The Wiz – Showtime

Just finished 2nd show tonight, enjoying this whole experience over again. It reminded me of how much it want to play in pits as a percussionist.

So here’s a picture of my setup which I spent quite some time putting together.

I say it’s quite an experience because it’s the first time I’m playing a musical made up of Motown music. The tunes are very groovy with lots of conga and bongo parts which I’m quite new to. From renting the timps, I made a new industry contact, Paul, who not only rented the timps to us, but is also a lecturer at the Cheltam Music College. He’s also played in BBC orchestra etc.

And tmr, I’m going to try to video myself playing the whole show, for review and possibly a showreel for my website. Need to establish myself more as a theatre percussionist.

However, despite having a whole week of tech, dress reh and 2 shows, the band still don’t sound balanced with the casts in the PMA. It’s very disappointing because not only is the band in a separate room (SST), no audience actually pop over to see us during the interval. Some even asked if the musical was done to a CD!?!