One of my many musical hobbies is playing in the pit orchestra for community theater productions. Even though doing 14 shows in 3 weekends is a lot of work (especially doing two tough shows back to back -
Christmas Carol and
Sound of Music) I still love it! I also have oto thank my wonderful husband for his help in keeping me going through all of it. There wasn't much free time there for a while and his extra help with the housework was greatly appreciated!
When I first found out that we'd be doing the
Sound of Music I was not excited at all. This is probably one of the most well-known and overdone musical of all time, and at the time not one of my favorites. Despite all that, it turned out to be a fabulous production and I had so much fun working with my "CVFT family" again. After playing 6-7 shows with a group of people you start to have a special bond with them.
Here is a picture of my
Sound of Music pit "family" and a list of what made this show so special and fun!
(Also can be called "What went wrong during the shows and what the pit laughed at during the performances". Please note: Everything listed really did happen in live shows - another reason that I probably enjoyed this production so much! )
1. The nuns scooping up when singing "Ska" in the opening chants.
2. Our pianist, Jon, hitting his fingers with the drumstick instead of the chime that he was supposed to be striking. Ouch!
3. The nuns getting all of the other nuns' names messed up during the dialogue in the "Maria" scene. "There's Christine....There's no doubt about Ermegarde..."
4. Captain von Trapp needed a lesson on how to blow the whistle - sounded way too airy. Maria also had a couple times where nothing came out when she blew!
5. Liesl's awful sounding pitchpipe. How the von Trapp kids ever got a pitch out of that thing is beyond us.
6. Liesl's circular conducting pattern. Again, how anyone followed that is beyond us.
7. The children are supposed to run and come to a screeching halt at the top of the stairs. Once, Gretl ran so hard and, not stopping, ran into Marta and bounced right back. Another time, they all ran so hard that Liesl almost fell down the stairs. Good thing she was holding on!
8. Rolf left in the middle of one of the performances to go to the gas station! What was he thinking? First of all, he was in his Nazi uniform but most important - he missed an important scene. Good job improving cast and tech crew!
9. During the "bedroom scene" the thunder kept coming before the lightning. 2nd grade science would tell you that the lightning always comes first.
10. Storm, what storm? Half of the time you couldn't even tell that there was a storm coming in. If the von Trapp children were afraid of that storm they've got bigger problems.
11. In the same show where Rolf decides to take a break, Brigitta gets distracted in the party scene and misses saying an important music cue line. Boy were we glad when the first act of that show was done.
12. Max is supposed to hear church bells in the distant and say "Georg, is that a Cathedral?" Instead, he frequently asked that question after hearing silence and thunder.
13. The von Trapp children's game of Leap Frog didn't always go as planned. Once Gretl forgot that she was first and kept running. Another time, Maria's dress got caught on the children so she couldn't jump freely.
14. Kids started forgetting the words to "So Long, Farewell".
15. Did you know that they had LED flashlights in 1938?
16. When reading off the children's names in the program for the festival, he is supposed to say Gretl's name last and she would reply "Why am I always last?" Instead, he read Friedrich's name last once, but Gretl still said her line!
17. In Edelweiss...Blessssssssss my homeland forever...
18. Oh, yes, we did try to mute the bassoon.
19. There seemed to be a cursed song. A couple beats were supposed to be complete musical silence, however, there was always someone who got an unexpected solo every night.
Me and my bassoon.
In the pit.
We have a lot of fun in the pit, but I really like playing for family and close friends. Co-workers, Julie and Jenny, came to see one of the shows! It's nice playing when you know friends are in the audience.
We also got to meet Debbie Turner who played Marta von Trapp in the original movie. How cool is that!
