From There to Here

Production week is always torture. Everything is rushing to be completed and you have an impossibly large number of things to make sure are set and ready for opening night, but thanks to the Gods of Theatre (tentatively named Stephen Sondheim), it all comes off.

I must admit that earlier this week my pants were a little moist. My band were not up to scratch because we had scarily few orchestra rehearsals. They worked really hard and we rehearsed before and after performances to fix up the messy bits and by opening night I was much more comfortable. I always pride myself on having a good band to support the cast, because I know as a cast member there is nothing worse than putting in heaps of work and having it trodden on by a bad band.

Thinking back to my earlier days of theatre, while the procedures are more familiar there is still that excitement there of the first rehearsals and cracking the spine of the music. The rehearsals endure as you battle with harmonies and dance routines, and then are insanely asked to do both at the same time, or are doing the asking. Suddenly more people are showing up and you end up with bits of wood to walk around and interact with (hopefully not your other actors), and you’re donning your oldest clothes to do a spot of painting. Orchestra rehearsals begin and then suddenly one night you find yourself doing it all again in the dark trying to find the pools of light to be in. Everyone hurries around trying to do 20 things in the “five minutes” before we start the run, and it’s a thrilling time. Every time.

Now being half way through the unusually short season, the feedback has been great and people really seem to be enjoying this new material. I certainly am loving getting to play the score each night with the band.

Whilst playing a song during a particularly stressful rehearsal earlier this week I took the time to realise that what I was doing was what I had always wanted to do since my early days of being a rehearsal pianist. What I originally saw as a pipe dream had come true much sooner than I had expected. It made me think of what it felt like to be starting out, and the pure magic of it then. If this is the progress I’ve made in that short time, I’m very excited to see what the future holds.