The Pit

Hello Dolly had its first performance tonight. For those of you who don't know, I am a trumpet player and I am playing in the pit orchestra for this musical. It was an interesting experience tonight!



There were a couple of trouble spots that I was dreading getting to. I had practiced and practiced, but still not as confident as I would like to be on performance night. The first half of the show was superb! The orchestra sounded as good as you will get after only one rehearsal and two run-throughs with the cast. At one point, something really funny happened in the show and our conductor started laughing and almost couldn't regain composure! I was bumming that I couldn't see what was going on! We do have closed circuit tv down in the pit, but it wasn't working for the first half at all and actually, when I am playing the music, I can't really watch tv at the same time anyway. All I am able to get are the dialogue parts in between the music sections, which, since Hello Dolly is a musical, there are a lot of.



The second half, through it went well, we ran into some minor bumps along the way. I had to laugh at Donna, who is playing the second trumpet part, when she asked after finishing one song, "have we ever played that before? I don't remember rehearsing that!" LOLOL There is so much music to play that sometimes it can get to that point. It's like driving somewhere and you don't recall making all the turns to get there.



Then, while playing I started to hear this annoying squeaking sound. I couldn't exactly tell where it was coming from but it was loud and started to get distracting. The music changed to a slow dramatic ballad type piece and the squeaking was really not cool at all. I then noticed that the squeaks were simultaneous with the conductor's movements. The podium that he is standing on was built very tall because the pit is rather deep. I think it is at least 8 feet deep and in order for him to see what is going on on stage, he has to be up high. It is actually a difficult set up because it is hard to see him directing us because he is out of our line of sight over the music stands. Anyway, the podium is what started squeaking as he moved around. He tried not to move a lot, trying not to activate the squeaking, but you can't conduct and not move. It is virtually impossible. I hope they look into that because it was very distracting and I am sure the audience up front could hear it too.



When we got to the trouble spots I had practiced, I crashed. Drat! But...luckily there was a chance for me to redeem myself which I did! I nailed that puppy the second time! Woooohooooo! I have five more performanced to prove that I can do it! Oh yeah! I played better tonight than for any of the rehearsals, so that is good. Hopefully each night will get better and better.



Being in the pit I can't see what is going on in the audience, let alone what is on stage, but the people were laughing and seemed to really be enjoying the performance. I think it is possible that the show got a standing ovation because it sure was a hearty applause at the end. Many times throughout the show there was spontaneous applause at the end of some really spectacular scenes. It is fun to hear all that going on. I can't wait for tomorrow night now!