#13: The Gentlemen's Ploy, A Busy Month

This has been a busy month.

First, we interviewed another potential music director, Michelle. It turned out she was great, with lots of education, experience, contacts, and all that sort of stuff. Plus she was a really pleasant person. So we hired her on the spot and I couldn’t be more pleased.

And she will have a lot to do. Among other things, the music director has to listen to the auditions to judge the singing, find musicians for the orchestra, rehearse the orchestra, teach the songs to the singers, act as rehearsal pianist, and conduct the orchestra while playing the keyboard part. It’s a big job.

My next step was to talk to Dan, a potential orchestrator. I must admit that Dan and I did not quite see eye to eye. That is not too surprising, as vanishingly few people spend their days listening exclusively to pre-1940 musicals and jazz. But he is a personable fellow and after talking for an hour we worked out a plan. The instrumentation for the orchestra will be violin, cello, and piano plus one reed player doubling on clarinet, flute, and saxophone. (I realize this makes a very small “orchestra,” but it is a very small hall.) He will orchestrate two songs to make sure we’re on the same page, and we will see how it goes.

But because Dan is currently working on another show, he does not have time to get piano parts ready in time for the audition callbacks. So I have taken on that task, and it is not too onerous. Nonetheless, I decided I would let someone else round up props for the show, which I had originally planned to do.

Finally, this week we had a production meeting of the entire team—only Michelle had another rehearsal and couldn’t make it and Kristen, who will be coordinating the sword fight, is still on maternity leave and also couldn’t make it. But Matt, the director, and Meg, the stage manager, were there and I got to meet Mary, the costume designer, and Tasha, the choreographer, both of whom are wonderful and thoughtful and helpful and seem to know a whole lot about this theater racket.

We went over which songs would have dance breaks and which would not and then went over what the general look of the costumes will be and how it ties into the general feel of the show. Then all of them walked me through what I can expect at the auditions. One must admit that the fact that they all said to bring ibuprofen does give one pause.

And somehow, in the midst of this whirlwind of meetings and goings on, I managed to send out cards and put up decorations.

Sometimes I amaze myself.