Saturday/Shabbat – Day 100
November 13, 2012
I have now been away from home one hundred days. It’s a big number and home has never seemed further away.
The morning was all rehearsal for our matinee show, with a call at 10AM to get into costume. Today’s show was fantastic despite a less than packed audience, they were almost as lively as we were, with a number of alumni and Penn students coming out to support us.
Of note in our performances were guest showings from the Penn Glee Club Band, now it’s own separate entity. Teddy, above and below, is the lead singer for most of their numbers. Also see the scene below with some of my token Australian lines and a brief appearance by Jon Diamond (apparently he looks like Jack from Will and Grace).
The afternoon only left us one hour free before another Glee event, the GCGC (Glee Club Graduate Glub) formal reception. This was open again, to the many glee alumni who had come to see our show and, their families. In this reception rosettes (badges for the blazer) were presented to three individuals who had served the Glee Club for many years and in various means. Thomas amongst them (his parents were very proud). In addition we sung a few number in full force, current members and alumni together and this in my opinion, was the best I’ve ever heard the chorus.
Our evening performance was completely sold out! It was also incredibly high energy and gave us all the greatest feeling on it’s completion.
Some of our big numbers included a modern setting of the Dies Irae text from the Requiem. This is a new favorite of the members.
However my personal favorite number was an Aaron Dale (of OC Times arranging fame) arrangement of Go The Distance from Disney’s Hercules. A beautiful upbeat barbershop song with an incredible tag.
My personal moment to shine was in Baba Yetu, seen in the second half of the below video. And though I’m out of frame, I am proudly singing the swahili verse along with a small select group of others who managed the text and notes to audition standard. The first song is the Glee Club Anthem, “Afterglow” which all Glee Alumni in the audience are invited to sing with us.
The crowd favorite of the evening would have to have been “Run Freedom Run”, the PGC choreographed number, which as seen below had us literally on the edge of our seats.
It would also be remiss of me not to include a sampling of the offerings that Penn Dance brought to our show. However, Thomas’ dad who recorded these videos, neglected to film them as his son didn’t appear in non Glee numbers. My apologies to PD. Thus instead I have posted the finale in which they appear.
After all that, there was the cast party with PD and PGC combined. It wasn’t bad, however PD and PGC as per usual had some troubles integrating, and in my opinion PD was a little cliquey and brought a few too many outsiders to the party, which left a number of clubbers disappointed (aside from those who were just looking PD up and down).
I managed to get to bed at around 3AM, which was problematic as Sunday I was to be up early…
Friday – Day 99
November 12, 2012
Friday was a large buildup to the performance and as a result I hardly payed attention in classes. Even when my singing lesson hit, I was both too exhausted and too pumped up to really focus well. Despite this, Brian noted that my singing was coming along well and I too felt I had been making good progress since coming to Penn, particularly in practicing on breathing from my diaphragm.
The evenings performance was just about sold out, with the theatre full to the brim. Our numbers were well received and I even managed to catch Shabbat dinner!
Our show opened with Footloose a combined dance number:
I’m not sure which night the video is from and this greatly affect how strong my dancing is, in addition in the videos I’ll be posting I’m rather hard to spot. However, the show still looks great, even without yours truly.
Glee’s next number was a piece I truly love by American composer Randall Thompson who has always had close ties with the Glee Club. The piece is titled: “The Last Words of David”
After the show and dinner I headed straight to sleep for a huge day of performances on the morrow.
More videos to come!
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 97/98
Today was back to the usual grind and it was harder than usual after such a long break! The work suddenly piled up again, with assignments coming in from all fronts. To top it off, by this point I was low on sleep, and had been trying to spend as much time with Dad as possible. I barely scraped through my classes today, thoroughly distracted and on my phone for much of them. I only barely made it through the goodbye, and this further stole away my focus.
The evening brought another onslaught of rehearsal and the announcement that the show had been postponed till Friday to allow us time to prepare and tech the show, which despite the hurricane, was coming together quite well. In addition, we were to add a matinee show to our offerings, and hope that the theater would fill up despite the late announcement.
Another part of my day was walk-shifting on Locust Walk, handing out flyers with such slogans as “You think my accent is awesome? Not as awesome as the Penn Glee Club Fall Show” and “Kiss me kangaroo and pickle me ginger – this is something mate, that you don’t want to miss”. Exploiting my accent turned out to be highly profitable and I managed to turn over one hundred flyers in thirty minutes. A record.
Rehearsal tonight ran again very late, with more chances to get close to everyone and enjoy the music and dance. Vanessa Lam, our stage manager and a wonderful, short, Canadian girl was having a hard time keep it all together as madness converged on the theatre, setting us all on edge.
Again, another late night of work followed and very little sleep.
Thursday was much the same, but by this point hell week was really starting to hit me. Physics and Operating Systems, my two harder classes, we both today, and I almost slept right through them. I pushed through some of my remaining work due Friday and slept an hour during the day before again, hitting the rehearsal block at 6. With Dad gone, rehearsals were even harder as I had no good excuse to take me away from the action (not that I so much regretted it). Our performance was improving radically and some of our songs were really getting to the point of excellence. Even our few dance numbers combined with Penn Dance had reached an acceptable level of performance.
Finally, at 1:03, I returned to my room, talked deliriously to Mum and Esther, a close friend back home, and got to sleep around 3:30.