So Steph, Gay Pride is on Father's Day? Now *that* would make a good Father's Day outing! (um, er, no pun intended)

We're having a quiet FD here at the house. DH is taking an afternoon nap.

Happy Father's Day to all the buffista dads out there!

My twin sister and I are buying my dad a truck

My dad started working part-time a couple of months ago at Kroger, in the meat department (he's the dude who puts out the bacon, etc.), because he feels so much better now that the vein graft of his bypass that kept re-closing is finally 100% blocked.

He's been on a fixed income since he had to retire b/c of his heart, and he's had a series of less-than-reliable cars. So his plan with his Kroger income is to buy a Silverado or similar truck, and he is *so* excited.

I'm so proud of him for his indefatigable-ness. I mean, *really.*

So Steph, Gay Pride is on Father's Day? Now *that* would make a good Father's Day outing! (um, er, no pun intended)

I don't think it was deliberately planned that way (though it might have been), but yeah, the parade was this afternoon, which meant I couldn't go see it, because of lunch with Dad (which, let me be clear, would always be my first choice).

There's nothing more hellish to me than musical auditions.

I am having flashbacks to the auditions I sat through for Jesus Christ Superstar. I was ready to give the Mary Magdalene part to ANYONE who did not sing "I don't know how to love him". While I like that song hearing it sung badly 583,649 times made me want to KILLL!

I was ready to give the Mary Magdalene part to ANYONE who did not sing "I don't know how to love him".

In high school, our "brother" school (I went to an all-girls' school) had a kick-ass theatre program, with a very good -- but exacting -- director. One of the director's rules for musical auditions was that You Do NOT Audition With A Song From The Musical We Will Be Doing.

Her reasoning was that if you audition and perform the song in a way that didn't jibe with *her* vision for the role/song/musical, then she wouldn't want to cast you, because she would feel that you already had an idea of how the role should be performed, etc., etc.

It half made sense and half seemed like overblown ego. I mean, we were high-school students, not Joel Grey! If she didn't like the way a 15-year-old delivered a certain song, couldn't she just, oh, TELL the 15-year-old to cool it on the vibrato (or whatever)?

(And now I'm just wondering if she had that rule so that she wouldn't have to hear "Waitin' For My Dearie" 100 times when we had auditions for Brigadoon. Because that would drive anyone nuts.)

I am pretty sure this audition was "Sing a song from the show". Which, is you were a girl singing a girl song, there was really only one option, because all other Mary Magdelene songs require backing vocals or another person.

In high school we HAD to all sing the same sing. In fact, I am pretty sure the music teacher taught it to us all. However, I am not sure how singing "Whatever Lola Wants", which I am very unsuited to, helps me get the part where I sing "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo!".

Cashmere and Kat, and others if I am forgetting, thanks for the Venetian rec. I am in my awesome room now, but about to go down to the Coffee bean in the lobby.

The CBC has started a new reality show to cast a Maria for a new produciton of the Sound of Music.

I'm kind of amazed this show was able to get sold around as much as it has (it first aired in the UK as How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and they wound up casting the winner as, essentially, the understudy, because she just wasn't that great a performer). In the US it was Grease - I think the TV show was called You're The One That I Want - and the stage show ran for only a few weeks [before they recast it, I meant to say]. So it seems like an awfully expensive format for a TV show since the stage versions so far have been so unsuccessful.

oooh, Perkins, I'm jealous! Have fun!

I am having flashbacks to the auditions I sat through for Jesus Christ Superstar. I was ready to give the Mary Magdalene part to ANYONE who did not sing "I don't know how to love him

That's so weird--yeah, usually you DON"T audition with a song from the show you're auditioning for!!! If, as above, if for no other reason than that so the people you're auditioning for don't have for hear the same songs fifty billion times. Generally for callbacks they'll give you a bit of the song they want to hear and have you sing that so they can compare for the actual parts they're considering you for. t /sat on auditions many times as stage manager

Heh-- just last night I was reminiscing about an English sitcom called The Good Neighbours (The Good Life in the UK) where neighbor Margot Ledbetter -- played by the MOST un-Julie Andrewsish Penelope Keith -- has an ongoing subplot about her political machinations with the Musical Society to get cast as Maria in The Sound of Music.

I'd have paid good money to see that performance, truly.