Auditioning

"You have seen him, perhaps, playing poker in Peter Glover's room over the hardware store and trying to look as if he didn't hold three aces--in fact, giving absolutely no sign of it beyond the wild flush in his face and the fact that his hair stands on end"--Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

There's a new theatre group in my neighbourhood called the Hillcrest Village Community Players, who next year will be staging the musical Anne of Green Gables. (I saw the Charlottetown Festival seasonal production four times when I was young.) A week ago I auditioned for them, singing the Donkey Serenade and reciting "The Hill" from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, only I did it translated into Scottish dialect as "Th' Brae"!  I also did an audition for the dance chorus, and part of the routine we were learning was skipping.  That skipping took me right back to watching the show in Charlottetown...

I went through the Scots poem again and again, first getting all the lines learned and then working on the feeling.  I even recited in front of a mirror!  When I was practicing my singing, I also brought out the old songs I learned when I was taking lessons from Giuseppe Macina.  I still like Schubert's "Wohin?" (where to?) about following a little brook.  At the time I had to sing it in a lower key, but now I've raised my range to two octaves and can do the original!

I did my singing audition a cappella, and for my first try the director gave me a starting note a lot higher than the score to test the upper limit of my range! (Cute trick.) But second time she gave me the right note.  I think I did pretty well.  

The callback is on Thursday, so I had to reschedule my History Meetup a day earlier, on Wednesday.  I have hopes for the role of Matthew, but I'm up for anything! (I doubt they'll be casting me as Gilbert, of course...)

Tonight we started watching the series The Handmaid's Tale on Crave TV.  It's pretty disturbing, all right.  The musical score got a bit too off-putting for me.