Yup we're going to be 60s hippies...man

Hi theatre luvvies...

I'm not going to be writing any new posts over the next two weeks as I am going on holiday...a bit of R and R is needed as I have been working hard since January without a real break at all.

Our rehearsals for Jesus Christ Superstar are in full swing now and we have started the choreography.  Last night was a particularly sweaty evening in the school hall, and I had to come home and have a shower afterwards.  It was like a full Zumba workout!

Here are my highlights so far:

• Trying to learn the choreography for the Superstar number with Bob and Margaret - each of us saying 'I'll follow you' last night - not sure who followed who in the end??
• Learning a few aqua aerobics moves for What's the Buzz...
• Our Director's innuendos especially directed towards the younger male members of the cast...its the 'colgate' smiles that do it for him I think
• Judas nattily attired in a waistcoat that he last wore when he was 17 and it still fits him
• Stage speaking ie silently having conversations about absolutely nothing whilst Judas and Jesus square up to each other front of 'stage'

We learned that we are to be dressed late sixties - i.e quite hippy in attire so I am wondering what look we will go for...

I am hoping we can look something like this!  ie hippy but cool...

Or this would be acceptable

I found this which is a real 60's photo of demonstrators but could be straight out of JCS don't you think?

Here we all are just chillin' man and listening to Jesus...

 

Please please nothing like this....

Speak to you all again when I get back from my holibobs....! Bye bye from the soon to be suntanned Diva....

The view from the Alto corner

So we are now into rehearsals for JCS - I am going to refer to it as JCS from now on so I don't have to keep typing it.  If you are wondering how the auditions went I'll tell you - true to my word I screwed it up as usual but managed to get my head back together and won the part of the Maid.  I googled this part but not a lot came up - she is referred to as Maid by the Fire - and that is about it!  Anyway, I get my 15 seconds of fame so I am happy...and hopefully I can pick up a few more lines here and there.  I am just glad to be in it and having fun again!

We had our first music rehearsal on Monday and it was great to be back with the gang again - I am an alto and we tend to be fewer in number than sopranos so we have to belt it out a bit  to be heard and stick together.  I find as an alto that we often get quite tricky parts to sing and every year we have the usual problem - can we hit the right first note?  Because if we get put off by sopranos we are stuffed and then we all just look desperately at each other and try to listen in to whoever may remotely be near the note....sometimes I just die laughing as some of the alto girls make me giggle so much - especially my theatre gal mates Cat, Carrie and Jo.

Altos often get called upon to add a bit of a boost to some of the male numbers in a show - this was the case in Fiddler on the Roof when we were on stage as 'knitting women' during the big Lachaim number.  I used to love doing this part of the show, as it was such a laugh.  There was one moment particularly in this number when we had to 'freeze' and I usually caught the eye of Jo - who always makes me laugh - so I had to look over her head every night. I didn't learn to knit but I sewed a sock to death the week of the show.

I personally love the sound of an alto voice - as I think the sound comes from deeper down - i.e. not so much your head voice...I may be wrong on that one not being a music professional! Feel free to correct me!

I researched on the internet about altos - and thought I would share with you some famous alto singers....

Judy Garland

Wow what a voice - like velvet - she had a range of two octaves.  
Although known for her emotive singing, her technique was brilliant.

Adele

Adele has brilliant control over the dynamics of her voice, being able to sing soft and airy when it suits the delivery, but switching back to a fuller tone with speed and aplomb. I like the emotion she puts into her singing.

 

 Cher

She sure can belt them out - and in true alto style she likes a crazy wig.  Apparantly in the 60s her secretary had to write to reassure fans she wasn't a man.

 Karen Carpenter

Is she your guilty pleasure?  Yes probably a little naff to admit you like The Carpenters these days, but you've got to admit she had one hell of a voice - often described as like chocolate and cream.

Kelly Clarkson

Very strong in the mid range and a true belter but she can also do a great head voice and falsetto!

I'll try and get a picture of some of us alto girls at rehearsal tonight -and maybe the Maid will get to sign her line tonight as well - you never know....

What about you? What alto signers do you like?

How to win a NODA award - and yes we did!

Hello fellow theatre luvvies,

Glad my first post was so well received - this brings me great joy folks!

Did I mention that my musical theatre company BSMTC is an award winning company?  No?  Ok well I am telling you now - we won a NODA award for best musical in District 7 South East, two weeks ago for our production of Carousel last November!!  To the uninitiated who don't know what  a NODA award is - its like the Oscars for amateur theatre. Yes it really is.  The National Operatic and Dramatic Association NODA   provides support and advice to amateur theatre groups.  Every year we invite our NODA regional rep to come along and review our performances, and we all wait with bated breath to see what they write as their opinion really matters to us.

I was especially proud that we were nominated for this award as I took on the role of Production Manager for Carousel - well actually, I was co-erced into it by our President who plied me with coffee, beer etc until I gave in.  He is very good at getting people to do things they never set out to do!  It was a very busy role and I had to learn a lot but I am glad I did it and I had a great team to help me. Although there were moments when I thought 'what the hell have I taken on'?

This is the award -shame its not a trophy!

Which brings me to the reason why I think we won this award - teamwork.  We are of course a fantastic company with a supreme amount of talent - that's a given. (I am not at all biased!) However, to make an amateur production work it involves a lot more than just the cast - you need a great stage crew, a wardrobe manager, a props manager, someone to handle publicity and marketing, front of house staff, raffle ticket sellers. I could go on....When I took on the production manager role I did not foresee the amount of work that we would need to do - and it is all done voluntarily by dedicated people most of whom have full time day jobs. It does always seem to be the really busy people who get these jobs doesn't it?

I was very lucky with this show in getting a really great team together - firstly this show had a big costume quota and a big cast including 2 sets of children ( 12 in all) . Our wardrobe manager Cat took this job on and was fantastic - she was so organised and patient - and she kept her cool at all times.  Costume is a tricky area - everyone wants to look their best on stage and so when you hire costumes as we do they can be badly fitting and in need of some work. In fact the area of costume is a whole other blog post - I will definitely write something on that.

To give you some idea of how many costumes there were including a bear - a BEAR people - this is the opening number with the whole cast on the stage..

  and here are a few more images to show you including the boys as sailors...

I had a brilliant props team - my lovely mum Diane and a lovely lady called Jenny. Now my mum never does a job by halves -she has to do a job well or not at all - which is why I asked her to do it!  She still has not forgiven me!  Anyway as you may or may not know Carousel features a lot of clams - a huge amount of clams - as we all go on a clambake and even sing about it.  So where were we going to get that many clams?  Answer - my mum made them from Fimo and painted them...definitely worthy of a NODA award all by themselves I think you will agree?

You would never know these were not real clams would you?

Our other amazing team members were our stage crew and I was lucky to find a set of people with experience who were willing to get stuck in. We handled all the publicity ourselves and the programme and flyer was designed by the son of one of our members.

Of course you cannot win a NODA award without a great director and MD - and we have both. Boy, do they work us hard sometimes but it is sooo worth it. We started our run feeling confident and we all knew what we were doing, plus the singing and music was fantastic.  Some members of the audience said 'You'll Never Walk Alone', sung in the last scene gave them goosebumps and made them cry.

So to finish this post I thought I'd share with you the picture of us all at the NODA awards - we did a NODA selfie!  This was after we won and we were on a massive high...tonight is our AGM and we are going to show the award to our members so we are feeling very proud of ourselves.

The theatre luvvies celebrate their win