Multitasking - 1

Why is it that I feel I may have to revisit the challenges of multitasking a few times over the course of me writing this blog?

When you're engaged in musical theatre, one of the things that you discover at some point down the line is that you're going to have to develop an ability to move in a structured fashion at the same time as you try to remember the words, notes and rhythms of the songs themselves. To those who sit and watch it's a simple case of sing and dance.

Let's take last night as my first example discussion point. We're singing 'Cabaret' as one of the numbers in our Autumn show 'Life is a Cabaret' this year (September 23rd and 24th I think) and as it's one of those numbers that most folk have heard at some point, it was a relatively easy song to learn (just have to remember to sing the harmony not the melody).

So it made perfect sense that our incredible choreographers would choose it as one of the early numbers to set. You can almost imagine a bit of swaying, the odd (perhaps that should have been occasional?) arm raise and then a kick step here and there as needed; nothing to it really.

Well that wasn't quite the reality that I experienced last night. The sways at the start were ok: I can count to eight whilst singing. And then I can more or less remember to turn my hands around to the front and raise my arms at the same time as everyone else. The challenge came at the little bow bit - do I still bow if the guy to the right of me doesn't bow? What if I bend too far, or not far enough? Will the spotlights reflect badly off my bald patch (it's such a worry). And then I had to remember to walk forwards at the right time, collecting two lovely ladies en route to the corner.

Of course that was the point at which the silence in the room demonstrated that I, together with the rest of the guys, had suddenly forgotten to sing. The ladies were of course continuing to warble away merrily, whilst daintily placing their feet in the correct position and smiling merrily with eyes stage front. So incredibly unfair.

And twenty minutes later, which was probably the tenth repeat of the song, with our choreographer starting to look just a little fraught at the front, we more or less managed to remember the words, most of the notes and the majority of the movements and all at the right time! Hooray for us.

So before I forget again, here we go! 'Come to the cabaret!' with a step kick, step kick, sway ........