Encore Theatre Parents Group

Encore –

Who are we and what do we do?  How can parents get involved?

Encore is the parent group that supports our wonderful theatre department.  At every show, we run the bake sale to raise money to support the theatre department, provide scholarships for students and to defray the expenses of the Theatre Banquet at the end of the year.  We also host a cast party in the cafeteria after the final performance of STUNTS and the musical, help provide food for late rehearsals before the shows, and assist with the end of the year banquet.  We encourage the parents of any student involved in a show to participate, whether the student is in the cast, the crew, or the pit orchestra.  Getting involved is easy – you can donate water or baked goods, help work the table for a bake sale night, help at a cast party, or anything else you  can think of!  To get involved, just fill in the form your student brings home asking for volunteers, or contact Nancy Krent at nkrent@hotmail.com

Bake sale information – Here are the key points you need to know about our bake sales:

The bake sale volunteer form is supposed to come home with the ticket form, about three or four weeks before the show opens.  If you don’t see it, ask your student if they have it. We are trying to move to electronic versions of all of the forms, so check your email as well.  Also, if you can’t find it, check the theatre website to see if the form is posted there.  You can also email the Encore chair for each bake sale.  Show Schedule

• We need lots of water, because we provide water for the cast and crew, as well as selling water at the bake sale.  We often go through 2-3 cases a night at a Studio Theatre show, and as many 7-8 cases a night for an auditorium show (the auditorium shows generally involve well over 100 students in the cast, crew and pit).

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• Baked goods for the bake sales should be individually wrapped, for health and hygiene reasons, and also because it makes it much easier to store the leftovers to sell the next night.  If it’s not obvious what your item is, please let someone know what it is when you drop it off.  If it has nuts in it, please let us know that too, since people often ask.

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• Water and baked goods can be dropped off at the bake sale table either when your student comes for call for that performance or when you arrive for the show.  If no one is there when you arrive, just leave your item on the table.  Thanks.

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• Working the table is easy and fun. You get to chat with all the parents who come to the show, you get the first pick of the best baked goods, and you’re helping our kids.  What could be better???  Just remember these few words:  “Everything costs $1.”  The detailed set up directions can be found here.

• Auditorium Directions

  Studio Theatre Directions

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Cast parties

After STUNTS and the musical, Encore sponsors a cast party in the cafeteria.  (A cast party at one of the student’s homes generally follows).  We ask for one or two volunteers that night to help set up, serve and clean up afterwards, and we ask parents to contribute either money or food.  The money is used to buy pizza (30 large pizzas!), two large sheet cakes and some other items.  In addition, parents contribute salad, fruit or baked goods to round out the feast.

Cast Party Directions

Viccino’s is very generous in giving us a discount on the pizza, not to mention the pizzas we buy during tech week!  So, next time you go in there to order a pizza, please thank Bobby for his generosity in supporting our program. 

 

Show schedule and chairs for each show. Show Schedule

If your child is in a show:

• What time to expect him/her home -- Rehearsals generally run until 5:30 each evening (until tech week), but may vary a little, depending on the cast needs.  Crew usually lasts about the same length of time each day.  So, unless your children can go from lunch until dinner without anything to eat or drink, you probably want to make sure that they either have some food and water for a snack, or some money to buy a snack from the vending machines.

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  Tech week – during tech week, when the cast works with the crew to put all the lighting and sound cues in the right places, and the final kinks get worked out, rehearsals can run much later, sometimes until 9:00 pm or later.  Your student should bring money for pizza or a quick dinner, as the students often either take a dinner break or contribute to the cost of food brought in.  It can be a challenge to get homework done during these nights, so try to encourage your student to work ahead the week and weekend before.  (And, let us here at Encore know if that really works in your house – it seems to be better in theory than in practice with our kids!)

   

  Show days  -- Here is what you need to know.  Call (when the students in the cast and crew need to be at school) is generally 90 minutes before curtain.  There is a cast party after the Saturday night performance, but the students often don’t know whose house it is at until that evening, so if your student doesn’t know, there’s nothing unusual about that!  Because the cast parties don’t start until late in the evening, due to the length of the performances and the congratulatory time afterwards, your student may be out very late those nights.  The kids are very good about offering each other rides, but if you are concerned about curfew, you may want to verify their arrangements for getting home.  (For the two auditorium shows, there are two cast parties.  The first is held in the cafeteria, and then a party at one of the student’s homes follows that.)  Mr. Conway delivers a famous set of warnings about how he expects the kids to behave before each cast party.  If you know Mr. Conway, you know that the kids have too much respect for him (and/or fear)   to let him down!

Ticket and t-shirt information

Encore does not handle ticket sales for any of the shows or the t-shirt/sweat shirt orders for STUNTS and the musical.  Your student will be given forms for each of these at rehearsal, and the forms are due back by a fixed date.  If you don’t see these forms four weeks before the show opens, ask your child if they have the forms.  If they don’t, email Tim Conway, at tconway@dist113.org, and ask for them.  We are trying to move to electronic versions, so check the main page of the theatre website to see if the form is posted there.  Please note that the ticket form always places a limit on how many tickets you can order, both for any individual show and in total throughout the run.  They really can only let each person order that quantity, so that everyone has a chance to see each show.

If it’s too late to use the order form, or if you need more tickets than are allowed, there are two other avenues for purchasing tickets.  First, the week of the show, tickets will be sold at the school bookstore, so your student can buy some there.  Second, if the show is not sold out, tickets can be purchased the evening of the performance at the ticket booth.  There is also a stand-by list for Studio Theatre shows, even when they are sold out, in case there are no-shows.

Please be aware that there are assigned seats for auditorium shows, but not for Studio shows.

Banquet

 There is a banquet at the end of the school year to honor all of the students and their hard work throughout the year.  Parents are always welcome to attend, and it is something you do not want to miss during your student’s senior year.  Mr. Conway and Mr. Shallenbarger speak about each senior individually, and it’s a very special moment for each senior.  Encore always collects money to buy gifts for the teachers from all the students.  We will contact everyone near the end of the year with more information about this.

     Please contact any of us for information on how to volunteer, or with any questions, comments or concerns.  We’re always glad to help.

Contact information for Encore

Show Schedule