I have a practice with ADORABLE!! the pit musical house team who hosts pitch.
Today's rehearsal was pretty special for me because it was the first time I was going to be able to work with Ashley Ward. I've seen her around the pit and I've heard amazing things so I really wanted to see what it was like to work with her.
The rehearsal was basically doing opening numbers and sets. Adorable! has never done a set. So, we were a little hesitant but pumped to do it.
As a musical improviser, I find I have defensive mechanisms. There is a hesitancy there and I have to get rid of it. I usually play agressive but here I kind of maneuvred a kind of background support style. Which was fun and great but I need to change that.
The first set, opening number was orphans on a balloon. The next initiation put it into a flashback kind of form. Ash said we could have just stayed on the balloon and it would be what she calls a lifeboat form. Technically a monoscene but if you leave that location, it's more or less permanent. It was a story of how these orphans were treated badly by a woman who owned a hot air balloon. I was a sheriff who helped the mother of an orphan who was in the house. As a sheriff, I wanted to have a balloon ride across the world.
Here's my opinion on this set. It was great fun and I had a good time. But, there was a lot on the plate. I find that when the settings and the circumstances go pretty crazy within the first scenes. Then the whole show just thematically runs that gauntlet. You really can't go from crazy to realistic. You just keep going crazier. I personally, had a part in that. Why would a sheriff want a hot air balloon ride? I also played a ghost who was murdered. Entertaining, absolutely. There is something about those first scenes that trigger the show. I will jump on the crazy train quick, because it has to be ridden not stopped. I just hope those decisions are made because "That would be fun" as opposed to "That would be funny".
The second set, opening number was a jail where convicts enjoyed their life. Then the mayor decided to let all prisoners go. Same kind of crazy thing. There's two ways to take the convicts enjoying their life. A) Prison in this world is fun and amazing B) These prisoners only perceive prison as being fun and amazing. Which is funner, who knows? Both could be amazing. But, option A sets up a world for the mayor to make that decision. Option B that probably wouldn't happen.
The last set, was a "Sell your Soul" song opening about people selling food and kind of annoying people. I kind of found the "Sell Your Soul" line to kind of negate the lines before. I had initiated the fact that we were all just lower class and had families to feed. So, the theme of "Sell your Soul" had to be justified in some way. When I think soul, I think devil, but my mind kind of goes into "Too Obvious" land so I'm less likely to initiate that. Second scene was a girl and guy. Guy is poor. Girl accepts him for who he is but the Guy is still feeling sorry for himself. That was kind of a perfect protag scene because in my mind, I know that either the Guy is going to be rich and the girl will break up with him, or in an attempt to get rich he loses the girl, or something along those lines. Definite trope. The next scene was how Vogue created a quiz to get women to want more toys and find value in things. Great scene and song. I thought it was kind of a charm scene, because they are putting something into the world, the story is of the couple. I thought it could have been great for the girl to make the decision during the song, because Scene 4 (the bitch of all musical improv sets) would be her breaking up with him. Or better yet him reading it and then breaking up with her. Million possibilities hindsight is 20/20. I literallly hardly played a thing in this.
I need to buck up my aggression. I love this team. I need to contribute more to the sets. I think that there might have been hesitancy because I think in a few scenes the song had been about something other than the relationship. That kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you do a song about a Portal over there, or Playing Guitar, or I hate canada, it really doesn't feel that great.
Ashley was a great coach. Very clear and concise and this was the most we've played together and we really needed that because we got a bloody show coming up!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment