The Strand has been busy the past few weeks.   The Shelby County Players held their auditions for “The Diary of Anne Frank”.   This will be staged at the Strand in late April.   The selection process is always challenging with all the excellent talent that auditions.   Director Noelle Krughoff selected her cast and rehearsals have begun.   The Strand looks forward to the return of the Shelby County Players with this production.

This past weekend the Cancer Association of Shelby County hosted a fundraiser at the Strand.  They showed the popular movie GREASE.   The evening included a silent auction and costume contest.   The Cancer Association is a SCUFFY agency and has limited funding.  The Strand was proud to help them towards those financial goals for a worthwhile cause.   The Strand would like to thank and compliment their Board of Directors and Executive Director Donna Harrell for the excellent planning and effort put forth for this event.   The very large crowd was a testament to all the hard work of everyone involved.   Thank you to all who attended.

Did anyone notice the floor of the stage these past few events?  (Warning, tech talk ahead)    When Mike Malone recorded his comedy DVD it was determined that our stage floor was too light.   We have (had) a light gray floor that works well for a variety of events.   Ever so often it gets painted for a specific show, but then it goes back to our simple light gray.   We paint the floor about every two months to keep it looking good.   With the style of filming they want to do our floor would reflect too much light.   Strand board member Gordon H. applied a new coat of much darker gray.   After the performance we decided to keep the new look.   Eventually we will get all the way to black, but we have to have a proper proscenium first.   A dark floor takes a bit more mopping, but our volunteers love to clean!   Our mop has gotten so much use recently that we have to purchase new mop heads.  Unfortunately the primary use up to now is to clean spills.   We have found that a spilled soda will literally eat the paint of the floor.   We don’t want that, and we DO NOT want our floor to be sticky.    New paint, upgraded mop, more volunteers….we are ready.

Our Marquee lights up the block during performances.   The flashing bulbs, extra internal lights and neon all make for quite a sight.   We think it is really good looking.  Obviously it wasn’t good enough for one of our volunteers.   It has been challenging to adjust the sequencer that controls the lights to have a smooth chase.   The unit we are using is very old.   We have the original sequencer from the 1930′s still in our possession.    Do gooder Bob S. took that really old unit and performed a little magic.   It looks and operates like new.   The method it uses to control the lights is much smoother than the current unit.   Soon we will be taking another step backwards in time and having our marquee controlled by the same unit it had when it was brand new back in the 1930′s.    You will notice the change.   Hopefully our new relays will keep up with the pace.  The lights will be fast.

There are several things we want to highlight for the future.   March 14th Shelbyville High School students present the “Mr. Shelbyville” contest.   Proceeds benefit Hospice of South Central Indiana.   On March 23rd we have a special performance by Christian and Christian.   They are virtuosic accordion players.  (We know, accordion is spelled with “ion” not “ian”…oops)   They will perform music from around the world.  This is a concert that comes to our community because we have a venue like the Strand.  They are on a tour of the Midwest and have a performance Saturday night in Columbus Indiana.  The promoter of that concert gave us a call and said they would be perfect for our theatre too.   This is the type of partnership that is so important to the success of any arts organization.    This will be an enjoyable and interesting concert.  It isn’t often we get to hear professional accordion players!

Thank you for your support.   The Strand is proud to be a part of our community.   We hope to see you at the Strand!

SHINY and the SPOON

Folk Music Concert

Saturday March 3, 2012

7:30pm

$5  Kids under 10 Free

The Strandhas a great concert this weekend.  On Saturday the duo Shiny and the Spoon will be performing on the Strand Theatre stage.   They will perform what they call “original country music”.   This folk duo can be heard by visiting the Strand Theatre web site, click on the link on the event page.   They come to us from theCincinnati area through our friend the late Kent Lockman.   We look forward to this very entertaining group.  The concert starts at 7:30pm on March 3rd.  Tickets are $5 and children 10 and under are free.   We hope to see you at concert.

TheStrandhas been busy the past few weeks.   The Shelby County Players held their auditions for “The Diary of Anne Frank”.   This will be staged at theStrandin late April.   The selection process is always challenging with all the excellent talent that auditions.   Director Noelle Krughoff selected her cast and rehearsals have begun.   TheStrandlooks forward to the return of the Shelby County Players with this production.

This past weekend the Cancer Association of Shelby County hosted a fundraiser at theStrand.  They showed the popular movie GREASE.   The evening included a silent auction and costume contest.   The Cancer Association is a SCUFFY agency and has limited funding.  TheStrandwas proud to help them towards those financial goals for a worthwhile cause.   TheStrandwould like to thank and compliment their Board of Directors and Executive Director Donna Harrell for the excellent planning and effort put forth for this event.   The very large crowd was a testament to all the hard work of everyone involved.   Thank you to all who attended.

Did anyone notice the floor of the stage these past few events?  (Warning, tech talk ahead)    When Mike Malone recorded his comedy DVD it was determined that our stage floor was too light.   We have (had) a light gray floor that works well for a variety of events.   Ever so often it gets painted for a specific show, but then it goes back to our simple light gray.   We paint the floor about every two months to keep it looking good.   With the style of filming they want to do our floor would reflect too much light.  Strandboard member Gordon H. applied a new coat of much darker gray.   After the performance we decided to keep the new look.   Eventually we will get all the way to black, but we have to have a proper proscenium first.   A dark floor takes a bit more mopping, but our volunteers love to clean!   Our mop has gotten so much use recently that we have to purchase new mop heads.  Unfortunately the primary use up to now is to clean spills.   We have found that a spilled soda will literally eat the paint of the floor.   We don’t want that, and we DO NOT want our floor to be sticky.    New paint, upgraded mop, more volunteers….we are ready.

Our Marquee lights up the block during performances.   The flashing bulbs, extra internal lights and neon all make for quite a sight.   We think it is really good looking.  Obviously it wasn’t good enough for one of our volunteers.   It has been challenging to adjust the sequencer that controls the lights to have a smooth chase.   The unit we are using is very old.   We have the original sequencer from the 1930′s still in our possession.    Do gooder Bob S. took that really old unit and performed a little magic.   It looks and operates like new.   The method it uses to control the lights is much smoother than the current unit.   Soon we will be taking another step backwards in time and having our marquee controlled by the same unit it had when it was brand new back in the 1930′s.    You will notice the change.   Hopefully our new relays will keep up with the pace.  The lights will be fast.

There are several things we want to highlight for the future.   March 14thShelbyvilleHigh Schoolstudents present the “Mr. Shelbyville” contest.   Proceeds benefit Hospice of South Central Indiana.   On March 23rd we have a special performance by Christian and Christian.   They are virtuosic accordion players.  (We know, accordion is spelled with “ion” not “ian”…oops)   They will perform music from around the world.  This is a concert that comes to our community because we have a venue like theStrand.  They are on a tour of the Midwest and have a performance Saturday night inColumbusIndiana.  The promoter of that concert gave us a call and said they would be perfect for our theatre too.   This is the type of partnership that is so important to the success of any arts organization.    This will be an enjoyable and interesting concert.  It isn’t often we get to hear professional accordion players!

Thank you for your support.   TheStrandis proud to be a part of our community.   We hope to see you at theStrand!

SHINY and the SPOON

Folk Music Concert

Saturday March 3, 2012

7:30pm

$5  Kids under 10 Free