Rehearsal Diary for HAIR--Day 1

Hair: THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF AQUARIUS - Rehearsal Day 1

Hi everybody! My name is Patrick Young, and I am the Musical Director for the upcoming production of Hair. This is only our first day of rehearsals and the cast is already sounding wonderful. I will be writing here throughout the rehearsal process to tell you about what goes into making a great musical here at Tibbits, and offer you a glimpse into our world as performers.

Today was the first day of rehearsals, and although all shows are put together differently, we almost always talk on the first day with our director (Ray Gabica) about their concept and ideas for the show as a whole. We are fortunate for this show, since all of our cast members are under 30, that we have a director who experienced the events of the late 60's, and is able to bring in past experiences, along with all of the research that has been done about the era, the Vietnam War, and what the mood was like in those times. We were quite fortunate to have a full hour to discuss this with him, ask questions, and then we got down to singing our first musical number.

As the Musical Director, I get a lot of freedom in how vocal rehearsals work, and since I am brand new to the theater, I got a chance to go through and talk with the cast members, do some scales on the piano, and figure out where peoples voices sat. We have a great group of singers in this show, and a lot of them have a broad vocal range, so it is a matter of figuring out when they will sing melody, and harmonies, and where they sound strongest. We got to work on "Age of Aquarius" which is the opening number to the show, and after an hour of rehearsal they already sound great on it! Being able to combine such amazing music along with the ideas of the director can sometimes be a challenge, but Ray, the tribe, and I seem to be on the same page, which helps things go quickly.

In addition to learning the opening number, and also teaching parts for a number of full cast songs, we also got a chance to figure out who says which lines. Most shows are set up so that when you cast the performers, they are given a certain role, and that is their track for the show. This is more of an ensemble piece, and although certain characters have already been cast (Claude and Berger for example) we still have to pick out trios, soloists, and various other parts.

Overall, today was an amazing first day, and I am looking forward to the rest of the process, and will keep you updated on how things are progressing.