This weekend has been packed to the brim – with the end of the last week of classes at Carthage, three solo recitals including Bryan Chung’s – the Honors Recital Sunday afternoon, for which I’m playing for four people – my folk service is being done at church this morning – and oh yeah, it was also opening weekend of a little show at the Racine Theater Guild called “Guys and Dolls.”
It’s been fun and frustrating – happy and hectic – maddening and magnificent. We were blessed to have a truly superb cast, and once again it is a nice mix of steady, familiar faces and some exciting newcomers grappling with a very complicated, challenging and ultimately very entertaining show. The production is the swan song of the RTG’s technical director, Kurt Oian, who is heading back to Texas in mid-summer, and what a way for him to finish out his tenure with the RTG! This set is spectacular in every way and you feel like it was worth the price of admission before you’ve heard a single note of music sung. (It’s something akin to a marvelous sanctuary that inspires you to worship before anything else has happened at all.)
pictured: the final moment of “Sit Down, you’re Rockin’ the Boat.” Joe Vigneri is our Nicely-Nicely and he brings down the house with this number. By the way, this photo is not staged- this is exactly how it looked opening night. (I wasn’t supposed to be taking pictures in the auditorium, so let’s just keep this between us, okay? Shhhhhhhhhh.)