November 25th to 27th I will be performing in the musical Good News with Applause! Musicals Society, at the CBC Studios downtown. Good News is about as far away from Sweeney Todd as you can get - the big conflict in Good News is whether hunky quarterback Tom Marlowe will pass his astronomy final and get to play in the big game for his school, Tait College. Of course, along the way sparks fly between Tom and his nerdy-but-beautiful tutor Connie. Written in 1927, Good News is still cute but really two dimensional. The music is fun and peppy, and we get to dance like flappers, so really, you should come and see the show! I play Flo, one of the college sorority girls and cheerleaders. Yes, really.
Applause! stages musicals in concert after a two week (or less) rehearsal period. That's right, our first rehearsal was yesterday, and we'll go up on the 25th. Starting this Thursday, we'll rehearse every day until opening. And I thought the Sweeney rehearsal schedule was gruelling!
My friend Cathy Wilmot, who was our wonderful Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney, has stepped in to direct the show, and Caitlin Hayes, our assistant music director from Sweeney is MD'ing Good News. A few Sweeney performers have also made the cast, so there were some familiar faces when I showed up to rehearsal yesterday.
Dawn Ewen is choreographing the show - as much as one can choreograph a semi-staged musical in concert. However, she has come up with some fabulous twenties-inspired moves for the entire cast to perform during "The Varsity Drag" and we spent a few hours learning the song, and then the choreography. Lots of breathless laughter as we bopped and sugared our way around the tiny set. This is the only number that we'll have to be off-book for. The rest of the show we'll perform with our scripts and music in black binders.
After we danced, we ran through all of the ensemble numbers with Caitlin, and then called it a night. Thursday will be "girl's night" - the girls have a number of songs about sorority life, while the boys and their coach have football-inspired tunes - so the boys will have the night off while the girls of Pi Beta Phi (or something like that) swoon over Tom Marlowe.
Tickets for the show are available at www.brownpapertickets.com. Hope to see you there!