There and Back Again
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Sing 2008 is officially in the books. What a great show. I got back this afternoon after two completely exhausting two weeks that were about as good as they could be. I’m so happy and proud of all of the work my groups put into it. Time for a well deserved rest. It’ll take me a week at least to recover and do all of my laundry.
Thanks to all of my friends who made the trip up from Austin (as well as Matt and Jenna in Waco) to see the fruits of the groups’ labor. For the record, the final results are as follows (if you went, you’ll understand the descriptions).
1st place: Kappa Kappa Sigma - 40’s sailors/swing club (Jump Jive and Whale)
2nd place: KOT (new orleans)
3rd place: Phi Chi (jail)
Remaining top 8 (no ranking awarded):
Chi Omega (barn dance/tresspassing)
Pi Phi (library)
ATO (hotel)
Tri Delt (day after Christmas)
Fiji (submarine)
The past few years I’ve branched out into building props for the show and this year I had the chance to build a few really fun ones. Here are some pictures of my creations:
Wagon Wheel Chandelier for the barn dance act. this was a lot of fun to build. I’m getting good at building round things, and wiring it up wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. The group ended up staining it and it looked GREAT on stage. Here’s a shot of it stained and laying sideways just offstage:
During their 2 minutes for setup the group puts the bulbs in and attaches the lampshades, then hangs it from the chains and plugs it in. The icky wood blocks are obscured by the lampshades and the whole thing hangs thirty feet off the floor.
A large 9′ tall grandfather clock. The door and clock face both open on hinges for the mice to peek out of.
Gear Stand in progress.
And my Piece de Resistance for the year, a 6′ diameter hanging clock. This thing is a monster, weighing well over 100 pounds. It looked outstanding onstage.
I also built two rolling tables (pictured here) and three benches, plus about 20-30 handheld discs that were painted as clock faces.
Here’s the painted clock face, and here’s what the stage looked like:
The big clock raised up at the beginning of the act. You can see the finished gear rack off to stage right (the left side), and you can just barely see the big grandfather clock in the center back behind the hanging clock. This was a really neat opening with all kinds of tick/tock/bong/cuckoo sounds, smoke, and slow motion going on onstage.
More pics:
600+ pages of music total.
Rehearsing the band (first music read-through) with some Sing Chairs looking on.
Dance rehearsals. I often go in to critique and help once the dancing comes together. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole process since we start to see it all coming together. It really starts to look like something!
Another Rehearsal
Kappa and Kappa Sig put on a coed act with 180 people onstage!
Me and Sing Alum Andrew Ginakis help out the ATO’s.
The “pre-stage” area (Roxy Grove Hall) right before the groups hit the main stage and perform for the whole audience. This group is Tri Delt. They had a (very colorful) “Day After Christmas” act.
Reindeer on pogo sticks.
Here’s one of the acts onstage. Yellow Submarine.
Me with Alliance Sing Chair Ryan Machen. Alliance put on an Island theme. Complete with:
Tiki Masks!
Alliance on stage.
Fifteen of my friends from Supper Club got to come up and see the show this year. We’ll need our own section of the house soon.
And here’s the band, without whom the show would be very… quiet. These guys are absolute pros at what they do. They’re able to see 16 acts worth of music (some years up to 20), and, in two or three days, they can perform the show almost flawlessly in front of a live audience.
Vince on bass in back, John on acoustic and electric, Pat on lead electric, and Scott on drums. Here we’re in the middle of a marathon rehearsal session.
John on guitar.
I love Pat’s funky orange axe.
The brass section! Well, 4/7ths of it anyway. From left to right: Rob, Tim, Jiro, and Chase.
Rob Page was one of my teachers when I got my Commercial Comp/Arranging degree. It was funny to have him sit and read my charts for two weeks. I kept joking that any mistakes were his fault since he didn’t teach me well enough in the first place. Rob’s a great guy who has played with some really big names (Really Big) and we’re lucky to have him on saxophone. The dude can rip a Think solo like you wouldn’t believe.
Music Producer Greg Bashara. Greg is responsible for hiring the band (based on what instruments I request) and making sure they get paid, so we’re really nice to him. He also listens to the house mix and acts as a liason between the enraged arranger (me) and the audio board when the fiddle mic doesn’t come on. Greg takes the brunt of my frustration.
I really like this picture. I stuck the camera down in front of Greg’s sax when he was playing between acts and lucked out with great framing.
Just realized that I didn’t get a picture of Barry this year. Barry handles synth and mini disc cueing. Nice to have somebody down there who’s been at it so long.
Some Sing Chairs:
ATO. They ended up going to Pigskin with their “Hotel California” act.
ADPi Sing Chairs Martha, Bethany, and Sammi. ADPi had the clock act. Unfortunately, they didn’t go to Pigskin, which was very disappointing, but they did a great job of leading their group, which is pretty new to the process. Looking for great things from them in the future.
Ryan, an Alliance chair, in his native islander garb.
The great guys from Phi Kappa Chi right after leaving the stage. They (obviously) had a prison act. Third place Pigskin!
Chi Omega chairs. They made Pigskin with their barn dance act (with the wagon wheel chandelier). Great bunch.
Tri Delt went to Pigskin with their Christmas act. Colorful!
Following is a three part panorama of the stage when they announce the winners. Pictured here are all of the Sing Chairs involved in Sing 2008. They decorate the stage with props from each of the acts. They also give out the people’s choice awards, announce the 8 that are going to Pigskin, then announce 3rd, 2nd, and finally, 1st place. It’s nerve-wracking for everyone involved.
I really like this pic. A chair shot it from the stage and sent it to me:
That’s 2200 people looking back at you.
First place this year went to the coed group of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Kappa Sigma. Here we are with the spoils:
Lots of parties happen after the show, and Erin and I always get invited to several and drop in on as many as we can. Here’s the Alliance party, where there was, hilariously, LIMBO!
I’m not as limber as I used to be.
The fun Alliance crowd, along with the gift they gave me: my very own Tiki Mask! He’s got attitude.
When I was in college I was never a big part of the greek scene. Between spending all of my time in the music building (music majors are notoriously busy), and not having the necessary funds to pay dues, I never really saw the purpose of the greek system. Now that I’ve been working with them for the past 18 years, though, I can see just how great it is. Sing is such an incredible leadership lab that I can’t imagine any mere class curriculum even coming close. These students (some of which are barely 19) have to work with large budgets, manage big groups of their peers, deal with outside professionals (arrangers, backdrop artists, choreographers, designers, costumers, etc), and take an act from nascent idea to full blown stage production. I’ve worked with over a thousand Sing Chairs in my career so far and overwhelmingly they’ll say how much the show taught them and how proud they are of their act. I have the extreme privilege of getting to be with them as many of them go from timid new Chair to confident leader. As always, I am incredibly blessed to get to do what I do for a living and can’t wait to see what the show brings next season!
All in all, a fantastic year.