I learned so much being a part of the recent production of ONCE at the Little Victory Theatre. It was a practical application of all the things I learned in my music theory class at CSI in 2018. The piece I wrote about that experience eventually gave birth to this column. Emma Helene Campbell, our exceptional violinist\/vocalist and James A. Reilly, our musical director, got me over my discomfort with written music. David Speechley taught me about instant chemistry. Sophie Smith-Brody showed me what grace, eloquence and talent look like as a person. Tommy Dougherty brought uninhibited laughter and fearlessness to every performance. Tommy Gonzalez made me chuckle every day and marvel at his amazing vocal abilities. Sebastian Henson was a joy to be with as well as being a versatile musician. I found out by sitting next to Mike Kelly that he has a great voice. Aliyson MacIvor taught me everything I needed to know about percussion. Tina Barone returned to the stage for the first time in too long while Cami MacIvor made her first stage appearance. Nora Shvartsberg was an unlimited font of talent, skills and laughter. Ozzie Soto, our stage manager, was omnipresent and always a source of positive energy. And, the entire company taught me, again, why community theater is so important\u2026because building a community brings light and laughter and love into a world that has always sorely needed it.<\/p>\n
Alberta Thompson lent us the Little Victory for our show.<\/p>\n
I did this production at the insistence of my good friend Dani Bacibianco, whom I had worked with previously at Sea View on \u201cBill W. And Doctor Bob\u201d and \u201cVita\/Virginia.\u201d She wanted me to play the father of the lead character. That part was easy. I also had to up my chops on mandolin and choral singing, and those parts were hard. But the reward of challenging yourself and succeeding is that you find a part of yourself that you either never knew about or had somehow buried.<\/p>\n
At one point during the run, we kind of lost the thread, which often happens during a production and Dani pulled us back together. <\/p>\n
During that time, it occurred to me that we weren\u2019t so much actors portraying characters as we were members of a band, because the pull of doing this show is that all of the actors in the ensemble are also the house band and play on almost all of the numbers. <\/p>\n
And band dynamics are very different from company dynamics. Luckily, I know a lot about band dynamics and that was my contribution to the show.<\/p>\n
The play itself centers on an Irish busker (street singer) who almost gives up his will to play and sing until he meets a young Czech woman who, magically, also sings and plays piano. What follows is a heart warming and heart breaking tale of hopes and dreams denied and revived, love lost, found and then lost again, containing all the elements we know so well: fear, rejection, hope, denial, laughter, sorrow and, most importantly, music. If you\u2019ve never seen the show, you know the song \u201cFalling Slowly\u201d from the film the musical was based on. Dani wisely built this show from the band up, having us learn the songs from the show and then play them together. And here, I found another difference in style. The younger members of the troupe all read music and were strict adherents to the libretto (the script and score of a show). I, on the other hand, woefully slow in reading, relied almost entirely on my ear and my memory. I had about 14 lines in the whole show, so that wasn\u2019t the part that took up most of my brain. But I had to memorize all the tunes so I could play along, even when I was offstage. I\u2019ve always relied on my ears and memory in situations like this one and, so far, they haven\u2019t failed me.<\/p>\n
This was also the first time since \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d in 2016 that I performed two shows in one day. We were home preparing for our fourth show in three days when we got word that it had been cancelled due to inclement weather conditions and that we\u2019d pick up where we left off the following week. Collectively, we breathed a sigh of relief. We were all exhausted. During the break between shows, I finally saw The Sound Of Music, which Joan and I had done selections from earlier this year. I was struck by certain parallels to ONCE, such as the lyrical mention of moonbeams, the plot device of a missing spouse and the amount of gorgeous choral singing. It\u2019s true what they say\u2026when you\u2019re doing a show, everything else relates to it.<\/p>\n
Due to the threat of inclement weather for the 25th, we had a Zoom meeting earlier in the week. It was decided that we would add a Saturday afternoon show in case that Sunday got cancelled, which proved prescient since the snow on the 25th obliterated any chance of a performance. We ended the second week\u2019s run with three shows. Our last show on Saturday evening begun with a riotous pre show set and capped with an unplanned instrumental encore of \u201cThe North Strand,\u201d kicked off by Emma. Prior to that, we had shared a meal together at a local restaurant and that was a high point for a different reason.<\/p>\n
I have to stress here how unusual it is for a 76-year-old person to be given such a fulfilling role in a production as well as a chance to make a new set of friends. A blessing in every way. These are people I would now climb mountains for and I feel that they would do the same for me. Friends who saw the show claimed my role was a perfect fit and I joked about being the only 76-year-old mandolinist on the Island who had also acted. But that joke also held within it the sadness of having to leave this unique company.<\/p>\n
So: Dani, Ozzie, Emma, James, Sebastian, Tommy D and Tommy G, Tina, Cami, Ali, Mike, Nora, Sophie and David: Slan!<\/p>\n
Comments may be submitted to \u2018Talk To the Old Guy\u201d on Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I learned so much being a part of the recent production of ONCE at the Little Victory Theatre.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-118440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}