Well, it has been a loooong time since I have written on this blog, which is a shame because lots of things have been happening. Well, mostly one really big thing, which is in fact the reason I haven't written on this blog for so long. That thing is called Promised Valley, aka "the play". I have been
heavily involved in our stake's 50th anniversary musical representation of the Mormon Pioneers' trek west. The musical was originally written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the pioneers arriving in the Salt Lake Valley. It has been a lot of fun, and it literally took over my entire life for more than two months.
I auditioned for the play at the beginning of April, but because the director knew I might have to go to my mom's funeral sometime this summer, she put me in the chorus without a part for fear that I might be gone the week of the performances. Then soon after, I did have to go to Utah for the funeral, and was very glad to not have to worry about the play. But when I got back, I learned that the musical director for the play had been a complete disaster. She is a wonderful pianist, but apparently knows nothing about choral music and the practices were completely unproductive and frustrating. She was also too busy to commit, and after a few weeks simply backed out. So they used several different people temporarily to fill in, and by the time I got back, the overall music comprehension was in a terrible state. The director literally begged me to take over the music, and I reluctantly agreed.
Little did I know. Since I had been gone for three weeks, I knew less of the music than anyone in the chorus. At my first practice, before I had even had time to look over the music, at the director's request we dived headlong into the most difficult piece, and I was more than completely overwhelmed. It was
SO DIFFICULT!! It would have been an interesting, but demanding, challenge to learn it myself. But to teach it to others was completely over my head! This piece literally changed time signatures multiple times on almost every one of 18 pages. It switched constantly from cut time to 4:4 to 3:4 to 2:4, so it was infuriating to count. The tempos changed multiple times, and all but the last two pages were so dissonant that just learning the melody line was difficult, let alone the harmonies. The accompaniment was also dissonant and lacked coherent melody, so entrances were incredibly hard, and there was intermittent dialogue that completely threw off the music if they didn't say the lines at exactly the right time.
So I practiced conducting at home, listened to the CD recording, and counted out rhythms for literally hours. We hammered out parts over and over and over during rehearsal, in additional to the many other difficult (but not
as difficult) numbers we had to learn, and we eventually got them down. In fact, in the end, this terrible beast was our best number! It had the most choreography, was the most dramatically interesting, and sounded the best because we had practiced it so much. But all the numbers sounded really good, and it made me so proud of everyone's hard work. I have to say that I was completely humbled by the experience, but in the end it was so exhilarating to know that we had conquered it, and that I helped bring something about that seemed impossible at the beginning. It was so much fun, and I am sad that it's over.
But it's also a relief to be done. Lily's sleeping schedule was turned on its head. This is primarily because Lily was in the play with me. I wasn't planning on this, but I had to bring her a few times, and the director thought she was so cute that she wanted her in the performances. Lily LOVED being on stage. She learned many of the words to the songs and would try to sing along, she would help me pretend to gather firewood into a basket in the first scene, and she knew when to look sad. She knew exactly when to put her arms up at the end of a few numbers, and often did it before anyone else. Then she would clap enthusiastically. She enjoyed it so much that she cried when we were
offstage because she wanted to go on. Almost everyone I talked to said she was their very favorite part of the play, and many mentioned how impressed they were at her stage presence. Every time I have seen the director since (she's in my ward, so that's often), she tells me about more people who have asked her about that "incredibly adorable little, little girl in the play who was their favorite part" and demanded to know why she wasn't in the program.
Here we are "Going West!"
She doesn't look that enthusiastic in these pictures. That's because Adam took them all at the first dress rehearsal when she was SUPER tired.
I guess it is unusual to see toddlers in plays, since they are so unpredictable. It was VERY stressful to have to with me, since I never knew if she was going to suddenly bolt off the edge of the stage, or run behind another cast member and get stepped on, have a diaper explosion onstage, or throw an unexpected tantrum. But none of those things ever happened, although I had to bribe her a number of times with fruit snacks during various parts of the production.
In our Winter Quarters costumes, playing in the nursery room between scenes.
So it is nice to have my life back. I am trying to get caught up on all the stuff that got completely neglected during the month of having 6 rehearsals per week. Lily misses it profoundly though. She still asks me to "go west" and begs to go to play practice. She has been singing vigorously every day since the play ended, and it's funny because she belts it out so loud. One day she sang at the top of her lungs (mostly gibberish with random words mixed in about mommy, daddy, swimming, cookies, kitties, going west, and other phrases from the play) for more than 20 minutes continuously while we were outside on a walk. People on their front porches kept looking around trying to see where that noise was coming from, and they laughed when they realized it was emanating from the 1 1/2-year-old in my stroller. I got a little snippet of one morning serenade on video:
