Woe is Me!

Well, we've had a week of music rehearsals and we're almost done learning the score. But Jesus Christ, this is hard music! After working on the extremely easy scores for Hair and Forbidden Planet, I think my music director muscles were getting soft. I had forgotten how hard the other Bill Finn scores were (March of the Falsettos, A New Brain). Our intrepid actors are charging ahead undaunted, but I can tell how hard they're working.

With some shows, I teach the music and it sounds great right away. Those are the shows with easy scores. With other shows -- the really fucking hard shows -- I teach the music, the actors all furrow their brows, the veins stand out in their foreheads, they say shit! a lot, they shake their heads, they frantically operate their digital recorders... and I know (and they know) they'll be doing lots of work outside of rehearsal getting comfortable with the music. Most of these songs have group singing in them, so there's a lot to learn. We start blocking Tuesday, so they have to be in control of their music by then.

But I'm not worried -- these are very talented people -- and luckily, most of the show will have fairly minimal staging (it's a spelling bee, after all!) so the crazy hard music can take up more of their brains for a while...

But I have to give a big shout-out to the cast for all their hard work. It's such a pleasure to be working on material this rich with people this talented and hard-working.

Don't worry, y'all. If the other Finn shows are any indicator, all the music will click soon and it will feel so absolutely right that you'll never forget it.

The adventure continues...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott