Todd Olson Quotations

I wouldn't want to be trying to get a hotel room in Grand Forks for Friday night.

Over the past two decades, Shakespeare in the Park has become one of the Tampa Bay area's most beloved institutions, having attracted more than 20,000 patrons a year. After speaking with our audience, we decided that, after 20 years, it was time to start a new tradition.

We've talked as a staff how important it is to do this one well. And I think it's real important for Grand Forks to show it supports high school basketball. Hopefully the people in the community will come out and support the tournament. Devils Lake losing in the boys regional didn't help our attendance. They were by far the best-followed team in the East Region tournament.

We have a lot of good people involved who have been around a lot of tournaments. When everybody does their job well, you end up putting on a good event. Hopefully we can put on a good enough show so that we can get it back again.

We've done all right in the first three. Now we hope to finish strong. I don't care what the sport is, tournament atmosphere is great. It's fun to be around athletes competing at a high level. Some of their energy rubs off on you as you go through the weekend.

We're not going to change a lot initially but will phase things in,

We'd been looking for ways to help the community. This fits the bill.

We had the land for about three years before we started building, ... Timing is everything for us when putting up a site. We were waiting for the right time.

We are very excited to have the opportunity to produce this incredible drama with such an amazing cast.

People said that they would be much more willing to attend American Stage in the Park if we would program something other than Shakespeare, specifically musicals. The musicals we will do will still be uniquely American Stage. They will be musicals you would not likely see a (touring) Broadway series.

Originally I thought I'd go back to the H.G. Wells novel. But gradually I realized the beauty of the Howard Koch and Orson Welles version.

They said they loved seeing theater and sitting on the grass on the waterfront as long as it's well done. The hour we decided to do 'Crowns' is the hour we wanted to talk to Sharon. She has the energy, the brains and the presence for this show.

A lot of that is because this is the first time through for us. But we've had regional basketball tournaments here, so as a venue with games going on at the same time, we're pretty familiar with that.

It's traditional to have a live tree. It supports American farmers. Most the tree farms are in Oregon so it keeps a lot of the money in the Northwest. The truckers make a lot bringing them back and forth. It's one of the few American made products left.

It's half radio play and it's half theater. It's not a film and it's not all special effects, but it's very theatrical.

They won't be new pumps but they'll look brand new, ... We're just going to freshen things up.

I'm sure the hotels in town are pretty full, with all that's going on.

If the present situation continues unregulated, this is going to be catastrophic. There's no oversight. The more this goes unregulated, the more stories will come out, and the public will lose confidence.

He's a real authentic new talent. I'd like to see more plays come out of this guy. If we could just get him to stop writing books.