The Oncology Show Report

We had a Sketch22 gig last night.  It was a 45 minute show for an Oncology Doctor Conference in Cavendish.  We used this performance as a chance to try out some of our new material for this summer's show.  We also brought back a few of the sketches from last year.
Doing shows like this is usually pretty tough.  The venue is usually awful, the people aren't really interested in what you're doing and it's generally a pain in the ass and something one just looks forward to being done with.  It was also a pain to re-rehearse those last year sketches because it took (precious) time away from rehearsing the sketches for this season.  But they had asked for some of the sketches from last year, so what the heck.
I think the performance went about as well as it could have, given the circumstances.  First of all, our dressing room turned out to be a deck outside the room where we'd be performing.  Okay, no problem, it was a nice night, and while the clouds were threatening rain, it stayed dry.  Secondly, the performance was late getting going because it was taking longer for the conference participants to come into the room to eat.  But they ate quick, the room was converted from dining to performance and we went on.
We weren't expecting a lot of response from the audience because the sketches we chose are fairly PEI-centric.  Still there was hope that the universally comedic aspects of the sketches would shine through and that would engage them enough to enjoy the show.
The stage was quite a bit smaller than we were used to during rehearsals, and our first problem during the performance was to accomodate the small size to our sketches.  The blocking in the first sketch got all confused and discombobulated, but it went pretty well.  Of all the sketches we'd be performing, that was the one I was most worried about.  Because it's kind of like - the audience is eating, enjoying, digesting and then - BAM - they're taken to this kind of weird sketch universe and asked to come along for a strange ride.  It didn't take them long to adjust though, and it went about as good as I could have hoped.
The next couple of sketches were from last year (Road Crew, Piping Plover and Moe Gorman) and they went over very well.  Our next new sketch went over fairly well, too, and our new finale sketch (which has an either hit-or-miss ending) got enough big laughs to make us feel pretty good about the evening.  The feedback from the audience was very favourable as well.
Now, with that show out of the way, we embark on the final week and a half of rehearsals for our July 7 opening.  A lot of work left to do, but now we have a couple of the sketches at performance level, so the Oncology show was good for forcing that upon us.
Plus we got a nice chunk of change for it too.
I think, though, that it will turn out to be our last such gig.  None of us like doing them, really, and despite the easy money, they're not something we're going to pursue in the future.
It may also have been the last time ever we perform Road Crew, Plover and Moe Gorman.  Time to put those characters to rest, we think.