Rehearsal hell

My inner monologue (minus the heels)
after this weekend's rehearsals.

Good thing I was able to cram in some quality drinking time before the weekend, because Pirates hell began Friday night with rehearsals for our Young Artists’ production.  Thankfully, I was spared the longer rehearsal period because Juan and Val opted to take the lead on this production.  I needed some much-deserved R&R after idiotically volunteering to direct and choreograph both of last season’s operas, La Traviata and The Bat.  It seemed like a fun idea at the time - at least until around the fifth or sixth weekend of reverse commuting to NJ for rehearsals.  Will I ever learn?  I doubt it.

For this highly abridged version of Pirates of Penzance, I was relegated to accompanying and conducting the “orchestra” - that is, if you consider an out-of-tune piano and a violin an “orchestra.”  But we sounded lovely anyway, thank you very much.  Remember, it’s about quality, dear readers, not quantity.



You’d think the weekend before opening - not to mention after several weeks of rehearsals - the cast would at least have a perfunctory knowledge of the script and score.  I thought wrong.  I won’t name names in order to protect the ignorant, um, I mean innocent, but this has got to be the worst prepared cast we’ve had in the history of our ten-plus years of producing opera. 

Rehearsals started in October.  How is it possible not to know your lines and music after two months of rehearsal?  Even worse, then have the nerve to giggle about it onstage while giving us a half-assed apology.  Back in ancient times, when I was performing in regional summer stock, we would mount five full-length shows in six weeks.  Granted, some of the shows sucked, but we at least knew our lines and blocking.



Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but then I think of our Major General.  She learned all her lines plus an extremely difficult patter song in two weeks (the original actor dropped out of the show unexpectedly).

Sometimes I get the feeling our kids - not all, but some - don’t really care about the show.  They just want to be front and center.  They want the accolades but don’t want to put in the effort to earn them.  To those few, I say “good luck” with that philosophy in the real world.  To the rest, I say “thank you” for putting up with the posers and for having to sit through our yelling and screaming and scolding.



And people wonder why we’re always so irritable right before a show opens.

Rant over - until next rehearsal.