- Co-adjudicating the High School Scholarship auditions.
The TTA awards a $500 scholarship to a Tennessee high school senior who goes to any in-state college or university. The students prepare a 2-minute monologue and audition for us. The one whose monologue shows the most skill wins. This was interesting - I'd never done anything like this before, and there ended up being about 20 kids. Some seniors, some juniors - the juniors were ineligible for the scholarship, but encouraged to audition for the experience - but all with relative skill levels. - Plays, Plays, Plays
I didn't get to see many of the performances, but there were 5 colleges, 8 high schools and 3 community theatres that brought shows and performed over the course of the weekend. All were judged and presented scores at the end of the festival. Bearden High School from here in Knoxville won their competition, so kudos to them. I did get to see my wife's alma mater, Lambuth University, perform a funny show called "On the Verge". - Nothin' Dirty Going On
The best part of the weekend is that I was able to get this job that I talked about before... I will be musical directing a staged concert version of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" with the Royal Palm Players in Boca Grande, FL this coming February. Refer to the aforementioned article for the details of how the opportunity came up, but they will be flying me down, paying a salary and providing housing for me in a condo on the beach. Looks like my family will be able to join me for several days as well.
I received the music in the mail, and while I was initially a little nervous - I play the piano, and play it pretty well but it's mostly by ear and I'm not great at interpreting full scores - I was pleased to see that it's basically from one of those "singers editions" of the show, and not the actual accompanist score. I.e. it's not difficult to play, and allows for a lot of improvisng which, if you've seen the movie or the show, you'll know that most of the songs are fast-paced, rock/country kind of numbers. One drawback - the music only includes the melody lines, and no chorus parts, which means either they'll be coming separately or I'll need to arrange the chorus parts myself. This is no big deal, really, and I'd look forward to doing it - especially since I have several months to get it done.
Anyway, I can't wait to sit on the beach in South Florida in February while everyone's freezing up her in Knoxville :)
And that's the way the beach ball bounces...
