Day 2 in Dayton - It's a rehearsal and performance day

After a fun evening in local restaurants, everyone got an early night (after being up for 24 hours) and some much needed sleep.

Tuesday morning started with a 'pole  party' which isn't quite as exciting as it sounds - with all members reassembling poles, weights and flags (thanks to Jodi from Centerville and Sheldon from Bellbrook for the loan of the poles).

We then headed over to Centerville for day 1 of rehearsals.  We are using a much larger floor in Dayton so today was all about opening out the show to fill the Dayton arena.  We were fortunate to have Michael Shapiro spend the day with us working on the staging and refining parts of the programme.

Tuesdays are often a challenging day for the guard as we assemble props and get used to new environments, tarps, equipment etc. and this Tuesday proved to be no exception!  The first floor we received wasn't quite as large as we had hoped so after some further conversations we were able to get hold of an additional tarp and make the floor the size we needed. A HUGE thanks to Lynsey and the MEPA circuit for their amazing support of Mayflower.

Our goal is to cover as much as of the black Dayton floor with our tan tarp.  This means opening the show up considerably from how we have been performing in the UK and of course, this in itself caused some additional challenges.  But by the end of rehearsal we had worked through the show and restaged things.

Smile for the camera!  Mayflower at Centerville HS

After finishing rehearsal at 5pm we had the chance to get some food before an exhibition performance with Bellbrook and Centerville High Schools.  There was a sizeable and enthusiastic crowd and Mayflower was able to get their first public US performance under their belts.  It wasn't the best run but we get another chance tomorrow when we are performing at Bellbrook HS in the evening.

Tomorrow is another rehearsal day. Michael will be joining us to work on the very end of the show and we will be focusing on getting everyone comfortable with the new floor and opened up staging.

We got back to the hotel by 9.30pm and an early night for a jet lagged guard!