A Tour Through the What Cheer Opera House With a Camera Phone . . .

I did another Old Time Gospel Show this past weekend for my favorite Old Time Gospel crowd at the What Cheer, IA Opera House. Seriously, this is one of the best crowds a guy could ever have. A true dream audience. They cheer, they clap, they laugh, they even hoot and holler, and occasionally stomp a foot or two.

Plus the opera house has tons of great history. For instance:

This is one of the two backstage doors to the theater. It's about a foot and a half wide, and twelve feet high. I was told by two separate people that it's in the Guinness Book of World for the tallest, thinnest stage door. Now, I looked it up on the official site, and I couldn't find it after searching for "stage", "door", "tallest", "thinnest", "skinniest", "What Cheer", or "Iowa" - but none-the-less, it is a fun door to squeeze through.

This is a pic of the stage from the balcony. My camera phone does it no justice, but here it is. The building is air conditoned very well, although it is about ten degrees warmer up in the balcony.

The backstage walls are covered with lots of great autographed photos of all the famous musicians and entertainers that have performed on the stage in the past:

A few of the notables including:

Hank Williams Jr.

Guy Lombardo . . . (there were actually about seven different Lombardo's with pictures up. This family went into conducting in a big way, and they apparently all jumped on Guy's enormous coat tails.)

They also have posters all up around the auditorium like this one . . .

. . . of the Glenn Miller Orchestra (under the direction of Jimmy Henderson!)

. . . and this one of Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra . . .

. . . and of course the Chairman of the Board, Jr. . . .

. . . and then ya got your Kitty Wells - who I know solely through name, and of course her prominent mention in the song Me and Paul by Willie Nelson . . .

I've made myself a promise that the next time I go, I'm going to bring a black and white photo of myself that looks really old, and try to slip it into the ranks of great peformers from the past.

So yeah, it's a pretty spectacular theater when you've got such a great crowd. My twenty minute set of poetry went over really well once again. I got to perform right after this guy:

. . . Joe Shetler - a Swiss, Mennonite, guitar and mandolin playing yodeler. He's good. This is the third time I've gotten to do a show with him, and he's always a fun guy to follow. He got to introduce me this time, and it went a little something like this -

"Okay, so up next is Jason Taylor. He's a youth director and Christian speaker. He's a comedian, and he is also . . . a comedian!"

And so, that's about it for this week. This coming weekend, I'm back in Toledo, IA for another poetry show. Then I have a couple weeks off as we kickoff all of our youth events here in Pella before I head out again for a men's retreat in South Dakota with Jonah's Wale.

But before we go, here's one more snap of a sticker on a backstage door from What Cheer . . .

. . . Lest we forget . . .

Till next time,

Jason