Schlepped many, many heavy things from my home to Midtown. Fortunately, I waited until rush hour had mostly passed. One thing that is a huge issue for urban theater practitioners is transportation. How do you transport heavy things or bulky things? We take a lot of taxis. And we buy a lot of wheeled suitcases.

We spent a lot of time configuring the seating. The theater is really just a big room, with a few risers at one end. Sightlines were definitely going to be an issue. This is not something that’s a problem in a theater with fixed seating (you know, like movie theater chairs). We were able to stack to of them to create three levels of seating. It cut down on the number of tickets we could sell, but overall created a much better experience for the audience.

Because of the heat, we offered ice water to our audience, free of charge. This was, I think, a lovely idea (suggested by one of the actors) and proved to be very popular with our audience. I even made $3 in tips. Hey, laugh if you want, but that paid for the ice that night!

Overall, the show went very well. There were a few missed lines, and one or two glitches with props. But the actors turned in a solid performance; I was very proud of them. We had a great turnout, filling every seat we offered. In all, opening night was a complete success.