i_joined_a_band_of_musical_pirates epitome of incomprehensibility That's what I wrote David. He expressed curiosity - unless, he wrote, I was just pirating music, which doesn't seem THAT interesting. That's individual piracy, I wrote back. This is collective piracy. In other words, Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. I'm not auditioning for an acting part - it'd seem presumptuous, since this is my first time with the light_opera club - but I have to audition to join the chorus. People more or less said there was little chance of me NOT getting into the chorus, but we'll see. The casting director suggested singing an easy song like Happy Birthday or O Canada. My dream_mind proposed a dream_song version of Rihanna's Umbrella. My waking_mind, thinking and singing while my feet were walking the dog this evening, flaunted one of the fancier verses of Patriquin's arrangement of the Quebec folk song "C'est l'aviron" - it has that jokey, bouncy quality. I was at Tuesday's open practice, evangelized by someone from my choir. (Preaching musical theatre to the choir.) Fortunately, I was quite spoiled for someone going to a new place/event for the first_time: I sat between the only two people I knew there, who both happened to be sopranos. On my left, a former classmate; on my right, the aforementioned chorister. And it wouldn't have been terrible otherwise, either, because everyone seemed friendly. The teacher has the professional chops of my choir director, and something that I feel he's missing - flexibility, perhaps? Dramatic flair? She seems more willing to try a range of techniques, to be patient, although she kept the music moving along at a fast clip. "This is fast," I said to someone. The cheerful reply: "Oh, it'll get faster!" I've never seen this piratical G&S musical before, not in its entirety, but I've heard snippets. Dad didn't think this was the one with the song going "I am the very model of a modern major general" - he thought that was from the also-nautical HMS Pinafore, but lo and behold! it's here. And then there is a slow Hymn to Poetry, proclaiming with solemnity that even pirates like poetry. A boisterous tenor says that's our theme song - that's what we sing when we go to the pub after practice. Others counter: we don't always go to the pub after, and we don't always sing that. But they HAVE done so before. 240912 ... e_o_i Friday before last I auditioned - just for the chorus, not for a main part. I got a call the next day saying I was accepted. Other things had sort of numbed me, so I summoned up a happy tone - which came out sounding confused, but anyway. This past Friday was a read-through of all the parts. Not even singing, just reading the script and lyrics. Sometimes I'm "All" but not all of the Alls. Usually I'm "Ladies." I'd never actually seen Pirates of Penzance before, so the script held the power to make me giggle. Over the course of the evening, I had four Girl Scout cookies, the last offered by another who wanted to empty the container, and by that time I was a little tired of them. And a little tired. But overall things were beginning to be enjoyable. With this and yesterday's game night, I'm kind of peopled out. But there's non-pirate choir tomorrow. 240929 ... e_o_i Last night's practice was exhausting. We were doing choreography to things and I didn't know all the music - the general tune, but not all the notes. At first it was fun even so, but after breaktime I lost track of my score and became anxious and distracted. I felt helpless. I almost cried. I was thinking, "I'm not like these other people - I probably work less than most of them and still I can't find time to practice as much as they do. And if I lose my music, I'm screwed." This was the sort of mood I was in when I hit a classmate back in 2012, I realized: both frustrated and weepy. That didn't make me feel better, realizing that, but it did make me tell myself that however desperate I was feeling, I shouldn't take out anger or grumpiness or jealousy on others. So I tried to pay attention to the song and movements, managed it somewhat, and when it was over, I did the sensible thing. I went to the stage director, Coralie, asking something like, "Can you do me a favour? I can't find my score, it has a yellow paper in the front, and you have a louder voice than me." So she's all, "DID ANYONE SEE A SCORE WITH A YELLOW PAPER IN THE FRONT?" "It has the rehearsal schedule," I said. "IT HAS THE SCHEDULE." And yes, it was on the side table. This is kind of a normal thing to happen, not very exciting, but to me it's a sort of victory. That I was sensible and accomplished something. But I still need to practice more. 241120 ... e_o_i Oh yes. The venue for the show was just announced! People are glad because it's close by - last year it was farther. The catch? All the performances are happening earlier in March and they're condensed into one week. At first, we were going to do six performances over two weeks, but now it's five in one week. Including two shows on Saturday, one 2-4 and another 7-9. Ooof. Practices are on Tuesdays AND Fridays now, with a break for the holidays and a couple of weekend practices before the show. ... About last night's practice, I should've given myself more slack. I missed Friday's rehearsal because of the craft_show and a lot of the people have done this play before. More broadly, there's a balance I have to think remember. To realize that, for example, -ADHD -introversion -anxiety will make some things harder but not impossible, and then give myself space to accommodate these WITHOUT using them as excuses for not doing stuff. Phew. Anyway, as the cowardly policemen say, ta-ran-ta-ra. We go, we go, at last we really, really go. 241120 ... e_o_i edits *to remember, not to think remember. But maybe think-remembering should be a thing. 241120 what's it to you? who go blather from