“Seussical: the Musical!” began last night. Woo.
We began with a sing-thru. I understand, at IMP, why we do sing-thrus: most of the cast are killer musicians who sight-read. Not .. so much.. with this cast.
I make no bones about it: I CANNOT SIGHT-READ. At all. I figure out my part relative to other notes I hear. And I can watch the piano part to figure out what’s going on. But hand me a vocal libretto that contains only sticks with flags, and I’m pretty lost. I mean, two or three times thru, and I can HEAR my part.. but don’t set it in front of me and expect magic.
Like I say, I don’t read music.. but I can read some lyrics with the best of them.
Needless to say, our 6-10 rehearsal was ROUGH.
But, ladies and gents, I have found a new protege. I had heard tales of the exploits of this youngin, but I just didn’t know what I had to look forward to. And I always figured that my next protege would be a woman, but fate didn’t agree. He is a young man.
Who had me in stitches the entire rehearsal.
Let me just explain why I’m enamored.. the minute I sat next to him, he said, “Hey, do you want to join the Coalition?”
I looked at this kid and said, “Like, an Alliance? Are we voting people off of an island?”
He said, “No, the Coalition of people old enough to drink.”
Hell yeah, I wanted in that Coalition.
He is playing our Cat in the Hat, and he’s already perfected the role. I let him know, up front, that he is to not pull any punches in our scenes. I’ll meet him, toe to toe, and let the director pull us back. He is freakin awesome, that WFC.
Will-Freakin-Cooper. Enough reason to come see this show.
That is all.
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