Saturday, July 22, 2006
Meet two Annie Get Your Gun cast members...and Foothill newbies
Today we're talking to a couple more AGYG cast members who are making their Foothill debut in this show: Nikki Murgo and Angeline Navarro.
Nikki has been to Foothill productions before and been impressed with the quality, so she was finally motivated to audition. Meanwhile Angeline simply got an audition notice via Bay Area Theatre Bums and thought it sounded like something different. [Side note: it is kinda weird, isn't it, that Annie Get Your Gun was this huge hit filled with songs that are still standards today, and yet is relatively rarely-performed?]
I often wax poetic about how it is often those performances where something goes wrong that become most memorable. When a cast goes through a problem and recovers, it gets the audience on their side...like we're all on the same team. And it reminds everyone that seeing live theatre is a completely one-time-only experience. Anything can and often does happen.
It's no wonder then, that cast members also often pick out mistakes or snafus as the most memorable moments in rehearsal or shows. I always ask cast members for those funny, memorable rehearsal moments, and Nikki and Angie pick what nearly everyone picks: when something goes wrong, and how everyone reacts to it.
In this case Nikki and Angie picked on our two leads, Jessica as Annie and Byron as Frank. One of them secretly cracks up every time Byron botches a lyric in the opening number because he "still kind of grumbles/hums the vocal line." The other swears that Jessica once mangled a lyric so badly in rehearsal that it came out sounding like she has just sung about a "butt mansion."
[Another side note: I really wish I knew the score well enough to even imagine what lyric that was supposed to be! Everybody's got their favorite botched lyric story. Mine involved Little Shop of Horrors, Mr. Mushnik and the line "...all of this great sex coming out of the blue..."]
Angie is a girl after my own heart because she loves "...run throughs because I get to see what everyone has been working on. It's fun to see the puzzle pieces being put together."
Nikki, meanwhile, is the first person I've ever seen answer the question about their favorite part of the theatrical process this way: "I love the challenge of the first vocal rehearsal with all of the sight reading."
After Annie Angie heads back to UC Irvine to continue pursuing her BA in theatre, meanwhile sounds like Nikki is off to get married...and to a guy she met while doing a show, no less! Theatre...it brings good things to life!
Welcome to Foothill Angie and Nikki!
Nikki has been to Foothill productions before and been impressed with the quality, so she was finally motivated to audition. Meanwhile Angeline simply got an audition notice via Bay Area Theatre Bums and thought it sounded like something different. [Side note: it is kinda weird, isn't it, that Annie Get Your Gun was this huge hit filled with songs that are still standards today, and yet is relatively rarely-performed?]
I often wax poetic about how it is often those performances where something goes wrong that become most memorable. When a cast goes through a problem and recovers, it gets the audience on their side...like we're all on the same team. And it reminds everyone that seeing live theatre is a completely one-time-only experience. Anything can and often does happen.
It's no wonder then, that cast members also often pick out mistakes or snafus as the most memorable moments in rehearsal or shows. I always ask cast members for those funny, memorable rehearsal moments, and Nikki and Angie pick what nearly everyone picks: when something goes wrong, and how everyone reacts to it.
In this case Nikki and Angie picked on our two leads, Jessica as Annie and Byron as Frank. One of them secretly cracks up every time Byron botches a lyric in the opening number because he "still kind of grumbles/hums the vocal line." The other swears that Jessica once mangled a lyric so badly in rehearsal that it came out sounding like she has just sung about a "butt mansion."
[Another side note: I really wish I knew the score well enough to even imagine what lyric that was supposed to be! Everybody's got their favorite botched lyric story. Mine involved Little Shop of Horrors, Mr. Mushnik and the line "...all of this great sex coming out of the blue..."]
Angie is a girl after my own heart because she loves "...run throughs because I get to see what everyone has been working on. It's fun to see the puzzle pieces being put together."
Nikki, meanwhile, is the first person I've ever seen answer the question about their favorite part of the theatrical process this way: "I love the challenge of the first vocal rehearsal with all of the sight reading."
After Annie Angie heads back to UC Irvine to continue pursuing her BA in theatre, meanwhile sounds like Nikki is off to get married...and to a guy she met while doing a show, no less! Theatre...it brings good things to life!
Welcome to Foothill Angie and Nikki!
// posted by ElisaC @ 8:57 AM 
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I got the scoop this weekend...
The "butt mansion" is from "I Got The Sun In The Morning".
So many Irving Berling songs have multiple verses that are similar not just in structure, but content, and it's easy to get confused and forget which verse you're singing. This is true of the above-mentioned song, but also "Doin' What Comes Naturally". Anyone playing Annie is going to have a bear of a time getting all those lyrics down.
Anyway... Jessica was supposed to sing "Got no mansion, got no yacht..." but instead started the verse that begins with "Got no butler, got no maid". She realized the mistake after the first three syllables, and switched. But what came out of her mouth was "Got no butmansion, got no yacht."
By the way... after this weekend, the official funniest moment of the entire rehearsal process involves a seagull falling from the flyspace. But you'll have to see the show to appreciate it for yourself...
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The "butt mansion" is from "I Got The Sun In The Morning".
So many Irving Berling songs have multiple verses that are similar not just in structure, but content, and it's easy to get confused and forget which verse you're singing. This is true of the above-mentioned song, but also "Doin' What Comes Naturally". Anyone playing Annie is going to have a bear of a time getting all those lyrics down.
Anyway... Jessica was supposed to sing "Got no mansion, got no yacht..." but instead started the verse that begins with "Got no butler, got no maid". She realized the mistake after the first three syllables, and switched. But what came out of her mouth was "Got no butmansion, got no yacht."
By the way... after this weekend, the official funniest moment of the entire rehearsal process involves a seagull falling from the flyspace. But you'll have to see the show to appreciate it for yourself...
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: 7/24/2006 1:38 PM
: 7/24/2006 1:38 PM << Home
