Well we made it up for the call time, only to find that the Chorus had called us 15 minutes earlier than we needed, just in case, and the theatre had called the Chorus 15 minutes earlier than we were needed, just in case. So there was a lot of standing around waiting after a rather early morning.
We were eventually walked into the wings of the theatre where the Stage Manager introduced himself and advised us that we had fifteen minutes tech-time on stage and started his stopwatch. Talk about keeping tight time! Still, with over 160 choirs to get through I suppose they need to be strict.
After the tech-rehearsal, we headed across the plaza to the Hyatt where we had a rehearsal room booked and had a very productive two-hour rehearsal. There was a lot of fine detail polishing. All I have to do now is remember it all and put it in play tomorrow night.
We lunched in the food court at Desjardins with a few of the chorus boys afterwards before going in to catch the end of the concert block. Nap back the hotel before heading back to the theatre to see the Irish choir Gloria perform. They were very good – excellent blend and all acappella.
We met Alex from Heartland again after the show and decided to head down to the Gay Village to grab something to eat before going on to the parties. Had a nice dinner in a place called La Planete, not rushed, pleasant conversation, decent food and a bottle of wine.
Then it was across the road to the Sky Bar for Gloria’s aftershow party. Sky Bar is an interesting venue. It’s on a number of different levels one of which is all small beds and sofas, which makes seating arrangements interesting. The top level is the roof terrace which was lovely in the comfortably warm evening. They had a hot tub and a pool up there too, so I made a mental note to bring my shorts to the Twin Cities after-show party, which is also at Sky Bar, tomorrow.
New York also had a party on at an adjacent bar so we headed over there at 11, but didn’t see any kind of a party. We wandered into a bar called ‘The Stud’, only to find it was a very loud, cramped leather/bear bar where I got continuously cruised (I think because of my goatee, as I was neither in leather nor particularly bearish.) We only stayed for the one drink before leaving.
Curiously on the way out we met Martin Brophy, the Chair of the Chorus, arriving with his partner (both of whom fit in well with the clientele) and Simon Sharp, our accompanist (who does not.) Martin, as chair, had told the chorus that they had to take care of themselves tonight and get a good eight hours sleep so as to be in good form for the performance tomorrow. He was a bit coy about this when we met him at the bar, pointing out that the call time wasn’t until 4:30pm, so he could technically party until 7am and still get 8 hours sleep. As someone who’d been drinking iced tea all night and intended to leave the party early to be in bed by 1am, I wasn’t impressed…
Anyway, that was today. Tomorrow we sing to the world!
(Well, okay, we sing to North America, Dublin, Paris and Hamburg until GALA gets its act together and really becomes international!)
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