In any musical, whilst the singing is very important, even the Musical Director would agree that the acting is quite important too. So last Thursday, the key cast members gathered at the producer's house for a read-through. The weather was lovely at that point, so in fact we gathered in his garden, amongst the sheep, geese and ants (most of those could only be heard in the background, to be honest). We were offered wine, coffee, elderflower cordial, and Lou arrived with a selection of nipples (something to do with autocorrect, I was told) that was transferred into bowls and taken outside for all of us to partake in when we weren't reading our lines. And she brought her tambourine. Collection of personal props is a key skill and Lou has clearly decided to master it early.
There was to be no singing today, all of us sitting in a circle, along with Martin, Ali and your blogger, eavesdropping for England, or anyone else who happens to be reading this. Sister Sarah started us off with a lengthy speech, full of interruptions from stage directions, though she had to be halted quite early as her accent was drifting, possibly into Cornish.
As the reading continued, Ali observed that we didn't have an Angie the Ox yet. But wait - we do, Andrew steps into the breach - one of the perks of being the producer! There's been no-one cast for Brannigan yet, either, so Luke read that part.
Having said there would be no singing tonight, Follow the Fold was sung by some of the cast, with background drone tastefully provided by Martin, Lou and Neil.
Then there was a query over the American pronunciation of certain words, mostly Biblical ones. Ali is going to have to do some research. Also on the nature of a Studebaker, to make sense of one lyric. Perhaps a picture in the programme? Tim provided a gravel-voiced Big Jule, pronounced Julie, which simply added to the amusement value.
A few errors were spotted in the script - typos, mostly, although in one place the speaker hadn't changed though it made no sense unless the speaker *did* change! There was also a two-page piece of dialogue that appeared to be there purely to include one joke, but eventually we reached the end of Act One, with additional background noises provided by tractors and bicycle bells; not very New York, but we coped. Does the action make sense to everyone so far? Good!
Brief pause to top up glasses before we start on Act Two. There was some discussion about the usefulness of the role of the waiter, especially given that we are short of men. The scene in which Arvide sings his song was whisked through, although the song lyrics (no, we didn't sing them) were mentioned. No-one seems sure what the bit about sheep's eyes and a lickerish tooth was all about. Would this be another opportunity for programme illustration? It was suggested that Loesser included them in the script as part of a bet (memo to self: must check that on wikipedia, that fount of all knowledge).
Then on to the crap game, where Big Jule and Nathan growl their way through some double entendres punctuated on this occasion by a very English 'if you'll pardon my saying'. I know the musical is meant to be funny, but the cast spent quite a lot of time rehearsing the laughing! Still, best to get it out if the way now, rather than corpsing on opening night.
Nine o'clock was marked, as usual, by Andrew's phone chirruping.
Because of the singing range required, we are actually having our Nicely testify in a spoken fashion, and then Nathan doing the sung version. This makes some of the lines a little off and Ali is going to have to tweak them a bit. Martin suggested that we could sing Sit Down at this point, being such a fan of the way we can sing it at the moment, but Ali said not, on the grounds that it was getting cold by then. Which was possibly true. However, she did want to discuss the look of some of the characters, which had us in fits of giggles, particularly when Sarah and Adelaide have visions of what their chaps will be like. Nathan is likely to have moustache, though Ian has been forbidden from growing one. More giggles.
Some general notes from Ali before we finished. Accents need to be perfected and consistent, especially since Sky seemed to have a South African connection at one point and Sister Sarah cannot fall back on her Penzance roots even if she did have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower. Everyone needed to be quicker on their cues, to pick up the pace generally and create a better flow. Adelaide seemed to have modelled herself on Karen, from Will and Grace. Amanda has never seen Will and Grace, so this was news to her, but I am lending her the first series so she can at least see what we're all on about. Holiday dates need to be forwarded to Andrew as soon as possible so that he can work out some sort of rehearsal schedule - when there are 15 people to take into account, this is easier said than done. In the meantime, lines need to be learned now. And for some people, that's a lot of lines. Next rehearsal for the cast - September!
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