Of activity. Of snow. Of idiotic executive orders.
I am not ignoring what’s going on in my country right now, but I don’t think this post is where I’m gonna talk about it.
Anyway, a lot going on and I had to make a list because I’m a little behind.
The Savoynet shows are cast! We are delighted with the results!
| The Zoo – Wednesday, 6 August 2025 Andrew Smith, stage director Marisa Green, musical director | HMS Pinafore – Thursday, 14 August 2025 Rick Joyce, stage director Eric Peterson, musical director |
| Aesculapius Carboy: Jon Roselle Eliza Smith: Laura Kroh Thomas Brown: Laurence Cox Laetitia: Ali Roselle Mr. Grinder: Eric Peterson (and a large wonderful chorus) | Sir Joseph Porter: Martin Everall Captain Corcoran: Rick DuPuy Ralph Rackstraw: Chazmond Peacock Dick Deadeye: Tyler Parker Boatswain: Daniel Miller Carpenter: Andrew Smith Josephine: Lauren Cupples Cousin Hebe: Sarah Robinson Little Buttercup: Manya Gaver-Holmes (and a large wonderful chorus) |
Lots of people from my Ruddigore two years ago, because we love them and they’re good. Also, you’ll notice my name’s in there twice. I was going to do chorus for Zoo anyway, and then I decided at the last minute to film an audition for Grinder and I got it! Grinder is Laetitia’s grumpy father and shows up 30 minutes in, being all snarly and has no character arc, except he gets paid off at the end, allowing the Roselles to get married (again). It’ll be a hoot. My first named role, I think, since the 2009 Grand Duke… and that character was The Herald, so now I actually have a name. (a hilarious one for a gay guy)
We’ll be doing Zoo and Pinafore in (separate) concerts this spring in NYC as dry runs, stay tuned for more info. This might be the first year that all of our leads are American* (even though the company is pretty solidly half American and half British, with a smattering of Canadians and Australians and other world citizens). So far, if anyone’s been muttering angrily about this, I haven’t heard it. It certainly wasn’t the goal, it just worked out that way.
* OK, Andrew’s Scottish, but he lives in Kansas.
That was the frantic focus for a while there, and was finally resolved. I had (have) a list a mile long of other things to work on, but this past week I felt crummy and quickly realized it was allergies. In February… go figure. I think it’s mold. Anyway, I can usually confirm it by just looking at my glasses – if they’re covered with little specks of some sort, that’s a confirmation. It got bad enough that it settled in my chest and I called in sick on Friday. Kind of thinking, ‘eh, I’ll take a sick day, but I’ll just get started on weekend stuff’. Nope. I spent the day in the recliner, surprise-napping (‘Huh? Whu? Oh crap I fell asleep’) and enjoying another Jack Reacher book. Luckily the body repaired itself enough that Saturday I could do laundry, etc.
A fun active weekend, which is still happening because today’s a holiday. My buddy Saffron, who’s a local pianist and accompanist, had put out the word that she wanted to do an unrehearsed read through of Gianni Schicchi on Saturday. When I talk to civilians about opera, I often surprise them with the news that some opera is hilarious, and tell them the plot of Gianni Schicchi.
When I showed up at Peabody in fall 1985, a conflicted grad student, I asked for a meeting with the opera director. “Hi, I’m a horn major, but I also sing and my undergrad voice teacher told me I should really keep going. I’ve done a lot of theater, and I was wondering if I could audition for those teeny bass roles that you don’t have enough people to cover.” So I did and immediately got cast as the lawyer in Gianni Schicchi, which we were doing in English. It was supposed to be part of a double bill with Suor Angelica, just with piano, but my buddy Cyrus took it on as a conducting project and we ended up doing it a few months later than planned, with full orchestra, on the Tuesday noon series.
This was so great. First of all, I managed to impress the voice majors with my sight-singing in the first rehearsal. (I also got a voice teacher, started studying with our Nella.) Second, when you rehearse a show, particularly a funny one, everyone becomes friends, and the end result of that is I ended up hanging out with the singers, not the horn players, for pretty much the rest of my time at Peabody. (probably not a good idea politically, but I wasn’t really thinking along those lines) The show itself was really terrific, a delightful experience.
So, anyway, I perked right up at Saffron’s offer, but was like, I’ve only sung this in English and probably don’t have time to work this up. But she came back and offered me the role of the doctor (a different role, but equally teeny), and I said ‘sure’. Confident in my musical ability to pick things up quickly, I printed out my pages from the score and went, ‘oh shit’. I’d forgotten that singing in Italian is its own struggle, one that I hadn’t tackled since my twenties. But I hacked away at it – at least my role was short short short.
So, Saturday night, we met up at the Opera America center (where I’d never been, although I knew it existed) and sat around in chairs and read through it! Some fun things – our Schicchi was Todd Thomas, who I’d worked with in Philadelphia doing opera, but hadn’t seen since – and our Nella was Charlotte Detrick, a friend-of-a-friend through many friends who I finally got to meet. Everyone else was friendly, fun and very talented. I kind of botched my role when we got to it, but not in an ‘everything comes to a screeching halt’ way, and it wasn’t a big deal.
Afterward, a bunch of us went to the Triple Crown right next door (the site of many a post-concert gathering back in my Big Apple Corps days when we did concerts at FIT) and had food and drinks, and I got into serious discussions about Sondheim with Max and Christina. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to hang out with opera people!
Anyway, I hope I get to do that sort of thing again, and have more time to prepare. I could whip out my Figaro gardener again.
Yesterday, I managed to get my ass down to Brooklyn in the pouring rain to see my buddies Chaz and Luisa in Company at the Heights Players. As I was telling my new opera buddies, I’d been meh about Company when all I knew was the cast album – but then I saw the John Doyle production and was like, “oh. OH. I get it now!” Some songs fall flat for me (“Sorry/Grateful” is great textually, but it’s a yucky song) but mostly it’s a great score and I’d forgotten how good the book scenes were. This is an excellent community theater production, with just enough set and a four-piece orchestra. Musically, it was very tight. The audience is configured in a U around the playing space, and the staging played to all sides. I was particularly charmed during “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” when, during the “knock knock” section, with every line, they rotated their trio and there was always one of the ladies pointed at our side. So one line was, “oh, there’s the high vocal line”, then “oh, there’s the low vocal line”, and then “oh, there’s the middle line”.
As I told Chaz later, I cried at the end. A show about marriage hits in unexpected ways when your own marriage, which was everything the show references, was hard-fought and treasured and is now a memory.
There’s one more weekend, so go see it if you can!
I haven’t checked off everything on the list, but must get on with my day. More soon!
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