Getting Ready for Glitter and Gold
With T minus four days until opening night, the cast of A Chorus Line has kicked it into high gear to put the final touches on the performance of the year. This week is filled with full run-throughs of the show, including tech runs with the wonderful theatre production team, costumes from the talented Ms Smith, and a live orchestra! Ms Foreman, the Assistant Choreographer, says that “This is the week to polish the show to perfection so it’s ready for our audience.”
The cast has been working so diligently to make A Chorus Line as spectacular as we know it can be.
This musical is about aspiring dancers trying to get their foot in the door of fame. Zach, the director of a musical in New York, is one of the protagonists and Daniel J, Privett ‘24, the actor who portrays him, describes him as “A detail-oriented, pedantic director with a need for perfection despite his inability to control what’s actually most important in his life”. Zach pushes the auditioners to describe their childhood and tell a story of the obstacles they overcame as kids, shaping them into the performers they are. If that doesn’t entice you, I don’t know what will!
To begin the countdown to opening night, on Monday the cast got an amazing opportunity to do a sitzprobe - German for ‘seated rehearsal’ - with a professional live orchestra. It was incredible to hear the backing tracks come to life with talented musicians coming from Victoria to help us pull off this amazing show. This is my favourite night of our pre-show week as it is really special to feel the wall of sound coming from the orchestra as well as my talented peers. Musical Co-Captain, Clare R, Hope ‘24, describes the sitzprobe as bringing “together the two elements of the show, the sound and the stage, and it is magical to say the least. Bringing together the orchestra and our performers’ voices makes it all feel very real, and gets everyone in the mindset of performance, leaving everyone excited with big smiles on their faces”.
The rest of the orchestra rehearsals involve a lot of start-stopping as we are touching up scenes to make sure things move smoothly on our opening night! A huge thank you to Ms Smith, Ms Foreman, Mr Newns, Ms Plough and her Theatre Pro team, Ms Staples and Ms Widenmaier for creating a show that we will all remember forever.
I have made friends for life through Brentwood’s musical and I am so proud to be a part of this cast. See you on opening night!
Ella W, Mack ‘25