Great Broadway Sing-Along - the funcrunch files

Last night I went with thomwatson and Jeff to a Broadway sing-along at the Jewish Community Center across the street from my office. It was great fun, with songs from many great shows including Fiddler on the Roof, Godspell, Oklahoma, and way too many from South Pacific. :-) An excellent pianist and three great singers lead the evening and performed some solos as well. After hearing one of them, Noel Anthony Escobar, sing "Stranger in Paradise" from Kismet, I whispered to Thom that I was going to take him home with me. Thom said he'd have to fight me for him. ;-)

I didn't sing nearly as well as I'd hoped; most of the songs were out of my range, and I'm out of practice with that genre of music. I used to sing and play (on piano) Broadway music all the time. I saw in the program that the female soloist was a fellow Northwestern alum, so I chatted with her briefly after the show. I played piano for many rehearsals and productions there, from 1988-92. My piano skills have atrophied greatly since that time, but then again, I don't really miss nights of accompanying four hours of auditions, especially for people who just drop the sheet music on the piano and rush to the center stage. Leaving me waving my arms, "Excuse me - where do I stop and start? What tempo??" etc. Oh, and "Can you transpose this to..." "NO!!" Those were the days...