I was in Atlanta from Wednesday through Sunday. We had a blast. I saw a lot of good theatre. I’m still mostly theatre illiterate and I really enjoy any opportunity to see good theatre. With the best community theatre shows from 7 other states in attendance, I was in for a treat.

The first one I saw was Tennessee’s Escanaba In Da Moonlight by Jeff Daniels. It was hilarious. The set was great and these southern actors had the upper Michigan accent nailed. I thought I was gonna die during the slow motion fart.

I also saw a broadway caliber show from the Manatee Players out of Florida. They did a version of Sweeney Todd that was amazing. I wish I had been a little more familiar with the show, since it had to be cut to no more than 60 minutes in length. But regardless, the poor stage at Spelman college just wasn’t big enough for this production. Apparently, they have something like a $900,000 a year budget. And they are building a 12 million dollar facility. I wish I could say that they bought a win, but aside from a few technical snafus, this show was smooth and the cast was outstanding.

These two shows won and will continue to nationals. There were other smaller, simpler shows that were still very strong. At MTA, I would have been shocked if we had not won. I imagine this comes from my inexperience of attending MTA and not coming away disappointed or upset for the last 20 years. I don’t mean to sound like a cocky jackass, but we had a really good show and I saw all the rest, and while good, they just weren’t quite as tight as ours. But at SETC, out of seven shows that were our competition, I could only say with confidence that I thought we were better than one show.

With all that said, we came in runner-up, which is 3rd place. If one of the other two shows drops out, we would go in their place. Best of luck to Tennessee and Florida, bring it home to the south. Yeehaw! Also, two of my friends and castmates won Outstanding Performance: Madeline Golden (Vera) and Krista Vowell (June). The awards were well deserved. One adjudicator told Madeline that she was the best Vera he’d ever seen. He also told Marcus Vowell that his Stanley was the strongest he’d seen. Another adjudicator told Krista that if he ever wanted to know how to feel about what was going on at that point in the show, he would look to June since she embodied the spirit of each moment. Starkville’s got mad talent, yo!

Otherwise, I ate a lot, managed to swing one ball game at the SEC Championship (where my Bulldogs lost), saw Andie MacDowell, went to an improv jam and hung out with my wifey and my SCT family. It was a great time.