tl;dr — my non-legit self got a part with the opera.

There is the cover photo, so if that is enough for you, here is the ticket link. If you’re bored or my mother — and even you know the basics, Ma, so feel free to skim — pull up a chair.

As… I thought I had mentioned back during Ragtime, but after looking at those posts before hitting publish on this one I guess I didn’t, so as NEW news — the local opera company does a musical every other year. Sometimes, I’m not even appropriate for those (see, Pirates of Penzance), but the two times I have been, it’s been a treat. The world of a professional opera company, even a small, regional one, is much different than my world of dinner and community theatres. The theatre Piedmont Opera usually uses is under renovation, so rather than do a musical last spring in the temporary location, it got pushed back a year to this one — at least, I presume that is why the delay? I haven’t actually heard that from anyone official, so please don’t think I speak for the company. Ever. At any rate, it worked out because their opera last spring overlapped with year two of Hedwig.

After the fun of this summer’s Broadway-by-ladies concert, when auditions for Man of La Mancha were announced, I reached out to the company’s artistic director, Jamie Allbritten, to see if there was going to be an ensemble. It’s a very male-heavy show, so I wasn’t sure if there was a point to me signing up. I was told there definitely would be, and to just show up for callbacks because, clearly, he now knows what I sound like. It doesn’t usually happen now that I primarily do community theatre, but it is always super nice to get to skip the cattle call of it all! I understand why community directors don’t want to grant such permissions, in the interest of fairness, but it really would save a lot of time. And not just for me! It’s a very small world. But I digress.

Besides the pre-cast leading lady, there are exactly three female roles in the show, only two of which sing even a small bit, one of whom is a young soprano ingenue and the other of whom sounds… very legit on the revival cast album. When I got to callbacks, I asked what I was doing there. There are always plenty of middle-aged mezzos choose from and many who would sound more “opera”. After all, during my solo rehearsal for Here’s to the Ladies, the accompanist said how nice it was to play “Shy” for someone with the right voice for it and why doesn’t she know my voice and I pointed out they don’t usually need my voice to which Jamie said, “that’s true, we’re not that company.”

At callbacks, I first read… for the soprano ingenue. With a UNCSA fourth-year soprano. Having worked together in Ragtime and being social media-friendly, we looked at each other and laughed, but that’s the biz, baby, let the director see what you got. I haven’t worked with the show director, Steven LaCosse, before — but I did audition for him once and that is a whole other story that I will have to tell here after I finally tell him one of these days.

So… fairly typical callback: way more female types than male types, so I read just once for each of the two roles, but it still didn’t take too terribly long and I was able to meet up with Hampton and his friend who were having a beer across the street. Well, across the street and on the other side of the bookstore. Details.

And then the real waiting began.

To start, there was another callback a few weeks later for people who couldn’t be at the first one. It took so long for me to get a Ragtime chorus notification, I wasn’t expecting to hear anything too soon, but a few days after the second callback, I got a group email saying the first round of evaluations was complete and they’d be working to cast that week.

After more than that week, a male friend got his casting.

And then the soprano ingenue told my husband she was cast.

And then Thanksgiving came and went, it had been a full month after the last communication, and I figured, ok, guess they didn’t need me after all. A group I haven’t worked with before is doing a fun little pop rock show that should work around our February vacation, let me start listening to this.

And then I got the call.

Well, the email. It was the year of Al Gore’s internet 2024, after all.

I assumed by this point it would be a “thanks but no thanks it’s not you it’s us” call or maaaaaybe for whatever female ensemble they decided on but, nope, I will be playing the Housekeeper in Piedmont Opera’s Man of La Mancha this March. I never ever thought I would have anything but a chorus role there because, again, very bright musical theatre singer — but maybe because it’s Jamie’s last show with the company, he figured why not get a little weird. I certainly feel that if Mama Pauline were still with us, she would have been cast in this role, so it feels like an even bigger honor. All four lines.

NOW — to get to work with Thao on being a “boom” singer and not a “ping” one. Conveniently, we are about to spend ten days in Vietnam together! More on that soon. Hopefully in less time than it took me to write about Italy. Thao also made my graphic since he made himself one and I asked if we could please match. The reprise to the trio in which I have a bit solo is a quartet, and he’ll be singing in that, which is very fun and will make it slightly less nerve-wracking.

To windmills!