Monday, August 31, 2009

We are undaunted...

We have rescheduled the Drive-in night. Yay! It will be a week from Friday on the 11th and this time we're doing it rain or shine. When we first scheduled the event, I felt like I had pushed my luck with my last rain or shine event (my wedding). We had lucked out and had beautiful weather and didn't need to be in the tent, but I didn't want to push it again for the drive-in night...However, since I tried to play ball with the weather gods and the weather gods sent me Hurricane Bill, I've decided this time not to bother and just roll the dice. Don't get me wrong, I'm still hoping for a beautiful early fall evening...but, if the weather gods decide again not to smile on us...well then, inside we will go.

Once we decided to reschedule we had the whole, "which weekend should it be?" discussion and decided that since most people wouldn't be around for Labor Day Weekend, that was out. We didn't want to wait more than three weeks from the original date so that put us on the weekend of the 11th. We really wanted it to be on a Friday and though we had some reservations about doing it on September 11th, in the end we decided that it was better to offer a fun activity for people to go out to. Hopefully folks will want to come out and be with friends.

Now that we're doing it rain or shine, I'm starting to get really excited. The popcorn is still ready to be popped, we still have the beer, wine and soda and the movies are ready to go...I will admit that I may need to get some more candy (someone, who shall remain nameless, but looks exactly like the person writing this post, may have been dipping in to the tootsie roll and twix bar stash. Heh.) but other than that I think we're good to go.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Stupid Hurricane Bill!

Had to cancel the Drive-In movie night because of the threatening weather. What sucks the most, aside from the fact that I have a good 5 pounds of candy in the fridge, as well as cases of beer and soda, is that it's not ACTUALLY raining right now. Instead, weather.com is predicting an 85% chance of rain from 8pm on. So, because I think it would be worse to have people show up, pay their money, hustle them inside 30 minutes into the first movie and pray for the rain to stop rather than to just postpone the whole event altogether, postpone is what we decided to do. Hopefully, we can find a night in September that will work out better for us. On the flip side, because I'm all bummed, John has decided to take me out to a nice dinner to cheer me up, so, you know, that's kinda awesome. I'll keep everyone posted about the updated date as soon as it gets, um, updated. :)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Cross your fingers one and all

So, the popcorn and candy are ready for the concession stand, the projector and the movies are in my possession, the chairs are in the backyard and the intermission "movie" is on a dvd and good to go. In other words, we are ready to hold a kick ass drive-in fundraiser...if only hurricane bill can hold off hitting ny until 1 am Saturday morning, we'll be good to go!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Drive In Movie Night

Popcorn bags have been purchased! Now I just have to remember how to pop popcorn on a stovetop...I mean really, in today's day and age does anyone have popcorn that isn't made in the microwave? I'm missing the days of living with Terri - the best stovetop popcorn popper on the planet!!! I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I may have to email her to have her walk me through the process.

Once I solve the popcorn issues, we should be in pretty good shape. I am worried about rain - the weather report is not encouraging right now and in the dog days of summer, it's really hard to know when a thunderstorm will suddenly kick up...not that that's a problem...unless, of course, you're hoping to do the whole drive-in-movie-under-the-stars thing, which is the entire point of this fundraiser. But, I guess I just have to accept that there are things I can control and things that I 100% cannot and the weather is one of those things that falls into the latter category. I'll just have to hope for the best.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Hello Again...

Ok, so I have been woefully remiss in my blogging duties. I found when I first started this blog, that, as I feared, it quickly became like all of those "journalling" assignments I had in college writing/theater classes...You know those assignments where you were supposed to make regular entries about what was happening as it was happening and turn them in to the professor at the end of the semester. You know the ones where you'd put all the writing off until the night before it was due, when you would write a semester's worth of entries - preferably in different colored pens so it didn't look like you wrote all the entries the night before - and turn that in hoping that the sheer volume of text would get you the pass...oops, did I just reveal too much of my journalling college days? ANYWAY, I have found that my need to make every blog entry a tome has prevented me from regularly making updates. THEREFORE, I have decided to knock that craziness off. After this entry, I'm going to wave a wand and make it ok for me to keep the entries short. So a quick update, (which will probably not be quite so quick) and then I'm turning over a new "brief blog" leaf...no, I'm not giving in to the twitter madness (this pronouncement should last for at least a few weeks) but brief should be the name of the game from now on. Hee.

THE UPDATE

LIKENESS

As you can see from the GTTP website, LIKENESS went very well. It was a crazy rehearsal period but the run went well and I learned so much from my experience on that show. The cast and crew were incredible and I feel like I have made some wonderful connections to fill out the company of actors and crew that will one day make the company of Going to Tahiti Productions a viable entity.

The Big Production of the intervening months

As some of you know, one of the reasons I've been a bit in communicado was because I was working on a private production during the months between the end of LIKENESS and the beginning of summer. What production was it (you ask) - I was getting married. Definitely the biggest production of my life up until this point, the wedding was planned and executed by non professionals (me, John, Beth, and other friends and family) so it took a lot of energy and time (in other words - all of my time and energy - thank god I didn't have a full time job at the time). It went very well - actually better than I could have even hoped for - so it was well worth it...but the build up to the event and then the come down after it was over have been very intense and it wasn't until about a month ago that I really was in a place emotionally to get back into the whole "running a production company" thing. However, I am back in full swing now and that should be reflected in the updated blog.

I've decided to look at the time from February until now as the off season. That being said, pitchers and catchers have now reported - regular season play is about to begin again. (little baseball reference for all those ball fans.)


Other Off Season Occurences

Some of you may already know this from the periodic newsletters you've received by email (If you do not receive the newsletters, go to GTTP and add your contact information to our mailing list by filling out the contact us form) but for those of you who haven't heard (and those who'd like a refresher):

Stephanie - Stephanie Bayliss has joined Going To Tahiti Productions as the Managing Director and Co-Executive Producer. For details about Stephanie, check out the About Us page on the GTTP website. GTTP is very excited to have Stephanie on board as part of the team.

Fundraising - Fundraising is continuing. We have a drive in movie night this Friday - pray for nice weather - as our August fundraiser. We are in the process of planning monthly fundraisers. Possible future fundraisers include - a winetasting, an adult spelling bee, a gala party, a game night tournament, a few house concerts and more... If you have any ideas for fundraisers that you'd be interested in seeing - let us know.

Workshops - We're in the process of setting up monthly workshops. Right now we have plans for workshops in the following areas: directing, stage managing, clowning, stage combat, auditions, and improv. Keep an eye on the website for more details as dates, times and costs get locked down for workshops.

Our next show - We're in the process of obtaining the rights to a novel which we are going to adapt into a one woman show - I'll keep everyone posted as things develop.

...and, I believe, that's all for now.