So a couple of weeks back I spent most of the week working on Mayhem Theatre Company’s West Side Story. Which is kind of a 20th-century jazz-derived opera disguised as a Broadway musical. Anyone who’s played or sung it will vouch that it’s really difficult (possibly even more so in the somewhat reduced orchestration, still about 50% larger than the typical amateur pit band of today). I’m not going to lie, this was hard work for me, and I know it was for the cast too (one of my housemates being a minor soloist in said cast). Fitting vibraphone, xylophone, two timpani and the rest of the percussionist’s gear into a studio theatre while still having any space to stage the show turned out to be the least of our problems! (This is also the only time I’ve seen a drum kit – with two floor toms due to the demands of Bernstein’s fully scored tom-tom fills – crammed on to a head height gallery, let alone with double bass next to it. I never did see the bassist getting his instrument up and down each night – there was only a ladder to the gallery!) I was slightly reassured by being told of an RPO player who had depped with the West End pit band for the same show, assumed he could come in and sight-read it because it’s only a musical – and seriously failed to do so. Nevertheless, after some very hard work in rehearsals and I think some justifiable nerves all round, the performances came together well and the show played to rapturous applause from full houses in its five performances. All credit to cast, director, choreographer, MD etc. who had worked on it for months rather than the three rehearsals the band did before opening night!

It was a quick change from finishing that run Saturday night to turning up to record Baroque violin Sunday morning with La Folie. Which justifies another blog post …