Last night I played at Mainland Regional in their Theater Company's production of the Drowsy Chaperone. Southern performed the show last year and of the few musicals I've seen it's my favorite by far. I played the percussion book last year for Southern and it was the first time I actually had to put in some quality time practicing in order to get performance-ready. The percussion book is very challenging and I'm glad I attended a rehearsal on Wednesday to refresh my memory of the show. I couldn't imagine someone who is unfamiliar with the show walking in and playing it after only one or two reads. It is next to impossible to play the entire book as intended without either A) making substitutions to the part (playing a chimes part on bells, bell part on vibes, etc.) or B) having multiple sets of most of the instruments to allow for smooth transitions from one instrument from another. I would imagine this is how it is done on Broadway, as they have the resources to purchase multiples of instruments if needed. All-in-all it was a great experience and was happy I could help out with the success of the show.
Today's Indoor Drumline rehearsal went really well - we reached the end of the show with drill & music! The co-director Brian and myself have been hard at work writing music and designing the program since December so it is nice to see this continue to come to life. Below is a video - there are still some more things to add (props, uniforms, changing & adding some of the voice-overs to name a few) but the skeleton of everything is pretty much there.
Apologies for the poor sound quality - not a fan of the volume level for the camera on this phone!
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