No more gondolieri

Some of you may have calculated that The Gondoliers closed yesterday. After our 2pm matinee, we struck, and were tagging the set shop around five minutes past midnight. We then had the cast party, where we presented the directors with beautiful gifts made by Kelsey, costume designer extraordinaire (you know a costume designer has done a good job when a character receives laughs and cheers for simply walking onto stage - or in this case shuffling sideways because her hips wouldn't fit through the arch, which was only around 70 cm wide). Sometime soon I'll collect some photos of the production (I didn't take any, but there are many floating around).

A more interesting costume was one of several things which made this show even more fun than The Mikado. In act one I was a gondolier, with blue and white striped shirt, blue jacket, handkerchief for my neck, and hat. Halfway through the show, the two main gondoliers found out one of them was the king of Barataria, so for act two I became a noble lord (who rules the state), with shirt, cravat, vest, tailcoat and riband (I assure you I also wore trousers, socks and shoes, but they were my own and hence not as exciting).

The most fun part of being in the show was the dances. This show has more explicit dance numbers than some of Gilbert and Sullivan's other works, and I was one of the featured dancers (there wasn't room on the stage for everyone to dance, so a few of us were selected). I've already written about how much I was enjoying learning the dance, and the enjoyment only increased once we had learned it properly and it really felt like a dance.

Having a solo was also great fun. I'm grateful for the student casting policy (although I may well have had this particular role without it - all four of the actual men in the men's chorus had named roles, of which mine was the most interesting, and although I am not the best singer of the four, I think the matching of voices and demeanours to roles was done as it needed to be). Hopefully I can take advantage of the policy in future to have similar roles (I don't think I'll ever be looking for the largest roles, but I do enjoy a role that sings with the chorus and also a bit on my own). First on my wishlist is Major Murgatroyd in Patience.

Anyway, during my solo in this show, I stood at the front of my gondola while the entire chorus lined up behind me, sticking out their heads to sing 'tra la'. I look forward to seeing that on the DVD: I've performed it so many times and never seen what it actually looks like. I'm happy to say that I really wasn't nervous (The Mikado was the first time I had sung as a performer, and it surprised me that I was not nervous), and as I lay in my gondola looking at the lights and listening to the overture and then the women's chorus, I was definitely looking forward to my moment to shine.

In short, I have had a wonderful time with The Gondoliers over the last three months. I'm so glad I joined the group, and I look forward to my little bit of involvement with our summer show (Sweeney Todd), and especially to Patience in fall.