A Christmas Carol

One of the main reasons for me not posting in such a long while is my involvement in A Christmas Carol. It is the Broadway musical version of the famous Charles Dickens' tale. I have been playing in the pit orchestra of CVFT's (Chaska Valley Family Theater) shows since 2003. Here are the past performances I have played in:

2003: West Side Story
2005: Jesus Christ Superstar & State Fair
2006: Fiddler on the Roof & Once Upon a Mattress (played trumpet)
2007: Camelot
2008: A Christmas Carol

Every musical has its own challenge and A Christmas Carol was no exception. Our books for this show were the usual handwritten parts. This musical was written maybe 10 years ago and each year edits are made to the score. The catch is that they don't rewrite each individual part, just make edits and white out measures. This has made it extremely challenging to read and learn the parts, especially as a pit and coordinating with the singers. Each book seemed to have been edited differently. For instance, in my book measures 72-83 had been whited out or removed, however, in the trumpet's books they were still there and they had to cross them out. Little things like occurred through the entire score and were very frustrating at first.

The show opened last Thursday night, December 4th, and we have seven shows between Thursday and Sunday night - wow!! The show is short, 90 minutes in length, but it is all music. no dialogue breaks like other shows. it will be interesting to see how we all hold up on Sunday when we have two shows back to back. Good luck, lips! The music is tough and hard to coordinate with the singers. By the last show we should all have it down!

Last night, Friday, John and both sets of our parents came to the show. We purchased tickets for our parents as birthday presents since three out of the four had birthdays last week. It was nice to sit in the pit and know that I was playing for my family out in the audience. For what they told me, they all enjoyed the show. My dad commented that it was the first time he understood the storyline for A Christmas Carol. I think that CVFT did a great job with this show (like usual). Unfortunately, we are unable to see what is going on onstage since we don't have TV monitors in the pit to watch the show, but the costumes and set look phenomenal. Other things I'll remember about this show is the fog billowing into the pit and the gigantic snowflakes falling into the pit.