Hey Would You Like A Gig? Can You Be Here Tomorrow?

So as I was en route to Chicago with Mom to see the Harry Potter Exhibit my phone rang and it was Gregg the drummer from Wedding Singer. It seemed odd that he would be calling me, but I listened to the message and then understood why. He spends his summers playing at The Gateway Playhouse, and they needed a reed player. The problem was they needed someone to start on Monday morning, and this was Thursday afternoon. So I called him back and explained that I would do it, but that I could not play the last week due to tour and also that I wasn't sure I could make it for the Monday morning rehearsal. After all I had not even thought of packing for tour, I really was relying on the last month to step up my practicing, and I had tickets to shows in Chicago on Sunday. When I hung up with Gregg it did not seem too promising so after I didn't hear back that day, I wrote the whole thing off. Well that is until Saturday afternoon when he texted back to say that they were desperate and wondered if I was still available. Like a crazy fool I wrote back and said that I was so he told me that I would be hearing back that day. Well as of about 7pm, I hadn't heard anything so I changed my facebook status to indicate that I was frustrated, and immediately Gregg wrote back to ask if I was frustrated at him. I said no just the situation, and explained that since I was looking at a 16 hour drive on Sunday should I get the gig, I needed to know or my availability would change to not available. Well that did the trick, I finally got a call from Jason the musical director, and I signed on to play A Chorus Line for the next three weeks.

In the end I am glad that I got to play the show. Gateway is a theatre at which I figured I would never get a foot in the door, and A Chorus Line turned out to be a fun show to play. Although it kicked my butt! I had been playing a lot of flute and piccolo this summer in preparation for tour, so my doubling chops were not happy with me playing Chorus Line. Plus I also got to explore Long Island a bit which is something I probably would never have done otherwise!

How is it that I keep ending up playing shows in barns?

Ah cast housing! The housing was actually pretty nice, but Long Island turned out to be one big allergen! Not a good three weeks for my allergies!

The orchestra turned out to be a bit of a reunion for me. Firstly there was Gregg, but also Jason who I met when I saw the NETworks Drowsy Chaperone tour. Then there was the keyboard two book. The first player was David Jenkins, a RBT alumni, and the second player was none other than Nate Patton himself. At the opening night party we took another "that picture".

More NETworks people: Kit, a Hairsprayer; Lauryn, Wizard and Wedding Singer; Chris, Annie last year and this year's notion player on Wizard; oh yeah and Nate again.

I just can't get away from it!!!!!

I did get to go into the city on one of my days off. I spent the night with Eric and then hung out with Brian on my day off. I was really disappointed because Brian was doing an off Broadway musical called Imelda, but I couldn't see it due to our conflicting performance schedules. Alas!

I also decided that I needed to see Fire Island, which is a long but narrow barrier island south of Long Island. Fire Island is mostly beach which is not my thing, but I decided to drive down and see what it was all about.

I'm really hoping this is a very rare bird!

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This makes me a little bit sad, and a little bit hungry for crab!

Gateway produces some of their shows at another theatre in adjacent Patchogue. I know this because Brian did a production of Miss Saigon there 10 years ago which Eric and I drove out and saw. I decided to drive over and take a picture of the theatre and relive the memories of Eric's car almost breaking down on the Long Island Expressway. Those were the days!

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I also got to reconnect with Stanley, a friend from the RBT, who used to work for Gateway, but now lives in the Hamptons. Must be nice! He showed me around the Hamptons, and yes they are nice!

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When my three weeks were up though, I made the epic drive back and had one crazy day to get my life together. The next day I flew back to tour, and thus begins The Wizard of Oz Year 2 blog.