Simply elegant

I went to see a small little cabaret piece called "Happy Chaps" this weekend.

It's on as a part of the gay & lesbian festival -- but turns out it's also enjoyable by straight people too!

A little cabaret celebrating the gay characters and composers of contemporary musical theatre -- it was 45 minutes long, and had 8 people -- 8 chairs, 4 mics, and a simple stand and deliver approach.

It was produced and directed by my good friend Sunayan Devanesan on a shoestring budget, and thrown together in a week (2 rehearsals). And it was the best thing I've seen in months. Resting solely on the talents of the 8 performers, in a very [Title of Show] moment (who says 8 chairs and a keyboard can't make a musical?), these guys sold it. It reminded me of stuff that I used to see at BATS theatre in Wellington's "Theatre District". Small theatre, small production, small budget, all talent.

Darryn Gatt was the stand out for me, who performed the phone call song from Bare (I don't know it's name...maybe "see me"). He made my heart break, and my girlfriend cry.

Plus, in another eat-my-words moment, the only ensemble number was the baseball song from Falsetto's, which I had, only weeks earlier, told Sunayan that I wasn't keen on having it in Evolutions, because I thought it was a large paper bag of 2 week old dog shit. And, turns out, that the little black bastard is right again, and that the baseball song is GREAT!

"We're sitting, and watching Marty watch Jason
We're watching Marty watch Jason,
We're watching Marty watch
Who did not like baseball, like baseball."

Anyway -- this Happy Chaps thing is on for one more weekend, next weekend at Gasworks theatre. It's only $15, and on next Friday and Saturday night. Book online via this link

And it's really bloody good.

Naming the child...

Okay, so certain people (Kristy, this means you...) have been pestering me AGAIN about not keeping this up to date...despite recent efforts.

Here's the deal: I'm busy! We audition in two weeks for a show that doesn't yet have a score...just a bunch of sketches sitting on my PC.

However, we do now have a name, an audition notice, and an advertisement....

After much discussion (two whole emails), Sunny (my director / producer) agreed not to name it Avenue Who 2. Avenue Who was his last concert, which was a bloody huge success, leaving me, once again, big shoes to fill.

However, I have this concept for the score which distinguishes it from normal stand-and-deliver style concerts, which...while hard to pull of well...are not my cup of tea.

So, may I introduce...Evolutions:

EVOLUTIONS

A look at the past re invented and anticipated Future
Of Musical Theatre

A Concert Featuring Music from
The Colour Purple, Jersey Boys, BARE,
Title of Show, Little Women, Tarzan, Parade, Wicked, Frankenstein and More

We are seeking 16 Singers – 8 Male / 8 Female

Singers are asked to prepare two songs of their own choice. Songs should help to demonstrate your vocal range and strengths, while exhibiting your performance and storytelling ability.

Please note that the use of backing tracks, singing a cappella or asking music to be transposed is not allowed.

All auditionees are asked to provide a head shot, this photo is non returnable. If you do not have one, we will take one for you.

Audition Dates
Tuesday February 6 from 7pm
Thursday February 8 from 7pm

ALL Auditionees must be available for call backs on Sunday February 11^th @ 1pm if required.

For more information and AUDITION BOOKINGS Email

sunnytheatre@yahoo.com

Evolutions will rehearse in Hawthorn and be performed at gasworks arts park, Albert Park in April 2007


Now I know that, like any concert, this is a collection of greatest hits from contemporary musical theatre. However, I'm keen to ensure that this also has a musical identity it's own, and has earns it's right to exist amongst the noise of theatre crap on these days.

I'm acutally really excited about the arrangements thus far...especially the Sondheim Octet I finished a couple of days ago...which concludes with eight voices, singing 8 songs, from 8 different shows, simulatenously, and not sounding shit. It's pretty cool.

Last time I did one of these things I had the luxury of spending 6 months on the score. While the much shorter lead time causes stress, the plus is that I don't have to wait TOO long before knowing whether my ideas translate off my pc, and sound okay when performed by actual people.

So, forgive me if I'm slack to update, but time is a little pushed.

Marty.


PS -- 11 sleeps until Miss Saigon rehearsals!

Aside #2: Wellington Weather

A friend forwarded me the below, and it fondly reminds me of the aspects of Wellington I don't miss.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the place -- but no-one should have to live there.

By LINLEY BONIFACE
I was an ardent admirer of Wellington for 13 years. It is perhaps not a coincidence that these were the 13 years when I lived overseas. In the five years since I moved back here, I have waxed and waned on Wellington, but now, I'm afraid, I'm over it. Wellington, Schmellington. Get me out of here.

My disenchantment came to a head a couple of weeks ago, when I suffered an accident that could never have happened in any other city.

At the time, I was in my back garden, which, like so many Wellington gardens, is not a relaxing urban oasis but an Outward Bound-style obstacle course.

It consists of a small onionweed plantation, a steep bank leading to a dark and sinister grove of native bush, and a muddy waterway created by a stormwater drain.

We've only succeeded in hacking our way to the boundary fence three times. On the first occasion, my daughter had a low-level panic attack and began bellowing, "Take me home! I don't like it here!" "You ARE home!" we snapped, but she refused to stop crying till we forded the stormwater drain, manhandled her up the bank, dragged her through the onionweed and bundled her into the house, at which point a stray northerly gust made every door in the house slam shut with a monumental bang. It couldn't have got any creepier if I had sat down at my typewriter and begun bashing out the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" while my son scrawled "REDRUM" on the bathroom mirror in lipstick.

As a result of the garden's peculiar topography, the only way I can reach my washing line is by hovering precariously above it from the safety of a specially constructed deck.

On this occasion, I was leaning over the line with a wet sheet when another stray gust of wind made me lose my balance.

To avoid falling down the bank, I grabbed one of the wires and suddenly found myself suspended from the washing line, swinging out over the void below.

I shouted for help, but to no avail. In a Wellington southerly, no one can hear you scream. I remained like this for several minutes – the metal line cutting a bloody groove in my fingers, each gust swinging me first in one direction then in another, a pair of my husband's boxer shorts lashing me damply in the face – till the wind picked up, whirled me around and smashed me against the edge of the deck.

Losing my grip on the line, I fell down the bank and gashed my forehead on a rusty clothes peg. How, I pondered, could all this be satisfactorily explained to ACC?

This is not my first weather- related injury. I have a permanent dent in my spine from where the wind periodically seizes the door of the car boot with such force that it slams down on me as I attempt to put the children's schoolbags away.

I've lost count of the cuts and bruises I've accumulated from falling down steps and walking into walls when blinded by gales and driving rain.

And, while a haircut can hardly be described as an injury – though I've had a few that come close – it is the wind that eventually forced me to adopt the close- cut, aerodynamic hairstyle popularised by state-sector lesbians a decade ago.

Newcomers to Wellington soon learn that a bob is a near-lethal fashion choice: in gale-force winds, bob-wearers are savagely pistol- whipped by their own hair.

To survive Wellington, you need a good coat, a good handbrake and a good sense of humour.

The city's current polar temperatures, however, are something new. What the hell is happening? Is there someone we can ask for our money back?

A few days ago, my husband, an Englishman whom I lured to Wellington with false promises of a sun-soaked Pacific paradise, finally lost it.

"This summer is an OUTRAGE!" he ranted, as he pulled on a second fleece. "Why have we come to this godforsaken place? We must leave now! We must pack up our things and go!"

He has jungle fever; he has gone troppo. It is too much for him. And it is too much for me.

There is only one solution. If farmers can be offered recompense for flood damage, Wellingtonians should be given compensation for being deprived of the one season that makes it possible for us to tolerate staying here for the rest of the year.

I hereby promise my vote in the next general election to the first party that agrees to fund a fortnight in Fiji for anyone unlucky enough to live in Wellington.

Marty attempts a Richard Marrett

Who?

Richard Marrett is like this killer fuck-off amazing MD in NZ. He generally does all the big shows in the lower north island, and, prior to being allowed to idolise Guy Simpson, was one of the best MD's I'd ever had the pleasure of chillin' wid.

(He was also the composer of the god awful Once were Warriors musical. To this day, I cannot fathom how a man as clever and musically gifted as he is could spend years producing such utter horse shit. I guess OWW to Marrett is like "Passion" or "Bounce" to Sondheim.)

Anyway, Richard did this show in NZ called "Ovation". It was this revue / concert style show of theatre's greatest hits...there's hundreds of these shows done all the time. What made Ovation stand out from the pack was that it was really fucking good (except for when these 5 bastards tried to sing 'No matter what', and butchered the harmonies)

He gave the show a cleverly thought-out score, with refreshing new takes on beaten up old songs. ("I don't know how to love him" done with 5 women in funky jazz voicings. Tres chic.) It was a show in it's own right, rather than a shitty narrative by some tosser in a clowns costume explaining the plot outline of Les Mis, before a 65 year old soprano murders "I dreamed a dream" for the 100th time.


Anyway, I was so blown away by this concert production, that I thought I'd try to lend my hand to one. So, I'm currently furiously writing arrangements and orchestrations for a May 2007 concert production, currently untitled.

Working again with Devanasan Productions, we're using really shiny new stuff (colour purple, jersey boys, tarzan, little women, title of show, etc), and -- just like Dicky Marrett did -- I'm throwing together some funky new arrangements of shitty old tunes. (Don't quite know what yet...but it's on my to-do list).

So that's my first project for '07...and it's gonna be a bigun! Generally these gigs take about 6 months of arranging and orchestrating before you walk into a rehearsal room....we're working with about 8 weeks!

God I hope I don't fuck it up.

Marty does Saigon. (Kinda...not really)

Okay, so this news is pants-wettingly-cool, so you might wanna chuck on a pair of depends before you read any further.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm pretty excited about Miss Saigon coming to town.

What's possibly the one thing cooler than Miss Saigon playing here in Melbourne for a 16 week season?

Being involved.

So in a few weeks I jump on a plane and fly over to Sydney for rehearsals for Miss Saigon! Now, I'm not actually doing anything there, more hanging around for a few days to observe the brilliant Mr. Guy Simpson work as MD extraordinare.

I'll be there to watch, copy his moves, and generally steal his MD Mojo.

The team are rehearsing in Sydney for 5 weeks, before moving to Melbourne for tech calls, previews, and the 16 week season.

I'll be at the first few days of rehearsals in Sydney, and then at all the orchestral calls and the Sitzprobe (and maybe even a couple of tech calls) here in Melbourne.

I feel extremely extremely grateful for this killer opportunity. Needless to say that my first cast of '07 will have a newer, better, smarter MD waving a silly white stick at them.

The heat is ON!

The Guilds

My recap of events that occurred while I was away has to kick off with the guilds.

The guild awards are the Melbourne equivalent of the tony awards (which is the theater equivalent of the Oscars...which is the movie equivalent of the Olympics...which is the dating equivalent of a blow-job on a first date.)

Anyway, the first year that I had done any work that was eligible for guild award nominations was in 2005, when my two productions (Cabaret and Les Mis) were horribly, horribly shunned. We received something like a whopping total of 1 nomination...and that was for the lead actress in Cabaret.

So, I swapped companies, leaving behind the horrendous pompous gay men of 2005, and ushered in the fantastic gay men of 2006....with Sunayan Devanesan leading the charge.

Together we worked on two shows...RENT and Michael John La Chuisa's The Wild Party. This year went a little better, and between the two shows we picked up a total of 12 nominations, all for talent. (Frankly, getting an award for best costuming or set has got the be the high school equivilent of the awards for woodwork and cooking...which is the dating equivlent to a first date with a transexual...nothing really worth mentioning...probably best if no-one finds out).

So, we got nominated for:

• Best Production - RENT
• Best Concert - The Wild Party
• Best Director - Sunayan Devanesan - RENT
• Best Musical Director - Marty Pitt (that's ME!!) - RENT
• Best Lead Male - Scott McKenzie - RENT
• Best Lead Male - Darryn Gatt - RENT
• Best Lead Female - Shandalle (sorry, I've forgotten your last name) - RENT
• Best Lead Female - Angela Covington - RENT
• Best Lead Female - Mayarni (Sorry, I've forgotten your last name -- not related to the above) - RENT
• Best new talent - Mayarni - (As above) - RENT
• Best Supporting Male - James Cook - RENT

And some others, which I've also forgotten.

So, we were all pretty rapt. I had hoped that Wild Party would've done a bit better, but let's not knock a gift horse in the mouth.... the show was pretty 'out there', and doesn't really fit into a shoebox category.

However, if they had a category for "Best rape scene involving a bisexual playboy and a 14 year-old virgin", I'm quietly confidant we'd have taken it out.

As for the actual awards night, we picked up a couple, but somewhat predictably, the big awards went with the big budgets...with Scarlett Pimpernell cleaning up. (I think that Michael Lachlan did an outstanding job of MD'ing that puppy, so no hard feelings there. At least it didn't go to some of the other god-awful productions I had seen this year.)

The awards night was followed by a rather large after party. I found too many hypo gays and ass-kissing tossers all looking for some drunk footage to use as leverage at the next audition session for my liking, so I pissed off early.

All in all...I'm pretty stoked about the whole guild thing-o for '06.

Bravo.

By gar it's been a while

Hi folk, I'm back.

I dream of the day when I can write folk in the plural, appending that sweet sweet coveted "s" to the end, acknowledging that my reader base is higher than 1. But, sadly, even my own family have either opted to ignore my blog, or all forgotten how to read.

However, I have a solid reader base of 1, (hi there Kristy), who has berated me for my 2 & 1/2 month absence of posting...so I triumphantly return to the world of blogger. I figure I'll split what I've been up to into a couple of blogs so that I can have a fuller looking page.

All that's left for this blog really is to welcome in 2007 with a standing pants-off mexican wave of 1.

WELCOME.