and hundreds of dance steps so we can finally see that light at the end of the tunnel and say good-bye to the Playhouse and find home again.