Pirates!

Had my first Pirates rehearsal last night. (They had a couple last week, but because I was up to my eyeballs in Godspell, I couldn't make any of them.) We ran thru most of the music in Act I. I happened to be sitting next to our Mabel, who has already done the role twice since July. We had a great time singing everything together (yes, even the men's parts; we just turned the volume down) and clowning. Our ladies sound lovely, better than the men, but none of the men have done the show before while half the ladies have, and I think most of them have never done any G&S, making it that much harder to sightread the music. Once the men get the music under their belt (and we manage to find another tenor or two for the chorus), they'll be just fine.

I had been getting very nervous because I hadn't heard a peep out of the director in two whole weeks. No tentative rehearsal schedule, not even a "hang in there; they took the space away from us again". Finally I e-mailed her wondering what was up. I didn't see her response until yesterday evening, barely 2 hours before rehearsal. And she forgot to include the location - yike! Fortunately, she had e-mailed the cast a couple of weeks ago, so I spammed everyone asking where rehearsal was. I got a response, made it on time, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Our Major General, upon receiving the initial cast e-mail, sent out a short note introducing himself and some of the rest of us decided we liked that idea so much that we followed suit. I haven't seen that done before, but I liked it and will certainly remember it for future productions. I thought I knew no one else in the cast, but our Samuel reminded me that we'd done another production together a few years back: one of those experiences that was so grueling that it brought to mind the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". This won't be like that - while they're still auditioning Frederics, the cast we do have promises a good experience, and I liked the way our MD ran last night's rehearsal. (And the fact that he started w/ stretches before the vocal warm-ups.)

Next week we start blocking Act I - I'm looking forward to seeing what our director has up her sleeve.