Music to My Ears

Today was the first and, as far as I understand, only musical rehearsal for "Miracle on 34th Street". There is only one song in it. We don't sing it until the very end.

It's a decent song. A bit awkward to sing in some places. The lyrics are not especially inspiring, but it is a very nice tune.

There will be recorded accompaniment for the song. The entire cast, (except for the people in the final scene) will begin singing it from back stage, "under" the final scene. We will eventually come out onto the stage for the end of the show. Such is the plan at this point, anyway.

It was a bit of a flashback for me today. The musical "director" for this one song, (let's call him J.C.), is someone I have worked with a few times before, as a substitute. But a year ago, when I was in the musical version of Scrooge, he was the musical director for the entire show. Him being there tonight, as well as a handful of people that were also in Scrooge brought back the mostly fond memories from being in that production, which started about a year ago in the same theatre.

I taped the song today on my micro-recorder. This is standard practice for me, as I do not sight read sheet music. The thing is, J.C. had not been over the piece before, and he played it for the first time at the start of this evening's practice. Near the end of the evening, we played the CD that will be our accompaniment in the actual performance. It ended up being about 2 times slower than we had been singing it. Ooops. Adjustments were made, and all will be fine. I am usually pretty good at picking up songs like that, so long as there is no harmonizing. (A skill I have yet to master, despite being in several musicals in the last two years.)

I don't report to rehearsal again for over a week. It is a strange sensation, as I have addressed before, to be at rehearsal so infrequently. It will not be long, however, before there is a sort of whirlpool effect, and I will be going in there all the time. Until then, more time to learn lines. And of course to blog about community theatre.