Hiatus

While a temporary hiatus for Floydshow grinds to its conclusion somewhere around mid-April, I decide to participate in a community theater production. Happens to be one of my favorite productions; I've done it before and had a wonderful time, so I anticipate having a great time again. Biggest problem is that it's in Lehi. Not that Lehi is a terrible place, but it means that I have to drive on I-15-AKA-freeway-of-doom again through the Pleasant Grove/Lindon curve at 6:00 or thereabouts. You know, the section of freeway that comes to a grinding halt every day for some mysterious reason that even UDOT can't figure out. The section of freeway that is personally responsible for my move from Eagle Mountain to Provo in 2003. As it turned out, I only got caught in the maw of hell a few times.
Anyway, the show is Smokey Joe's Cafe. Helen and I did this show a couple of years ago when the Pleasant Grove Players did it. We had a piano player, Helen on tenor sax and me playing bass guitar. We had a great time with it. My name was mentioned by a friend of ours from Eagle Mountain for whom Helen and I had played when they did Nunsense. MD Glen M called me and asked if I'd be interested in participating. I said yes pretty much on the spot, then asked about the dates. Turns out the dates were right when my wife and daughter would be in New York with the Provo High Chamber Choir. Helen was out. I was still in. About this time, a place contacts Floydshow to see if a gig could be arranged for the 3rd of April which was, coincidentally, next to last night for Smokey Joe's. Instant conundrum. Add to this, HCTO announces auditions for As You Like It, which would open on April 10th. Not a big temptation, except they also announce they are looking for musicians as well as actors. *perk* Now they have my attention. Like a dummy, I go and audition and get called back. I go to callbacks with a very peculiar feeling in tow; I don't know if I really want to do this show. It would be a lot of commitment right at the time when these other 2 things are coming up. I don't know if I just did horribly at callbacks, or what, but as it turned out, I wasn't cast. Can I just say, "Thank you, God" for that? Or whoever was responsible. After callbacks, I began to have weird feelings about the show. I didn't WANT to be cast, although I decided that I would go ahead and take the part if it was offered. Whew! I am really curious who they decided to cast and do the music. There were a lot of really great actors at callbacks, but not so much musical talent. To be sure, there were a few outstanding musicians, but seemingly not as many as they said they were looking for. Guess I will have to see when it opens.
Now here it is after the closing performance. The run is finished, and I am a free man for a couple more weeks until the Floydshow Hiatus is over. The gig for the 3rd never materialized, so it was not a conflict. We found neither a sax player nor another bass player, so I played bass for all the numbers except the 3 I played tenor in; the 3 the directors decided they HAD to have the saxophone in. It was all good. I found that I love playing sax in jazz bands, but I really needed to play bass for Smokey Joe's. We had a very good combo of musicians; Blair on drums, Steve on piano, Liz on keyboard and Jim on guitar. All of them were good musicians, and we were able to play well together. Really makes me want to do it again. The cast was awesome as well. It was a pleasure to get to know everybody involved with this production.