4:30pm: My house. I put the final touches on the spreadsheet of this year’s performance lineup to run by the Board for final approval. Xavier Yxayotl, the flute player of Huichol heritage, completes the roster. His manager has given me coaching on how to pronounce his last name.  I murmur each-eye-ottle to myself at random times for the next hour while I prepare the contracts.

5:30pm: Tsunami Board Meeting at Cuppers. “See how hard we work?” Executive Director Susan DeFreitas turns her hand in a gesture of supplication. She wants the gods to rain money upon us. Susan unfurls the collage of images that could only come from Tsunami, and it seems fair enough to ask the gods to reward this. She is stressed after contracting with 12 performance groups, reestablishing Circus Camp, setting up prizes for the winners of the Art on Wheels, and hiring me as Program and Skitcrew Director, all without official confirmation of receiving grants we’re counting on. I’m a little stressed, too, come to think of it, but there’s nothing to do but prepare for the coming flood. Susan invites the gods to broaden the Circle of Friends who keep Tsunami on the Square alive. She says this in a theatrically pleading voice, and then switching gears, reveals her tactic of offering a lower entry-fee to the Circle ($300 v. $500). The board approves this move. Each-eye-ottle.

Susan shares the good news that we have received sponsorship to reestablish the Flourish before the Flood site-specific dance performance, directed by Delisa Myles. Thanks to the Fat Tire Brewing Company, all proceeds of the only for-fee part of the festival will go to Prescott Creeks Preservation Association.

5:45pm They discuss the first annual Jazz-N-Pie fundraiser that had fewer people than pies. Next year they’ll advertise more and have it earlier than Earth Day Sunday.

6:00pm The Board approves the performance line-up. I continue to internally murmur each-eye-ottle and imagine that this mantra will help invoke the money we need to pay for Xavier and the rest of the performers.  

6:05pm Juanita Hull-Carlson announces the addition of a new Road Rally component to Art on Wheels. Watch out, quad cities.

6:15pm Cuppers is closed. Susan and I walk to rehearsal discussing which of our business sponsors have skits to work on, how to find housing for our out of town performers, and putting the program together.

7:30pm Prescott Downtown Athletic Club. The best part. Skitcrew works on reviving the Star Trek theme for New Frontiers. We discuss how Monty Python and Coffee Roaster’s “Every Bean is Sacred” theme might go together, and we make a date to rent videos for inspiration. We then create a skit of automatons developing into people who “think” for ink, a trade for the poster printing.

8:55pm Raven Café. Susan shows off the glossy poster to the festival fans among us, sells a spot in the program, and gives thanks to an existing member of the Circle of Friends. Each-eye-ottle. The show goes on.

 (Salli is the Program/Skitcrew Director for Tsunami on the Square.)