Another season in the books...

Well, the annual melancholy has officially set in for me... and it was only barely two hours ago that I was closing up for the night after the final performance of our final production of the 2005-2006 school year's theatre season.

It has been one very memorable year. Five solid productions, all with excellent audiences, all of which brought in the funds we needed to help get us back to solvency... the second solid year for our musical revue (you know what they say, one successful year means it's a good idea for a year, two mean it's a good practice for good)... one extremely memorable suspense thriller with a real all-star cast turning in performances that evoked those good old audible groans of amazement at the key moments... perhaps the most impressive showing (and one that CERTAINLY deserved a top recognition spot, IMHO) from Corcoran thus far at the Syracuse Stage Shakespeare Regional, delivered by Kim Farnett... the cathartic end of our several year long quest to produce Seussical, and executed with amazing flying colors... a fantastic benefit matinee performance (our first ever such attempt) that brought in a few hundred dollars for a very worthy cause (The Jenna Foundation)... a fantastic weekend run of the murder mystery that brought in two very large crowds and evoked a lot of happily entertained faces both nights... many new, talented friends joining us, including several very promising freshmen and sophomores... and, of course, a very reluctant farewell to twenty seven seniors who have been the heart and soul of our program for four years.

I'm really touched by the scrapbook that the murder mystery cast put together for me - it's probably the nicest thing I've been given since the beginning for me. If you'd like to see it, don't hesitate to ask - I'm planning on bringing it back into school to share.

It really is a tough pill to swallow, saying goodbye to so many important people every year as they move on to great, exciting things in the real world. I will miss all of you a great deal, and I wish you the best wherever you head off to. Please do stay in touch - I invite you to pop in and comment on the callboard here, for example. And if you're going to be in town this summer at least through the end of July, come have one last onstage fling with us putting together the summer show for Scene One at Appleseed Productions (in the valley)... our organizational meeting will be on June 17th at 5 PM at Appleseed, then we'll meet a couple times during the last week of June and first week of July, then rehearse daily for three weeks in July before putting up our original production on the last weekend in July. I hope I'll see some of you there for one last show!

... and if you're sticking around to go to college in town and have the time in your schedule, don't forget that I'd love to have you join us out at the theatre company during the regular season. I'll be directing the first show of the year, Playing Doctor (nostalgically, that play was the very first thing we did at Corcoran in your freshman year!)... auditions will be in mid-July (and there are definitely two roles for young women with apparent ages 18 - 25), and we'd always love to have the extra help on crew too. If you'd like a script to read in advance if you're thinking about it, ask me in school - I have some spare copies printed up I can let you take home.

For those of you coming back to Corcoran next year, start thinking about what you might like to sing or perform (any song or monologue or scene will do) for the performance showcase (Tales From Behind the Curtain III) in September... we only have three weeks once school begins to put the show together, so you'll want to have something picked and memorized (or at least close to memorized) when the year begins. Our fall play, by popular demand of both students and faculty, will be my favorite play: Fools by Neil Simon. If you haven't read it before and would like to do so, please ask me and I'd be happy to dig out a copy of the script for you to take home over the summer). The jury is still quite out on next year's musical (looks like Fowler inadvertantly took the wind out of my sails for the show I'd had in mind), so I'm still happy to field any suggestions that you have and add them to the list of possibilities, so do speak up if you've got any ideas.

It has been one fantastic and memorable year... as of tonight, we can now celebrate our fifth anniversary (we have just completed the fifth "season" since we reorganized the theatre program as C.A.S.T. and worked to expand it into something big and special)... thank you!

- Mr. Hipius -

Final Production...

This Friday and Saturday is our final production of the 2005-2006 season, the interactive murder mystery "Death Takes a Bow" by Mark Allen Holt, co-directed by Mr. Hipius and Lindsay Myers, starring Perry Crain, Kimberly Farnett, Abbey Lynn Harrington, Fred Hintz, and Robert Kraus, with understudies Shannon Murray and Shawn King. Come along and try to figure out who the killer is... prizes are awarded for the most accurate and most amusing guesses!

Performances will be 7 PM on both Friday, May 26th and Saturday, May 27th in the Corcoran High School cafeteria. Refreshments will be served at intermission. All tickets are just $5.00. Please note: the production is rated PG-13 due to adult sexual references.

As always, Saturday night is SENIOR NIGHT, and we will take a few quick minutes following the performance to recognize and "send off" all the seniors who have made a contribution to C.A.S.T. through the past four years. Seniors are offered FREE ADMISSION to that performance as our special guests.

Looking for ways to help us? We could certainly use a few more hands...

• If you're a PARENT or GUARDIAN, we are looking for donations of baked goods to add to the diversity of our intermission refreshment trays. If you can bake something, or find someone who will donate something, please drop it by on Friday afternoon at the school.
• If you're a STUDENT, we will need plenty of ushers to assist in setting up, serving, and breaking down. We need volunteers to stay through on Friday after school until the performance to help move chairs and materials into the cafeteria and set it up, volunteers to be present at least one hour before both performances to help put together the refreshment trays and then at intermission to serve them, and volunteers to stay after the end of the Saturday night performance to assist in setting everything back to normal and returning materials and chairs to the C wing.