My First Very Own Show - Sort Of

Sunday night was the inaugural installment of Red Snapper's Sassy, Classy Burlesque Revue.  It was my first very own show in a theater - sort of.  That statement requires a little unpacking.  Last fall I produced High Jinks Burlesque in conjunction with Theatre Unleashed as a fundraiser and late-night show to follow Pin-Up Girls.  I brought that show to Monday Night Tease earlier this year.  I've co-produced a couple nights of Peepshow Menagerie.  I also produced a fundraiser for the Burlesque Hall of Fame in May, but I had lots of help at my fingertips to have a huge show.  This night was just mine.

I'm so pleased with the talent I got for the show.  It really was a sassy, classy line-up.  I got the date of the show secured right before I flew to New Orleans, so I didn't have as much promotional time as I would have liked.  However, we had a nice turnout and I think everyone had a good time.

Theaters are very different from bars.  There are plenty of seats in the audience so the patrons don't have to stand the entire night.  There's a backstage so the performers make a formal entrance and don't reveal their costumes to the audience before their performance while trying to get from one place to another.  There's the opportunity for a formal curtain call.  And there's the possibility of nudity without breaking the law.  Sunday night's audience got to see a little more than permitted at a bar.  Who knows what extra peep December's show will hold.

Since I produced the show, I could control the backstage activity.  Specifically, the brilliant photographer John Nelson was backstage before the show to shoot the process -- on film.  He and I did a photo shoot a little more than a week ago in the theater.  The image on this blog is one of the few digital images he shot that day.  If you visit his website, you can see he has an incredible way of capturing the essence of people's personalities.  I'm eager to see what he shot before the show.