Until I was in my twenties I thought I couldn’t sing. I longed to be in musicals, could dance ok, but couldn’t sing. That is, until a workmate sent me along to her singing teacher. I worked hard and got to be adequate to sing in the chorus.
One of my nieces, however, has a lovely singing voice, and has a degree in performing arts. She’s just moved back to Wellington and I caught up her with the other day. She mentioned she’d been asked to contribute a couple of solos to a concert by the local musical society, and the theme was musical theatre. She was having trouble thinking what to choose, and it got me thinking about some of the musicals I was in, back in the day.
One of the first ones was actually a light opera called The Bohemian Girl, by Balfe. It was about 3 hours long – our poor family and friends who had to sit through the thing! But the cast had a wonderful time. As is usual with amateur dramatics, there were a number of hairy moments, like the piece of set that went for a skate one night as the leading man stepped onto it, and the door handle that came off in the leading lady’s hand as she went to take out her prop for her big solo. That big solo is what I want to share with you today. It’s a gorgeous song, I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls, and here it’s performed by Enya.
I did quite a few shows with the now defunct Wellington Hospital Repertory Society, and made some life long friends. One of the first was Man of Steel. Despite several quiet words in his ear, the leading man never did deign to wear a jock strap under his tights and every night we’d guess which side he’d be hanging. The best thing about that show was the party at the leading lady’s house where I met @sift666 – his mate being her flatmate’s sister’s boyfriend. No songs worth sharing from that show however.
My favourite show was probably The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. My BFF and I had our own private photo shoot before the auditions and attached photographic proof that we had what it took to be in Miss Mona’s elite line-up of girls to our audition forms. (If you want to see the result, ask in the comments.) There’s a great song (Hard Candy Christmas) at the end of the show where all the girls sing about what they’re going to do now the house was closed and we each had a line or two. Here’s the movie version, with Dolly Parton as Miss Mona, and her girls.
And here’s a photo of Miss Mona’s girls in our show – being 1989, we were all considerably younger! Being a scanned photo, we are all considerably grainier as well. Can you spot me? In this photo we’re dressed up for a dance, but most of the time we were on stage just in lingerie. It was the middle of winter and we had to go outside to get from back stage to side stage. Thank goodness for long overcoats! These dresses were all held closed with Velcro, so we could whip them off at the required moment.
Photo by another cast member
There were lots of fabulous songs in Whorehouse and this one was a lot of fun. Our boys weren’t trained dancers like the ones in the movie but they worked their arses off, and it was a great scene. Here’s the movie version.
Another popular show we did was Grease. There are a number of well known songs in Grease, but I’m especially fond of Greased Lightening, with John Travolta and the T-birds. Our Kenickie (Kenickie is the character in the brown leather) died in 1996, way too young, and is sadly missed. RIP Tony Ellis, dear friend.
Some of the other shows I was in, or on the production team for, included The New Moon (another light opera), Jesus Christ Superstar (my favourite show of all time), The Music Man, and a smattering of pantomimes.
The last show I was in was West Side Story. Another “Cool” dance number from the movie. It must look like I go for the big dance numbers, especially with the men, which is probably true. In my next musical theatre post, I’ll share songs from favourite musicals that I haven’t been in, and there’ll probably be a bit more variety.
I did dance classes and recitals through my 20s and then musicals till about my mid 30s, before I drifted away from it. It was nearly 20 years till I joined the Wellington Community Choir and rediscovered the joys of singing and dancing with a group. Two of my previous posts about the choir: Benefits of joining a community choir ~ My choir singing on the streets of Wellington
Over those 20 years of not performing, I still went to many shows that I had friends in. Some were fabulous, but being am-dram, some pretty awful. But I always have a good time anyway. You have to find something nice to say to your friends later, and there’s usually something to compliment – the set, the costumes, the beautiful singing voice of (hopefully at least one of) the leads. If all else fails, you can fall back on “you must have such a great time with that show” because there’s a 99% certainty that much is true.
Thanks for reading, listening and enjoying.
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Some of my previous ENTERTAINMENT posts:
Benefits of joining a community choir ~ Wearable Arts Award Show ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1957 to 1966 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1967 to 1971 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1972 to 1976 ~ Singing carols with the NZ Symphony Orchestra PLUS my best loved Christmas music ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1976 to 1983 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1983 to 1988 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1988 to 1994 ~ If crying in movies was an Olympic sport ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 1994 to 2001 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 2001 to 2007 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – 2008 to 2014 ~ Remembering those who passed away in 2016 ~ 60 years of my favourite music – some randoms ~ 60 years of my favourite music – more randoms ~ 60 years of my favourite music – Kiwi classics ~ My fiction-trail competition 1 entry – Time to buy a Purple Hat ~ My fiction-trail competition 2 entry – The Broken Man ~ My choir singing on the streets of Wellington ~ Voices from the Front – a story of Gallipoli ~ RIP Kiwi comedian John Clarke aka Fred Dagg ~ Some New Zealand music ~ Pumpkin pie story contest entry