A Musical is Born! -Part 12- The Band

Today, I will introduce the band! Since I'm not mentioning names, I'll just talk a little about the band members:

-the drummer is my oldest son! This is the fifth show that he has drummed for CYT! In many ways, this show is not the most exciting for a drummer, so I told him he can elaborate sometimes. He helps out on the tambourine and triangle when the percussionist is already playing something else. I'm very proud to be doing a show with him!

-the percussionist is the oldest son of a fellow CYT teacher. He is a high schooler, but he has experience playing in orchestras. This will be his first time performing in a "band" on a midi keyboard. (so instead of playing on a real marimba, he's playing on a piano keyboard.)

-the violinist is my other high schooler. She has already played with CYT twice and is loving it.

-the pianist is a friend of mine and a fellow piano teacher. I'm so glad she agreed to play, despite her busy teaching schedule! This is a first for her!

-the bassist is a professional who plays for musicals all over the Bay Area. He played for CYT back when we performed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Godspell. I reached out to him on a whim, and he happened to be free the weekend of the show!  He is in the middle of playing for Assassins right now, and will join us as soon as that show closes.

And that's the band! 

So far, we've had three weekend rehearsals, and today was our sitzprobe.

You're probably wondering, "What a weird word! What on earth is a sitzprobe?!"

The word 'sitzprobe' comes from the German for 'sitting rehearsal'. Plainly put, it is when the cast and band meet for the first time. The singers and dancers get to hear what the music will really sound like, and the band gets to hear what will be happening on stage. For us, it is the only time the actors will see the band until we are in the theater.

I've only been to a few sitzprobes, and always it had been: band is set up to play, singers come up to a mic or on stage, sing the song, sit down. But I asked another vocal director what the "rules of a sitzprobe" were, and he said that there were none! Some groups like to go through the show in order, some don't. Some will dance, and some won't. I can do whatever is most beneficial on that day!

So this is what we did:

1) Did a regular rehearsal from 8:30-12 with the entire cast and just me on the piano. We breaked for an hour lunch.

2) Cleared the room of tables and chairs. Determined the approximate size of the stage, and which way the audience would be. Then I set up the band as it would be at the theater, on stage left. (Which means if you are standing on stage looking our at the seats, the band is on the left.)

3) At 1pm, I warmed up the cast. Then we started with the overture, which didn't have singing, but had movement. The actors danced through the overture.

4) Then we went through the show in order, skipping only the music that didn't involve moment, lines, or singing (mostly the scene change music.) On the big dance numbers, we went ahead and danced and sang. On the smaller solos and duets, the singers stood by me and just sang. We also rehearsed one short scene that involved multiple wishes happening (which always has accompanying music) so the band can get a feel for how everything will click together.

5) At the end, the band played the 'bows' music for the cast. We finished around 2:45.

There were only a few times when we needed to go back and rehearse a part of the song again! We still have some things to fix, but part of it was my getting used to being the conductor, not the pianist. This is a first for me! 

It has been a very full day. I have some work to do... possibly a little bit more music to write, but maybe that can wait until tomorrow...

A Musical is Born! -Part 11- The Struggle-Through

I met with 4/5 of the band today and so I was all prepared to write about them, but I will need to write about them next week, because today I had an unexpected surprise!

An "unexpected surprise"? Isn't that redundant, you ask?

That was how BIG of a surprise it was!

This morning, I had my printed schedule for rehearsal and I was all set for working with small groups. Then at 9:30am, KW (the director) said, "Let's do this. Let's do a run-through."

She saw the look on my face and immediately asked, "You don't think they're ready?"

I was thinking of all the songs that the actors needed to review, but I myself was eager to start seeing the pieces of this show put together.

So we did it.

We did what we call a "struggle-through," because a first run-through is always more of a struggle than a smooth, problem-free run.

And yes, our struggle-through was far from perfect, but it was also hardly a struggle. It had so many wonderful moments! There were songs that sounded great, scenes that were touching, dances that made us smile. The most difficult part for everyone were the transitions, because actors needed to figure out where they needed to be for the next scene and how to get there. We stopped many times to fix small things, and just to laugh at our mistakes, because we were all "struggling" together.

By the end of our rehearsal time, we had made it through the WHOLE show. For the first time! This was a big feat!! All the work we have done in the last six weeks finally looks like a SHOW! I am so impressed with all the memorization of lines and dances the actors have done. I found myself sucked into the story and having to remind myself to play the piano. And I admit, I teared up a couple of times. I may be a fountain on opening night!

I left rehearsal walking on air and excited for next week's step... refining!

A Musical is Born! -Part 10- The Playbill

"Playbill" is the fancy word for a poster for a show. Basically, when you walk by the movie theater and see the posters for the movies featured at that theater, you are looking at playbills. They give you information about the actors, writers, times and dates. Some playbills are iconic; when we think of Gone with the Wind, we instantly see in our minds' eye Clark Gable with Vivien Leigh in his arms, in front of a background of flames. Playbills give information about the show, but also set the tone for what to expect. Will this show be funny? Serious? Light-hearted? Dark? Is it a western? A mystery? A romance? A tragedy?

Usually, for a community theater group, not much goes into designing the playbills for our shows. The theater company provides us with the images, sometimes even telling us what colors are allowed on the poster, and tell us what text we are required to use and how big the names need to be. But now... 

we have a show that has NO images, NO requirements, NO playbill whatsoever! We are the designers of the very first Five Children and It musical playbill ever!

My husband, being a graphic designer once-upon-a-time, took the reigns on this. We knew we wanted color, magic, fanciful things. We also knew that many people were not familiar with the original story; it is considered a classic, but it is old and British and so not very well-known. So my husband chose images to represent elements in the story: the country cottage, the sandpit, the various wishes. And the only hint of the mysterious sand-fairy is the "V" in the logo. We also needed to put the time and place and ticket info (of course), but more information about the origin of this new show. Hence, the words "based on the novel by" and "a new musical by." His final poster is eye-catching and fun! And next weekend, our CYT actors will put these posters up all over our valley's downtowns!