Merry Sepcember everyone! No, that isn't a typo. KTB has had a bit of a mind flip and now we're all in a bit of a time slip. I'd say that nothing will ever be the same, but it's all just par for the course around here... Welcome back to another block of rehearsals at KTB Music Theatre Chorus!
Tonight's rehearsal was largely a run-through of the chorus pieces for our concerts on Friday and Saturday evening, but it turns out that Katy has been schem- I mean, diligently planning ahead since our (quite frankly, incredible) concerts in June. I'll come back to that. Let's start with a very quick, non-set-list-spoiling recap of the all-chorus concert pieces we worked through tonight.
First up, our sweet/mellow/emotional pieces. "How Does a Moment Last Forever?" (Beauty and the Beast), "Light" (Next to Normal), "The Human Heart" (Once On This Island), and "Suddenly Seymour" (Little Shop of Horrors) are all blending and soaring in the appropriate places.
We also have our bouncy, fun numbers. "Back in Time" (Back to the Future), "Jeepers Creepers" (Going Places), "Do-Re-Mi" (The Sound of Music), and "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?" (Fisherman's Friend) are all settled into our heads and causing outbreaks of seat-dancing. And giggling, in the case of that last one. Can we please get a KatyCam so the audience can understand?
(Writer casually ducks a metaphorical flying object.)
I must admit, those are two very broad categories, and I could make arguments to move a few of them into the other side. All of our soloists for these pieces have been working hard, and sound amazing. Speaking of soloists...
In important breaking news: "One Day More" (Les Misérables) finally has a full cast! Everyone give them a round of applause! Please also bear in mind that these are 'section swapped' solos, so there is an additional level of difficulty involved, particularly for our Cosette and Marius. They're not the same lines note-wise, so they're really fighting muscle memory here, and still doing brilliantly.
Our final piece of the evening was a quick run-through of our traditional (very) last-minute concert addition: "Time Warp", from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We have a Dolly Parton song in the lineup for our semi-chorus pieces, which has now become our tribute to her life and legend, and now we're performing this in honour of the late Tim Curry. It is a real testament to the lasting success of the character he originated - and the musical itself - that we didn't need music for this one. Even our youngest members knew all the words and delivery. Will there be dance moves happening in the audience? We certainly hope so - dear reader, consider this your slight advance notice to look up a video and get practicing! It's just a jump to the left...
This isn't our complete set list, not by a long way! We have a fantastic line-up of solos, duets, and semi-chorus pieces that will absolutely blow you away. We haven't had chance to hear them all, but we know our chorus members are a talented lot, and we are definitely looking forward to a big singalong on at least one of them (judging by the sudden and gleeful volume increase as soon as we were allowed to join in).
Now, let's get back to that scheme concocted by our Katy. We were handed a stack of music on arrival - not uncommon, although there was a slight moment of panic that these were intended for the weekend concerts - and then, we saw it. The name of a certain reindeer. I checked my watch, but no, it was still 3 September. "Uh, Katy? It's September?" said absolutely everybody, and then we collectively schemed to put off actually touching the songs for as long as possible by requesting re-runs and asking lots of questions.
Performers' Festive Season tends to start much earlier than you might expect. TV holiday specials are filmed in summer, pantos are cast and go into rehearsals months in advance, music needs to be practiced long before performance, and a lot of us are absolutely fed up of the festive season before December even arrives. But the show must go on, and on, and on... etcetera. This was a very quick round of "So, You Think You Can Sight-Read?" (The answer is still "no", in my case.)
Our first look ahead to our festive shows was "Rudolph", which was originally recorded by Robbie Williams. This might actually break the record for page count here at MTC. 40 pages. That's a four, then a zero. It goes pretty fast, so there's going to be a lot of frantic page-turning going on in the next (checks calendar) three months. From what we've heard so far about our upcoming festive concerts, this one is going to be an absolute show-stopper of amazing sound and adorable-ness.
Next up, a festive classic: "Sleigh Ride" (The Ronettes) was a semi-chorus piece from last year that has returned for the whole chorus to bop along to. Pay attention, everyone, because some of those line swaps will trip you up if you're not concentrating!
The next two songs actually have absolutely nothing to do with any sort of winter festival, but they do help to stop a set list from becoming annoyingly jingle-bell heavy. "White Winter Hymnal" (Fleet Foxes) is another semi-chorus piece from last year that is making a return to add a little bit of a creepy vibe to proceedings (telling scary stories is a traditional festive activity, especially popular in the Victorian era), and "Somewhere Only We Know" (Keane) was recorded by Lily Allen to join the pantheon of songs that we now associate with the seasonal advertising of a well-known high street retailer. It is also a very pretty number, and judging from the ripple of appreciative noises that went around the room, we're on board.
You will notice, as we did, that one song was not handed out in this first stack of glitter-tinged music. "No Elf?! No ELF?! NO ELF??!! NO ELF!!??" rang out around the room (and yes, you can sing that, as proven by one of our Sop 1s). "It's not Christmas without the elf!" came a vehement wail from the alto side of the room, to a chorus of agreement. This writer suspects that this was the point at which Katy decided to throw us all out ASAP, and that the semi-chorus run-throughs for those staying behind were just a convenient reason to clear the room...
In short: two weeks off is entirely too long, and we really missed our weekly dose of singing and laughter. If you want to come along and hear the results of all this hard work, you can see us perform at Much Hoole Village Hall tonight, as of when this post is uploaded (Friday 4 September), or tomorrow night (Saturday 5 September) at our home space in Chorley Theatre's Studio. While the title and theme of the show stays the same, there will be slightly different set lists at each evening due to soloist availability, so you might even want to come along to both!
No doubt the blog posts from here out are going to be slightly tinsel-strewn. I will let you know, dear reader, when the elf makes an appearance. But first, we have two concerts to enjoy! A full recap of the shows will be up on this blog as soon as I can pull my thoughts together. We're all so excited... let's do this!
Written by Aeryn Isherwood
