The last of our first chunk of full rehearsals. We’d blocked everything for the men’s chorus, but were now finding that we couldn’t remember which entrance was for which scene and so on. We’d completely forgotten some stuff – mostly because we’d blocked it, then moved on to other stuff and never had a chance to write it down. Kelsey, longtime Savoynet stalwart and our asst. director, started creating and maintaining charts of our positions for entrances and on stage, much like my buddy Liz did last year for the Ruddigore bridesmaids. We drilled some more, things were falling into place. Unlike last year, there was very little dancing – a lot of standing in lines and hand-ography. The toughest movement we had came in the ‘nautical’ part of Wand’ring Minstrel, which happened on top of one of the toughest things we had to sing – so that was the part I found myself drilling when back in my hotel room.

At lunchtime, I’d forgotten to sign up for one of the sandwiches, so I went down the hill to the marketplace and tried, for the first time, the Buxton Pudding Emporium (‘pudding’ in the British sense, meaning, generally, ‘dessert’). I had a toasted bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese, which was delicious and just the right amount of food. (I was now several weeks into starting a weight-loss drug, so I was always very aware of my appetite, because it could be anything from ‘meh’ to ‘starving’.)

After rehearsal, some more cabaret rehearsal. I ran my song again. Audrey was singing “The Ballad of Jane Doe” from a musical I’d never heard of, which sounded like a spooky hoot, Ride the Cyclone. It had a backup chorus, so I was part of that.

Matt H had invited me and others over to their shared house for dinner, so on the way back to my hotel I picked up some wine and fizzy water to bring. After a chill-out, I headed over. Matt was sharing a house with Audrey, Andrew and Rick J. Rick was off at the Cheshire Cheese with other friends of ours, but us four sat around drinking and chatting (and cooking). We were waiting for the Cheshire Cheese crowd to show up to start eating, but they continued to not show up, so we finally ate (pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, really nice). They finally showed up way late, apologetically, and there was some more chat before Tobin and I left and walked back down the Broad Walk together before heading to our respective haunts.

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Sunday, the chorus had the day off, although the principals were rehearsing. (Again, since the last four shows I did were as MD, I myself had not had that Sunday off in years and years.) There was a G&S-themed church service that a lot of our crowd were singing in, but I didn’t go. I took the morning to drop off laundry again and review music and blocking to see what I was missing and where I was screwing up. (I think this was the day that I realized that the chorus response in Criminal Cried that I thought was “her cheerful tale you can’t assail” was really “her terrible tale you can’t assail”. I’d been mishearing it for my whole life. And I’ve conducted this show. Anyway…)

I’d been invited to join some others for afternoon tea after the church service. It was supposed to be at the No. 6 Tea Rooms, right around the corner from me, which I’d already enjoyed a couple of times, but it was booked up, so we went to the Palace Hotel instead. The Palace is high up on a hill, looming over Buxton, and is very fancy looking inside and out, but Bunthorne Boy and the Viking stayed there last year and said it wasn’t really all that. But sure, let’s have tea. It was Matt, Audrey, Marisa and I and tea turned out to be a pretty substantial meal. Three courses, all gotten from a buffet station manned by a helpful server. I forget what I had as a starter (soup, maybe), but they had big hunks of meat sliced for the main (I had turkey, and Audrey had a vegetarian curry gnocchi dish that she said was really good) and we all had apple crumble with custard. So, not what I was expecting, but quite nice.

We had our final American cabaret rehearsal, and I discovered I had not much voice – so did some warming up after the fact. Back to the room, to clean up and get pretty, then to the Old Clubhouse, where I had a cider with the Australians before the Savoynetters all met outside to quietly take our picture outside the opera house as we always do.

Then off to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner. We do this every festival, and it can be a lot of fun (or not a lot of fun depending on who you end up sitting with). Food is adequate, but there is lots of it, and I ended up at a good table of people this year. We had toasts and sang “Hail Poetry” as always. I bought a bottle of wine for three of us, and then someone else bought the second bottle of wine. (I kept running into ‘blush pinot grigio’ there, one of these bottles was that. It was really good!)

Meanwhile, one of the professional shows was happening in the opera house, and after that show, we’d be doing the American cabaret. So we Americans filed over to the Pavilion Gardens and got beverages and waited for everyone else to show up. (I was feeling more tipsy than appropriate for a performance, so got seltzer.) My buddy Stephen Turnbull, the festival adjudicator, introduced Carol, who got us started. I led off with “They All Laughed”. I’d done a bit more warmup – it’s not a hard song vocally, but the key was about a step higher than I’d have liked. My big fear was mixing up the words, but I DID NOT, and it went just fine.

Other numbers: Matt did a big-voiced “When You’re Good to Mama”, Andrew did a lovely “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me”, and Audrey, Carol and Kay did “Fugue for Tinhorns”. (It wasn’t specifically a gender-switching cabaret, but we had a lot of that.) Rick J did a funny “On the Street Where You Live” where he made it clear through actions and costume that he was a stalker. And we finished with Ashley’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”, with us singing backup.

Tired, headed back to the room for biscuits and Belgian chocolates. My buddy Celia always brings over many boxes of Belgian chocolates to sell as a fundraiser, but always just gives one to me. It’s a great way to end a day, have a couple of those. (Actually, I finally finished my box yesterday, here at home.)