Do we never learn?

We’ve screwed ourselves again. We (the Pineda foursome, of course) have scheduled a fundraising concert for Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church smack dab in the midst of rehearsals for two other productions, High School Musical and The Merry Widow. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. We’d just trot out our standard dog and pony show and add some spiced up banter. But no, we’ve promised them a theme concert. Namely, a best of Broadway concert spanning the last fifty years to commemorate the Church’s fiftieth anniversary. Clever, huh? I mean, a Church is celebrating its existence with an art form that was basically created by a group it denounces as sinners and sodomites (I’m talking about the gays, for those who didn’t get my subtle clue). Well, it’s not like the Catholic Church is exactly a stranger to hypocrisy. Anyway, back to topic. I know what you’re thinking, “A concert of Broadway hits doesn’t sound that difficult to pull off.” Well you'd be wrong. First off, we are expecting an audience of mainly senior citizens, so nothing too pop or unfamiliar. Then we have to make sure we evenly represent the decades following 1958. FYI, the bulk of Rodgers & Hammerstein was composed before 1960. And don’t even get me started on the barren wasteland that was Broadway in the 1990’s. Then throw in the fact that we won’t get to rehearse until probably the day before since our calendars are full of rehearsals for other shows. It’s going to be a hot mess.

I wasn’t even worried until just yesterday. I decided to get a head start and begin memorizing the “easy” stuff, the stuff I thought I already knew. Turns out I don’t really know the classics all that well. I mean, everyone knows “Some Enchanted Evening,” right? Go ahead, try singing it. I’ll wait. . . OK, did it go something like “Some enchanted evening, you me see a stranger, la, la, la, la, la, la…” pathetically trailing off into nonsense syllables? Exactly! Everyone thinks they know the classics, but turns out everyone knows the first lines of the classics. And damn, those classics all have, like, four verses.

To please the senior masses, against our wills we’ve included some totally cheese ball songs. Val refused to sing “People” (“I don’t want to be compared to Babs!”) so to compromise, had to bite the bullet and take on “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” It gets better. Since she took it for the team on that one, I volunteered to sing two of musical theater’s all time cheese-tastic classics, “Memory” and “Send in the Clowns.” Hell has just frozen over. Oh well, it all benefits the opera company so I guess we’ll just have to suck it up. Hopefully, no one we know will come hear us. So keep it on the DL.