Marley's Ghost

Rehearsing for The Christmas Carol has been a little odd: because I'm only in the first act, I've had no reason to go to the rehearsals for the last couple of weeks, and since the last rehearsal I attended I'd begun to feel rather disconnected from it all.

While I was on holiday, one of the cast (who's also doing props) texted me and said I could fill up the second and third acts by doing props. So that may be the case. Not sure what it entails as yet, but there are a number of props floating around the play, so no doubt there'll be something to do.

Anyway, even though I wasn't called for today, I went along to see how things were progressing. The whole play is underway now, and the second and third acts were being rehearsed this afternoon. It's starting to shape up, though obviously needs a lot more pace and energy than it's got just yet. No doubt it will gain those over the next couple of weeks when we work through the whole play each rehearsal.

I did my short scene as Marley's Ghost with the actor playing Scrooge at the end of the rehearsal. Boy, what a difference a couple of weeks makes. Where I'd been confident about the cues and lines a couple of weeks ago, I seemed to be grasping for words today. However, that'll pick up again, and Marley will make his nasty impression on things once more! (Marley's Ghost even gets his own Wikipedia entry - crikey, I'm famous!)

Next week and then after

Concert's now only a week away - less in fact, since it's on Saturday - and the artists all seem pretty much up with the play. I'm getting to the point where I don't feel I can do any more with the piano pieces I play; if I don't get some things right now, I probably never will, but I'll need to keep practicing anyway. That's the problem with writing music that has passages in it that are just a bit beyond your own capability!

As for after the concert, well, I've got another play coming up, one that was to have gone on late last year, but didn't make it for various reasons: some health issues, as far as I recall. This one's A Christmas Carol, and I'm playing a couple of parts (as are some of the other actors): Marley's Ghost, and Mr Fezziwig (or is it Fizziweg? can never remember). The cast includes people from both When We Are Married and The Diary of Anne Frank, so it's kind of being amongst family.

What after that? I'd like to get on and finish the Children's Opera I started writing way back in the 70s, and which I've added some more to over the last few years. What's been holding me up was a lack of libretto. I did a kind of synopsis about a year ago, and things have stalled again since then. So I really need to sort this out.

I'd like to see if the three movements for brass band can get a play through. I've talked this over with a couple of the players from the St Kilda Band. It's up to me at this stage to go further with this, and I just need to get myself into gear, print out a full score, the parts and go from there.

And something else - something that I've already started on: while I was going through all the problems related to my prostate op late last year and early this year, I wrote a number of posts on another blog, WorkReport.net. Sometime after most of the hassle was over, I got an email from someone who was going through something similar, saying that the posts had helped him get some perspective on things. So I'm planning on turning the posts into an e-book, with some additional comments. I'm not sure how I go about putting an e-book out there, but we'll be working on it. (The link on WorkReport is a typical sample of the posts that were being written about this time. )