Notes for Sunday Jan 24

Hi everyone!

Here's the plan for Sunday's rehearsal:

1:15   Spoken Role Auditions
2:15   Vocal Solo Auditions
2:30   Physical Warmup - FULL COMPANY present
2:40   Vocal Warmup
2:50   Music
4:15   Break
4:30   Script Discussion
4:45   Miserere Blocking

Only those who are planning to audition for spoken roles should arrive for 1:15pm. Those who are interested in vocal solos will have the chance to audition at 2:15pm. We will start rehearsing with the full company at 2:30pm.

Reminder that Miserere music is to be memorized for this week. Reminder that *alto 1s* are on snack!

We posted the link to the complete script of The House of Bernarda Alba on a previous blog post, but in case you missed it, the link is here.

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

By this Sunday, we would like to know about any known upcoming absences for the remainder of the term. Please email Erin, Christina, and Claire (ALL THREE) to let us know if you will be missing a rehearsal. Of course we understand that illness and emergencies happen but it is very helpful to us if you can let us know any dates missed in advance for planning purposes.

Schedule

We have added one small item to the Google Calendar. On Saturday February 27 from 4-6pm we will be recording a video of us singing 'O Canada' as part of the Sing All of Us campaign (more info here). Recording will take place at the Maritime Conservatory of the Performing Arts and should be brief and efficient. We will be distributing the easy arrangement to you in the next couple of weeks and taking a bit of rehearsal time to work on it. Please mark this date in your calendars!

Can't wait to see you all on Sunday!

House of Bernarda Alba Audition Scenes

Hi everyone,

The scenes we will be using for auditions are available here.

For the five daughters, we will use these audition scenes only. For Poncia/Servant, there will be an improvised movement component that we will work on in the audition as well as the spoken text.

Reminder that there will also be vocal auditions during this time for La luna asoma and Cancion de jinete.

Any questions, please let us know! We'll be posting the timeline for Sunday's rehearsal on Thursday via the blog so you can get a sense for how long the audition period will be.

If you'd like to take a look at the complete script to get more of a sense of the characters, you can access it here.

Rehearsal Notes - January 17th

Verita Criosa

·      Section 1 is always angry, use the consonants to achieve this feeling.

·      Take advantage of the voiced consonants in particular, voice them before the onset of the note itself.

·      Powerful, full sound.

·      Altos, anywhere you have a comma in the text, add a quarter rest

Las Amarillas

·      Second last measure of the piece, the text for everyone should be as written in the middle part

Miserere

·      Remember that this piece is to be memorized for next week (January 24)

·      End of mm 39, everyone takes a breath together

O Frondens Virga

·      Mm 1 – 5 Sopranos sing the Alto 1 line

·      Mm 5 – 12 Sopranos sing the Soprano line, Altos sing the Alto 2 line

·      Mm 13 – 16 Sopranos sing the Soprano line, Altos sing the Alto 1 line

·      Mm 16 – end Sopranos sing the Alto 1 line, Altos sing the Alto 2 line (starting with “in tu” of mm 17)

House of Bernarda Alba Memorization Schedule

*Updated Feb 22

January 24 - Miserere

January 31 - Kyrie + O Frondens Virga

February 7 - Virita Criosa 1 + La luna asoma

February 14 - Las Amarillas

February 21 - Cancion de jinete

March 6 - Virita Criosa 2 + 3

March 20 - Corazon de espinas + O Vos Omnes

March 28 - Virita Criosa 4 + El Grito

April 3 - Virita Criosa 5

Notes for Sunday January 17

Hi everyone!

We are gearing up for Rehearsal #2 on The House of Bernarda Alba! Here's the plan for this Sunday:

Sunday Jan 17

1:15 Physical Warm-Up
1:25 Vocal Warm-Up
1:35 Music Session I
3:00 Break
3:15 Read-through + Audition briefing
4:00 Music Session II

You'll be receiving scripts this Sunday, and we'll do a read-through of the show to help familiarize you with the nuances of the script. 

Auditions

Auditions for all vocal solos and speaking roles will be Sunday January 24th. Here are the vocal solos:

La luna asoma: soprano
Cancion de jinete: alto and 2 sopranos

The spoken roles we will audition for are Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio, Adela, Poncia, and the Servant. There are some small additional speaking roles that we will not audition separately but we will determine from the pool of those auditioning for the above roles. We highly encourage everyone to audition for as many roles as you are interested in! There is the possibility that we will assign understudies for certain roles in case of sickness, or to accommodate our touring schedule. Note that Poncia and the Servant have heavier solo movement requirements than most of the daughters (not extreme, but some).

Following the January 17th rehearsal, we will post the short scenes on the blog that we will use for the auditions. You do not have to have them memorized but we will be expecting you to be familiar with the character and the scene.

Schedule

Please take a look at the Google Calendar as it has been updated. We have released all dates for the last week of April. Our Halifax show dates remain as May 6&7 with our tech week days and times noted in the Calendar.

We have confirmed a run-out performance of Bernarda Alba on Saturday, June 11 at the Kings Theatre in Annapolis Royal. Please make sure to mark that date on your calendars. We are expecting 1-2 additional runouts and will let you know as soon as we have dates confirmed (hopefully within the next week). ***Update as of Jan 12 we have now booked another runout on Saturday May 14 at the Chester Playhouse. Please add this to your calendars.

One additional thing to note, we will be singing at Edgewood-Oxford United Church the morning of Sunday, April 3rd, as a thank you to them for lending us their basement for our Christmas wreath fundraiser.

Our memorization schedule and reference recordings will be available on the blog later this week so keep your eyes open!

Thanks everyone! See you Sunday!

Notes for Sunday January 10

Hi everyone!

We are so looking forward to being back together this weekend for our first rehearsal of 2016! We will be diving into our new show "The House of Bernarda Alba" which we are very excited to share with you!

Here's the plan for Sunday! Our rehearsal is 1:15-5:30pm at St. Matthew's United Church. Soprano 1s are on snack duty!!

1:15 Housekeeping Items
1:30 Show & Tell
2:00 Physical Warm up
2:10 Vocal Warm up
2:20 Music Session I
3:45 Break
4:00 Movement Session
4:30 Music Session II

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

xo Claire & Christina

Our Very Festive Weekend!

Hi everyone! We hope you are all feeling wonderful about last weekend's shows! We are so proud of everyone and so grateful for your hard work, dedication, and energy last week! Now this weekend we get to enjoy many festive activities together!

Wreath Day

This Saturday is wreath day! We will be at Edgewood-Oxford United Church, 3055 Connaught Ave from 9:30am-5:00pm.

Please bring: a packed lunch, your wreath order form if you have it, a pair of scissors. If you have a pair of wire cutters please bring them as we never have enough!! Also feel free to bring some sweet tunes so we can all dance while we make wreaths! I'll bring my speakers that can hook up to ipods/iphones etc.

We will provide instructions on how to decorate the wreaths when you arrive! It is super fun and we can sing Christmas carols too :)

Please remind your wreath buyers that they can pick up their wreaths anytime between 2-5pm at the church. It is of the utmost importance that you ensure every one of your wreaths is taken from the church on Saturday - either by your buyers or by yourself for delivery. Christina, Tenille, and I cannot take any additional wreaths home with us after the decorating day.

Caroling & Holiday Party

On Sunday we will have our annual holiday party (whoooo!!!!!!) starting at 2pm. This year our host is Tenille (thank you Tenille!!). Her apartment is at 5685 Charles St., Apt 1 (first apartment right above Chi Bistro). Please bring a potluck snack to share!

Every year we also do a 'Secret Santa' - all you have to do is bring a wrapped gift (no name on it), value no more than $10. We then play a fun game that involves stealing presents from each other ;) Participation is optional but it is a super fun way to kick off the holidays!

Preceding the holiday party we will be doing a bit of carolling at the Alderney Landing Market from 1-2pm (exact time will be confirmed prior to Sunday) in exchange for them donating a table to advertise Tales of the Old North throughout the month of November. We will use rep from the previous carolling gigs, and please dress as you did for the last carolling gig at the ferry terminal ("wintery festive").

That's it! Any questions, let us know! We are so excited for this weekend! Wear something comfy both days for a) a long day of wreath making and b) eating a ton of food on Sunday!!