Beauty and the Beast. Finneytown's musical opens this week, whether we're ready for it or not. We normally pull the shows off moderately well even if it looks like an impending disaster during tech week, so it won't turn out horribly. In fact, it still has a chance to turn out splendidly.
The set is done being built, and almost done being painted. Only detail painting is left, and if the head painter and I ever see each other (he missed two practices this week and three last week because he gets sick easily), we should be able to significantly simplify what the original plans were. Besides, it's not uncommon for some of us to be finishing up the set on opening night. Our biggest obstacle in finishing the only task we have left is the fact that we need to be painting on the stage, but the actors are there during rehearsal. Since rehearsals are in the evening this week we can stay after school to put details on the castle walls.
I had hoped to be in the pit orchestra during the actual show, but the score we ordered lacks a viola part, and all the violin slots were taken up so I couldn't just transpose one of their parts. So now I'm on running crew once again. This will be my eighth show backstage and seventh show backstage at Finneytown. Learning backstage cues will be a bit complicated this year. Three of the six people with me on stage left have been painting during rehearsals for the past two weeks, so we don't know what our cues are. Of the three others, one is possibly the most annoying crew member. The freshman guy is okay, he's just bitter that the new freshman gets to do more than he does, even though he's been part of two other shows. He now tries to take over and be knowledgeable and "helpful" in every circumstance he comes across. At least he doesn't pout about it. The last person on our side is an asset to stage left. He's been able to watch rehearsals so he knows what's going on, he's competent, and he knows how to be quiet. We were supposed to do a dry tech run today, but we did some finishing touches instead, so we get to come in tomorrow. We've never been this far behind on running crew. This could get interesting in a stressful sort of way.
We rented many of the costumes from Disney, and they came in this week. They're amazing! If nothing else, the actors will look wonderful. They had an excellent rehearsal yesterday. I actually had to leave my secret painting corner to go check if they were just playing a recording - it was that good. If they keep it up, the major musical numbers will be successful. The cast can be a bit squirrely, but I think they'll take the show seriously once they're performing for a real audience.
5 comments:
A score with no violas? That is very tragic. Actually, no it is not. It is quite possibly insipidly cheery, as the viola is a weeping instrument. There is much to be said on this matter, and I shall say it on my own corner of these interwebs.
I am sure the score is all right, but still...
I love my weeping viola. It has a deep, soulful sound.
The score is somewhat deficient in other ways as well. It doesn't have parts for several delightful instruments that my friends and I play. There are no parts for the harp (my friend took the piano part and harpified it a bit, so we still have a harp in the pit), bass, oboe, and several of the brass instruments. I don't know if there was an actual bassoon part, but Marilyn made one anyway.
The lack of brass instruments doesn't worry me much, however. They're too... brassy, for lack of a better term, for this musical. They can be obnoxiously brazen. Sometimes they're okay, like in the trumpet solo in the Intrada to the Pas de Deux of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. That trumpet sometimes brings a tear to my eye.
What a strange orchestra. The absence of an oboe is particularly deficient, especially in the presence of a flute. Flutes need oboes to function properly as a matter of contrast. How can one have flutes but not oboes?
The oboe...another beloved despairing instrument. Must it be?
That last statement is limited to orchestral music in the usual sense, by the way. There are many exceptions, but this is not one of them.
Yes it is indeed a strange orchestra. The score we ordered was intended for a very small pit with only the most common instruments. That doesn't work very well at Finneytown, where we have gobs of less usual instruments (complete with less usual people playing them) and dozens of people auditioning for the pit each year. It was an accident that the director ordered it, but the conductor didn't notice until it was too late.
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