Englert Night Out 2008

We had a wonderful time giving out our much deserved Impact Awards. Here are a couple highlight videos that were played during the event.


Englert Theatre-Montage Presentation 08' from Chris on Vimeo.


Englert Impact Awards 08' from Chris on Vimeo.

Mikey says "The Englert Rocks!"

If you have ever volunteered at The Englert Theatre, you may have met Michael Shonrock, our resident theatre baby. He is always happy to stop by the Englert, check out the artwork in the gallery, and find out about all the great new shows going on sale. (And I am sure his interest is in no way influenced by the fact his Mom, Sarah, serves as the House Manager for Englert events.)

If you want to find out more about volunteer opportunities at the Englert, please contact Nancy at nancy@englert.org. Who knows? You might get to hang out with Mikey!

Enjoyable

I can't always say that every artist and their managers that come to the Englert are approachable and friendly. However, Randy Newman and his manager Kathy were just that. I had the opportunity to spend some time with them and it was enjoyable. They were very easy to work with and Mr. Newman gave us great performances. I have to say that this was one of my favorite shows.

Chris Cary
Production Manager

Englert Fundraiser Supported by over 50 Volunteers

After so many months of preparation, it was a little sad to set up the ladder outside the Englert yesterday and start taking down "Randy Newman." Yet, even as we removed those familiar letters, someone walking by called out to me, "I was there last night! What a wonderful concert!"

I couldn't agree more. The Gala Fundraiser that took place this past Monday and Tuesday not only brought together our community to see one of America's greatest singer-songwriters perform, but we also met and mingled at eight different receptions related to the show.

Now, as you may already know, the Englert does not have a large staff. So how on earth did we offer so many events in only two days? The answer: we NEVER could have pulled it off without the dedication of over 50 Englert volunteers.

Volunteers helped set up the receptions, serve food and drinks, greet patrons, hand out playbills, and keep everything running remarkably smoothly. I had the honor of working with many long term friends, and meeting new friends that until now I only knew through their email handle. What a thrill to see the amazing community support for this event!

Thank you to EVERYONE who took part as a volunteer, a patron, or a sponsor. It is an honor to be a part of this community.

-Nancy Mayfield
Marketing & Development Manager / Volunteer Coordinator
The Englert Theatre

Flooded With Good Fortune

Nobody likes it when the police show up at their door at three in the morning.

For Beth Bewley-Randall, our executive director, the doorbell rang early in the morning on Saturday, April 8th. She had turned her phone off, so the police tracked her down at her house to tell her that the Englert had been flooded. Not as bad as the news could be from two uniformed gents at that time of day, but certainly worrisome nonetheless.

So, yes. A water pipe had burst outside near the street, in front of the Englert. Water poured under the doors into the lobby and proceeded to run down to the basement. By the time Beth got there (where she would stay for the next 8 hours), a couple of inches of water had managed to accumulate in our basement.

Luckily, the damage wasn't too severe: the structural integrity of the building wasn't compromised, the computer server and phone system was off the ground so remained untouched, and 95% of what was actually ruined turned out to be old boxes, papers, and other non-historic pieces of the building that needed to be thrown out anyway.

We sent a message to our volunteers, and several gave us boxes to help move things out. Others actually came and helped us Monday morning as we brought up load after load from the wet and dirty basement and threw it in the dumpster. All in all, it got cleaned up pretty quickly with everyone's help. A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who helped out in some way.

We were able to continue as scheduled with Grease that weekend, and most performers and ticketholders probably didn't know that anything had even happened. We had pretty good fortune. It could have been a lot worse.

P.S. I would've blogged about this much sooner, but for some reason Blogger had this blog tagged as "spam," so it took them about a week to figure out that real legitimate people are actually running this thing...

The Princess Bride - why so late??

Astute Englert fans have noticed that our showing of The Princess Bride on March 27th starts at 9:00 - one hour later than our usual start time for most events. I've been surprised at the number of people who have asked me or other members of our team why this is. The official answer?

We want to see what happens.

Yep, we just want to try something different. I know the later time might make it harder for some of you to get here. Does that mean you won't come? I don't know. I know that a lot of you - especially college students - ask for events to start at 9 or later so you can get here after night classes. Will you come? I don't know. We'll find out.

The movie is only 98 minutes long, so you should still be home in time to catch the end of Letterman or Leno, or have enough time to get a seat at Joe's, Deadwood or wherever else you might hang out on a Thursday.

This is all part of a larger experiment called "what do we do with movies" - a sometimes overly complex combination of legalities, supply, market demand, pricing, concessions (food & drink) and other issues. I'll dive into some of the issues in a later post. In the meantime, enjoy our first movie of the year, one hour later than usual.