No Longer Singin' In The Rain

I mean to post this as a kind of diary - you know, a round up of the third night and then another of the last, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I slept for six hours on Friday and missed the chance to go on the computer. So, no posts.

However, I can now round up the last two nights, and hopefully you can cope with that, right?

So, third night. We had a few interesting lines, especially in "Make 'Em Laugh", which went quite spectacularly wrong at the beginning. Instead of the line "Big people have little humour, and little people have no humour at all", we had something along the lines of:

"Little people ... are secretly big people. Big people are like little people and ... {rushed} They have no humour at all!"


But aside from that, which was hilarious for us, since we all know the show very well by now, we didn't have too many dodgy moments. Except with the microphones. There were some really dodgy mics not being turned on.

The last night had more people forgetting their lines than before, I think, although most of them weren't too noticeable, but though I say so myself the music was better than before! ;)

However, my favourite moment was the following mess-up.

Instead of Don mocking Kathy and saying, "Just because you're a famous movie star, doesn't mean any girl in the world is gonna have lunch with you just like that. Will you have lunch with me just like that?", he said: "Just because you're a famous movie star, doesn't mean any man in the world is gonna have lunch with you just like that..."


The entire band was cracking up. Any man in the world? Is there something you're not telling us, Liam? And it was a very painful kind of laughter, because of course we didn't want the audience to realise that he'd messed it up and so were trying not to let them know!

That wasn't the only thing that we did. There was an occasion wehre they nicked one of the trumpet's mutes, and then taped them to the wall, the curtains, the conductor's chair... one of them fell from its place and almost hit me on the head! And there were speeches and flowers and chocolates, and all in all it was a very emotional night.

Then came the after party... I wasn't feeling up to going, which was just as well as I was informed during the show that I wasn't actually old enough, ha ha!

Anyway, it's over - for another year at least. I'm going to miss it, I really am. Although not the endless rehearsals. I won't be missing those.

Now it's time to rehearse for our tour to Lake Garda... ;)

Singin' In The Rain...

Well, what can I say? Musicals are exhausting!

We've got a four day run, from Tuesday to Friday of this week - not a huge number of shows, but not bad for a student production. I'm in the band, just to clarify - you won't see me getting up in ridiculous costumes!

Ahem.

So, Saturday was an all-day rehearsal. Well, I say all-day, because it was meant to be. I actually left over four hours early, in order to travel down to the coast for a concert on a bandstand by the sea. Which was lovely but windy, and I was very glad I'd brought some pegs to hold the music on the stand. Piccolo solos are stressful enough without losing my music too, thank you very much.

Then it was Sunday, and I was off to Danson Festival to help out on the stall of Jennifer Wilkins School of Dance, where I learn ballet. Unfortunately I ended up with heatstroke, and had to spend the rest of the day doing, well, not much.

Monday was more Singin' In The Rain, with a taster performance to a few eleven-year-olds. But Tuesday was when it got difficult.

Have you ever played violin in a musical? Or any instrument for that matter, but I find violin more tiring than flute. Well, it's exhausting. The music's high, it's fast, the rhythms are mental...

Two and a half shows. In one day. We finished the run in the morning (since our rehearsal from three until half five didn't get us even to the interval the day before), then had a full dress rehearsal in the afternoon for some primary school children, and in the evening we had opening night.

It wasn't bad, it really wasn't. A few little glitches of course, but apparently it's the best opening night we've had in a long time, and Fit As A Fiddle (my ridiculously stressful solo right at the beginning) went amazingly well.

But the next morning? Shattered. And then, in the evening, another show.

Today is Thursday, so we've just two more shows left. If I live through the after party, I've got orchestra rehearsals for our Lake Garda tour at half past nine on Saturday, which is going to be a joy...

Well, better go - it's Camp NaNoWriMo, and I've got writing to do before tonight's performance!