Friday night was the ‘members & friends’ night, and as I missed the last one (I forgot to renew my membership – oops!), I thought I might make the effort. I was weighing up if I really wanted to go out as it was extremely cold and I was going to Cassie’s engagement party the following night – out 2 nights in a row, what’s come into me??? I decided to go, Hell I was never going to have a wonderful fun filled life and meet Mr Right along the way if I stayed at home in my jammies every night.
When I walked in I was greeted by a voice behind the bar saying, ‘here’s my wife, well, wife number 8’ Damn you Deon, at least I can be theatre wife number one! Even for a gay man I’m somewhere down the queue…
The usual suspects are all here: Lesley and John (behind the bar as always), Bartender! Give me a Diet Coke! – Please!, Kayleen and husband, Mark, who I found out that night is actually the Stage Manager, not Caroline who I thought was doing it. Ashley was there too, chatting with Deon and a guy I didn’t know, who joined into our conversation. I didn’t ask for his name. I’ll have to get it next time, and ask him about his stint in the original John English production of Pirates. Ash was all excited and told me later in the evening that he had mentioned that he was in it.
I also met Dan and his wife (forgive me I forget her name or really didn’t hear it properly in the first place). Funnily enough, there are a lot of men with the same name as characters – there’s a Dan, Ashley Joseph and Ben who are not playing Dan, Asher, Joseph and Benjamin – I bet it’s confusing at rehearsals. I stayed at the theatre until 10ish, the food was nice and the conversation good but I had to work the next day.
Missed the Sat rehearsal again (my last one though). I had a call on Monday morning from Julie to let me know that we weren’t needed for the Tues rehearsal; it was for the brothers only, and the Saturday rehearsal was blocking and that we only walked from one side of the stage to another and back again. I think I’ll be able to catch up on that one!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Rehearsals - week 2
Again I couldn’t make it to the Saturday rehearsal (damn you retail!), but we were only needed for an hour so I wasn’t really worried. Tues night rolled around again, same footpath, this time no possum or Chernobyl lights, just the cold and lots of rain. On the trip down, Julie mentioned that on Saturday they were talking about our costumes. She started with, ‘think of Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra…’ I was gone – ‘I’m going to be an Egyptian princess!’ Apparently, they wanted us in short black bob wigs, and white linen draped dresses with gold sandals. I had visions of myself as the Queen of the Nile, resplendent in gold and lapis jewellery and eye makeup.
Back to earth, and the rehearsal. We went back over the songs from last week, and added a couple of new ones. This time, Jane was with us, and as much as I hate to admit it, her voice is so much stronger than mine in the top register. We’re pretty even in the lower registers though :p
The rest of the rehearsal was a non-event, lots of new songs and swinging from Julie to Kayleen again. We rode home discussing gold shoes and Cleopatra clothes, but mostly in silence, as we were both really tired, maybe it was the rain.
During the week, Kayleen sent an email saying she’d seen some gold shoes for us in a local shop and sent photos to all the divas. They were pretty ugly, but if all the girls were going to have the same shoes I’d have to be in. The minute I heard the word ’Cleopatra’ earlier in the week, I thought of the ‘Cleo’ sandals we have at work, but they’re too flat and too expensive for anyone other than me (loooove that staff discount). Also they’re thong style so we wouldn’t be able to wear stockings with them or dance properly so even though they’d look fabulous, they weren’t practical.
Back to earth, and the rehearsal. We went back over the songs from last week, and added a couple of new ones. This time, Jane was with us, and as much as I hate to admit it, her voice is so much stronger than mine in the top register. We’re pretty even in the lower registers though :p
The rest of the rehearsal was a non-event, lots of new songs and swinging from Julie to Kayleen again. We rode home discussing gold shoes and Cleopatra clothes, but mostly in silence, as we were both really tired, maybe it was the rain.
During the week, Kayleen sent an email saying she’d seen some gold shoes for us in a local shop and sent photos to all the divas. They were pretty ugly, but if all the girls were going to have the same shoes I’d have to be in. The minute I heard the word ’Cleopatra’ earlier in the week, I thought of the ‘Cleo’ sandals we have at work, but they’re too flat and too expensive for anyone other than me (loooove that staff discount). Also they’re thong style so we wouldn’t be able to wear stockings with them or dance properly so even though they’d look fabulous, they weren’t practical.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Rehearsals begin
THE REHEARSALS:
Rehearsals started on Sat the 25th, but because I’m a retail gal (and retail sucks!), I had to work and didn’t get to play with the gang till the following Tuesday. I got an SMS from Julie during the day offering me a ride down, and as she’s coming from Northlakes and has to go past my place, more or less, I took her up on the ride.
I stood outside my flat at 6.30 waiting for Jules, watching the cars approaching, as she’s only been to my place once before and I wasn’t sure whether she remembered exactly where I lived. As each set of headlights approached, I watched carefully. When I got bored with that I watched the possum in the tree near me teetering on a tiny branch eating the flowers at the end. I made sure I moved away from underneath the tree – a possum hat was not an accessory I wanted right at that moment.
Eventually a set of headlights I was watching went on to high beam as it came close to my place. No, not high beam: nuclear beam. The lights lit up the whole bloody street and the backs of my retinas! Once the spots in front of my eyes settled down I got into Julie’s 4WD, and off we went. I made Julie promise to never flash “Mickey” the fog lamps at me EVER again!!!
During the trip down we joked about how to kill off Jane, as Julie had auditioned for Narrator too. Ironically, it was Julie who got the role of Sr. Mary Hubert in Nunsense last year that I auditioned for, and we had a running joke throughout the season that I was ready to jump into her role if she had an ‘accident’. For pics of the show click here. (I’m the one in black!)
The actual rehearsal was only for the 6 divas, so I didn’t get to meet the new cast (boys). We got our scores and assorted bits of extra music. I’m usually an alto, but Brad’s made me a bit of a floater, so when we’re singing in 2 parts, I’m in the altos with Julie, but when we split into 3 parts I go into the middle with Kayleen who shares the 2nd Soprano part with me.
As some songs go from 2 to 3 parts and back again, I tended to sway to the left when I was singing the alto part and sway to the right when doing the 2nd part so that I could hear the others singing. Kayleen did the same, swinging from 2nd sop to Soprano, so we dubbed ourselves the swingers!
This was the night of the lunar eclipse, and I made sure we had semi regular ‘moon breaks’ so we could see it and the red moon that resulted. It was really cool, and would have been even better if we were able to turn the theatre’s outside lights off, but we couldn’t so we had to hold up our hands to block the light.
We wound it up at about 9.30, after having gone through ‘Jacob and Sons’, ‘Any Dream will Do’ and ‘Joseph’s Coat’. We ended up singing most of the songs (very badly – as a send up) on the ride home.
Rehearsals started on Sat the 25th, but because I’m a retail gal (and retail sucks!), I had to work and didn’t get to play with the gang till the following Tuesday. I got an SMS from Julie during the day offering me a ride down, and as she’s coming from Northlakes and has to go past my place, more or less, I took her up on the ride.
I stood outside my flat at 6.30 waiting for Jules, watching the cars approaching, as she’s only been to my place once before and I wasn’t sure whether she remembered exactly where I lived. As each set of headlights approached, I watched carefully. When I got bored with that I watched the possum in the tree near me teetering on a tiny branch eating the flowers at the end. I made sure I moved away from underneath the tree – a possum hat was not an accessory I wanted right at that moment.
Eventually a set of headlights I was watching went on to high beam as it came close to my place. No, not high beam: nuclear beam. The lights lit up the whole bloody street and the backs of my retinas! Once the spots in front of my eyes settled down I got into Julie’s 4WD, and off we went. I made Julie promise to never flash “Mickey” the fog lamps at me EVER again!!!
During the trip down we joked about how to kill off Jane, as Julie had auditioned for Narrator too. Ironically, it was Julie who got the role of Sr. Mary Hubert in Nunsense last year that I auditioned for, and we had a running joke throughout the season that I was ready to jump into her role if she had an ‘accident’. For pics of the show click here. (I’m the one in black!)
The actual rehearsal was only for the 6 divas, so I didn’t get to meet the new cast (boys). We got our scores and assorted bits of extra music. I’m usually an alto, but Brad’s made me a bit of a floater, so when we’re singing in 2 parts, I’m in the altos with Julie, but when we split into 3 parts I go into the middle with Kayleen who shares the 2nd Soprano part with me.
As some songs go from 2 to 3 parts and back again, I tended to sway to the left when I was singing the alto part and sway to the right when doing the 2nd part so that I could hear the others singing. Kayleen did the same, swinging from 2nd sop to Soprano, so we dubbed ourselves the swingers!
This was the night of the lunar eclipse, and I made sure we had semi regular ‘moon breaks’ so we could see it and the red moon that resulted. It was really cool, and would have been even better if we were able to turn the theatre’s outside lights off, but we couldn’t so we had to hold up our hands to block the light.
We wound it up at about 9.30, after having gone through ‘Jacob and Sons’, ‘Any Dream will Do’ and ‘Joseph’s Coat’. We ended up singing most of the songs (very badly – as a send up) on the ride home.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Sunday 19th August
Reading back on what I’ve posted so far, I realised I had neglected to mention what part I was auditioning for! Joseph is a mainly male show, but the lead female role is the ‘Narrator’. In this production, Brad’s also putting in a small female chorus know as the ‘Dreamcoat Divas’ who’ll be doing the backup singing in close harmony. Naturally I was auditioning for narrator, but was happy to be a Diva failing that. (I’m a diva anyway: P)
Sunday was a cold, rainy, possibly drought-breaking kind of day, and come 6pm I had had my shower, was in my jammies ready for a night in when I got a call from Brad, asking me to come down to Sunnybank for a call-back for Narrator! Whooo- hoooo! I hurriedly made dinner, got dressed and put a face on. On the 45-minute drive down to the theatre I managed to do a half decent warm up and go through the Narrator’s songs.
I walked in and saw Jane. Bugger! She’s good; I don’t have a chance. Also auditioning was a girl called Bernadette, new to Sunnybank. Apparently, 16 girls auditioned for the part, now three of us were doing second auditions. We decided to do the audition in front of each other; I like to keep my enemies close ;)
When Brad called me earlier in the evening, I told him I was in my pyjamas. He jokingly said I should audition in them so I brought along my purple fuzzy slippers to wear in the audition as a nice compromise. The slippers had appeared in two previous Sunnybank productions so it was a bit of an in-joke to wear them, and I was really comfortable in them, although I almost lost my footing going down the stairs afterwards.
We each sang selections from the show, my fave being the ‘Prologue’. I think I did ok, couldn’t really fault my performance (which is really rare). We then got to do the one we all wanted to do, ‘Potiphar’, which I really hammed up, doing the 20’s accent.
That was about it, jokes got bounced around about kneecapping each other so we’d each get the part. Brad said he’d call that night, so off I drove back home and back into my jammies. About 10ish Brad called saying they were too tired to make a decision so they’d meet on Tuesday night and I’d be told then, but if it was any consolation, I was in the top two… I knew it – I’ll have to kneecap Jane after all!
The next evening…
I finally got the dreaded/ much anticipated phone call from Brad, and the winner is… Jane! Dammit, I knew I should have tripped her down the stairs after the audition. Oh well! At least I’m a Diva.
Reading back on what I’ve posted so far, I realised I had neglected to mention what part I was auditioning for! Joseph is a mainly male show, but the lead female role is the ‘Narrator’. In this production, Brad’s also putting in a small female chorus know as the ‘Dreamcoat Divas’ who’ll be doing the backup singing in close harmony. Naturally I was auditioning for narrator, but was happy to be a Diva failing that. (I’m a diva anyway: P)
Sunday was a cold, rainy, possibly drought-breaking kind of day, and come 6pm I had had my shower, was in my jammies ready for a night in when I got a call from Brad, asking me to come down to Sunnybank for a call-back for Narrator! Whooo- hoooo! I hurriedly made dinner, got dressed and put a face on. On the 45-minute drive down to the theatre I managed to do a half decent warm up and go through the Narrator’s songs.
I walked in and saw Jane. Bugger! She’s good; I don’t have a chance. Also auditioning was a girl called Bernadette, new to Sunnybank. Apparently, 16 girls auditioned for the part, now three of us were doing second auditions. We decided to do the audition in front of each other; I like to keep my enemies close ;)
When Brad called me earlier in the evening, I told him I was in my pyjamas. He jokingly said I should audition in them so I brought along my purple fuzzy slippers to wear in the audition as a nice compromise. The slippers had appeared in two previous Sunnybank productions so it was a bit of an in-joke to wear them, and I was really comfortable in them, although I almost lost my footing going down the stairs afterwards.
We each sang selections from the show, my fave being the ‘Prologue’. I think I did ok, couldn’t really fault my performance (which is really rare). We then got to do the one we all wanted to do, ‘Potiphar’, which I really hammed up, doing the 20’s accent.
That was about it, jokes got bounced around about kneecapping each other so we’d each get the part. Brad said he’d call that night, so off I drove back home and back into my jammies. About 10ish Brad called saying they were too tired to make a decision so they’d meet on Tuesday night and I’d be told then, but if it was any consolation, I was in the top two… I knew it – I’ll have to kneecap Jane after all!
The next evening…
I finally got the dreaded/ much anticipated phone call from Brad, and the winner is… Jane! Dammit, I knew I should have tripped her down the stairs after the audition. Oh well! At least I’m a Diva.
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