Guerilla Theatre, Corinne and Nate Duet "I Need You/I Run to You"

A little medley thrown together for a Guerilla Theatre performance.

I Need You / I Run To You

Knoebel Finale

This weekend was Corinne's last weekend at Knoebels, we went to see her on Saturday. 




Auditions at school start on Thursday.

Knoebel Cast

A couple shots of the High School Musical Cast at Knoebels.  Cast: the pictures should link to originals that have good high-resolution for printing.

From Knoebel HSM Cast

From Knoebel HSM Cast

Summer Work Begins

Corinne will spend her Summer '09 entertaining at Knoebels Amusement Resort, a free-admission amusement park in Pennsylvania (free parking too!).  Much less commercial than a Disney or Hershey, it has loads of picnic space, and allows dogs on leashes. We made the 165 mile trek during the Memorial Day weekend. 

Lots of ways to have fun at Knoebels, but if you take to the roller coasters, watch your cell phone.  Laura lost control of hers and had to pick it up off the floor of the car after the ride came to a complete stop.  Caleb narrowly averted disaster, realizing a bit too late that his phone had come free on the same ride.  Unable to stop the ride before it took off with the next group, we waited for the car to come around again, and guess what: the Blackberry was no longer in the car!  With no particular help from the park officials (they tried), we managed to locate and retrieve the phone not far from the ride, in the hands of a slimy miscreant who couldn't believe he had found such a cool toy.  Said miscreant didn't seem to speak English, but the point was made, and the phone was returned without incident.

I really enjoyed the pool, more than I thought I would and we didn't even do the slides, just the pool and diving boards.  Turns out, you can see and hear the show from the pool area!  And don't miss the carousel--sit on one of the outside horses so you can reach for the brass ring.  It doesn't sound like much, but it's something I always look forward to (did it twice on this particular trip).

I Dreamed a Dream

This is a video of the "I Dreamed a Dream" number in last summer's Tidewater Teens' production of Les Mis. I added it in part to demonstrate to myself that I can get video onto my site without using YouTube. YouTube is easier, and offers a place to put the (large) video file., but also adds a bit of branding that I prefer to avoid, if possible.


The penalty to me of not using YouTube is that I will very quickly run out of storage space with my current hosting provider (lowesthosting.com). I may soon move my hosting to 1and1.com, as they offer good, low-budget plans with LOADS more storage space.

Arise from thy slumber

I've got a bit of catching up to do.

Last I told anyone, Christopher's 15U AAU basketball was making a run at the Maryland Championship. And a good run indeed, although they ran out of gas at around 8pm in their third game of the day on a sweltering Sunday, that just happened to be the semifinals. Their performance was enough to garner them an invitation to the AAU National Championships in Little Rock, Arkansas.
We've since had a tournament in Virginia that went well (not terribly strict on the age requirements...), and another in York. The York tournament was interesting: we won all the games up to the last, where we were pitted against the host team, which also happened to be a year older than the other teams. We played them even in the first half, then started pulling away in the third quarter. The York team didn't take well to getting beat, and they responded. The officials ultimately called at least 5 technical fouls, ejecting a York coach and a York player, then finally when order could not be restored, called the game in the third quarter. This weekend the boys go to a YBOA tournament in Pennsylvania, where they could conceivable receive an invite to the YBOA National Championships in Florida.

Corinne made it back from college for a full week before heading off to Hershey for summer work. If you're up in Hershey, be sure to catch the Ice Breakers

As for me, Godspell opened last week, and runs through May 25. It's got a very strong cast, but was slow to come together, due to all the various conflicts. However, now that the show has opened, I can say with certainty that I recommend it. Hopefully not too late, so far this is the best show nobody has seen--attendance has been poor. Blame it on poor advertising, or Mother's Day weekend, or something. Come if you can, tickets are $15, see tidewaterplayers.com.

Godspell Audition

I auditioned for Godspell at Tidewater on Thursday.  It went well.  My "prepared musical selection" was "Calling" from Altar Boyz.  "Calling" is a way to title the song without giving it away.  The title should be "Jesus called me on my cell phone."  It went something like this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCnpMZwDkAY

Good Fun...

Fall Break

We've enjoyed having Corinne around for the weekend while she's on Fall Break. We won't see her again until Family Weekend. Next Weekend. The first thing we did was get her home in time to watch Christopher's game (his win against Aberdeen). That was nice, but very very cold. This weekend was also CMW Homecoming, so after checking out Gina's game,

she went out for the night.

Sunday we went to see Doug at Spotlighters in Baltimore in "The Great American Trailer Park Musical". I didn't know what to expect, but it was very enjoyable.

Corinne in Les Miserables

Just a quick post... Corinne is doing Tidewater Teens this summer, as she has in previous summers (West Side Story, Footloose, Grease) and this summer is Les Miserables--actually it is Les Miserables, School Edition. This summer it is done as a "camp", so the cast goes M-F for two weeks and the show opens. Casting is done on day one, and by day 10 they are running the show! Corinne is Fantine, Brandon is Javert. I expect it to be an awesome show!

Les Mis shows at Tidewater two weekends: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday August 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12. It's coming up VERY quickly, and I couldn't say much about it before now, 'cause it just got started! Call Tidewater for tickets if you can make it. I as at the theatre today and it was cool, and they will have someone come for maintenance on the AC tomorrow, so the plan is to keep it that way. We can hope! Plan to bring tissue.

Footloose! 2005

I came across a selection of photos yesterday from Tidewater's 2005 Footloose! They had been put on an alternate computer, and I had just had cause to put Google's Picasa application on that computer. Wow the lost gems that were found!

I hadn't done anything with the pictures before, because the quality was pretty bad. Prior to finding Picasa, that's where the story ends. But in a few brief moments of Picasa editing, VOILA! A little cropping, a lotta "I'm Feeling Lucky" (it's a Picasa photo-fixing button). Photographic genius, no. But presentable pictures from the past:

Tidewater Jr Debuts with Seussical, Jr

Tidewater put on its first ever Junior production. They held a camp for two weeks and prepared the entire Seussical, Jr in that time. An incredible feat, and a great, entertaining show. They'll follow this with a teen camp/production in a few weeks.



Corinne intends to play a part in the teen production (Les Miserables), but for the junior camp, she was a counselor and a stage manager. A few pics from opening night showing the fruits of their labor...

Beauty in da hood

Opening Night, Beauty and The Beast

We opened Friday. Had an awesome crowd, had fantastic performances, and a power failure. Passing severe thunderstorms knocked out power to the theater about 10 minutes into Act 2. We waited for generators to kick in, or power to return, but after a few minutes something needed to be done.

With power out, the house and stage had some lighting from emergency lights--adequate lighting for an unexcited evacuation, but not enough for a show. No light backstage, no microphones, no music.

So we rolled out the piano and did our best to entertain the crowd while the directors and theatre staff figured out what to do. The entire cast came out on stage in whatever costume happened to be on--some the audience hadn't seen yet. We ran a couple of show numbers. Then we sang happy birthday to those with birthdays in the audience. Bobby (Cogsworth) worked the crowd at all times. Then we sang a few more songs.

The decision was made to cancel the rest of the performance (the first time in twenty years that a show was canceled due to power failure) and reschedule for the following Wednesday. A refund was also offered.

This didn't help our guests who had come in from Cumberland and could only stay that evening. But that wasn't the worst. Others I'm sure were in a similar boat. Beast and Cogsworth (in costume) found two sad little girls from South Carolina who were visiting grandparents, and were leaving the following morning. They gave the girls attention and apologies and hugs. I don't have a picture of the sobbing little girl clinging to The Beast. We have something in store for those two, but I can't share what it is, at least not yet.

The only pictures I have are the cast during the impromptu sing-along, and Belle autographing for one of the girls in the audience.

Sweet Charity

Nice people are nice. Corinne was given tickets to see Sweet Charity with Molly Ringwald at the Hippodrome, including parking pass and VIP seating. Sounds like the outing went well, but that's for her to say (and I trust she'll post about that herself.) Corinne and a friend on the outing:

---

Beauty and the Beast: Good Morning, Belle!

Congratulations Corinne!!
Corinne has accepted the role of Belle in Phoenix Festival Theatre's production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast!

This is Corinne's third production of Beauty and the Beast, having performed as Belle in the high school production and in the ensemble for the production at Tidewater Players.

Mark your calendars for show dates--TWO WEEKENDS ONLY!!
June 8, 9, 14, 15, 16 at 8 PM
June 9, 10, 16 at 2 PM

As for me, I've accepted a role in the ensemble. Hard to say what that might mean, maybe a corkscrew? Maybe a drunken frenchman? Maybe a fish monger? We'll have to see.

I auditioned for Lefou, hehe

So I auditioned for Lefou at Harford Community College Phoenix Festival Theatre. Kinda spur of the moment, I only became aware of the opportunity the day before. I knew that auditions were coming up, but I didn't think that there was any chance I'd audition.

I don't know how well you can expect an audition to go when you go in unprepared, and don't have the talent to carry you through. I "prepared" 16 bars (32, but who's counting) of "Gaston" because, well, it wasn't too hard I don't have a vocal repertoire. At the end of my prepared portion, I turned and thanked the accompanist/musical director who told me to keep going. Ooooh. I had to admit I didn't really know the words (not good). I was pushed into trying anyway, and in a few short moments proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did not know the words (more not good). I received the comment that while preparing 16 bars is fine, it wasn't the 16 bars they wanted to hear (need I say: not good).

No call back. Duh. Not waiting for the phone to ring.