I am looking back on this weekend of Magic Flute performances with such gratitude and joy. The Friday night performance, about which I was so nervous, went quite well and was enthusiastically received. . . and then Saturday turned out to be altogether better in every way, with an even bigger audience even more excited about what they had seen and heard. In fact, the closest thing to an outright mishap involved two moments with the Roland electric keyboard on which I produced the sound of the flute, bells, and thunder. Saturday night I think it was the first time I was supposed to play thunder that I neglected to have the keyboard switched to sound effects, so I played a high flute tone when we were first supposed to be hearing scary thunder. Oops. And at the end of the show, I tried to get fancy by sustaining the thunder with one finger while playing with the other hand on the grand piano, and at one point I missed the thunder key (a-flat) and hit the key for bird calls instead. It was just for a split second, but it was a bit odd to suddenly hear the sound of a happy parakeet in the midst of what was supposed to be frightening thunder. Oh well- at least it wasn’t the sound of a toilet flushing or a cattle stampede.
Actually, it was while I was setting up the keyboard for Saturday’s performance that I suddenly realized that the sound effects array included a very convincing wind sound that could help the audience feel like they were in northern Wisconsin in the middle of winter- so we ended up using that at the very top of the show and at one point during act two. And since one of the main characters, Papageno, is a bird-catcher, we decided to use some bird sounds at one point as well. It was an inexpensive way to insert a couple other touches of magic into our bargain basement (though highly imaginative) production.
As I look back on the weekend, which also included much appreciated (if all too brief) reunions with some former voice students like Ben Kuttler, Anthony Gullo, and Trevor Parker- who all attended Magic Flute- one of the most challenging undertakings was for me to get the printed program put together. I volunteered to do this, but I was the last person who should have been taking this on. (Picture Dolly Parton volunteering to sing Aida at the Met. One might admire her pluck while doubting her sanity.) I’m a great typist (thank you, mom, for the genes) but when it comes to getting fancy with a printed program, I know next to nothing- especially when it comes to the standard format of a program that looks like a small booklet. I know there’s a slick way to do that, but I don’t have a clue on just how to do it, so I had to adopt a model of a single 11 X 14 sheet that would fold down top to bottom rather than side to side. That way, I didn’t have to get into the whole mess of separate columns and back-to-back pages. But then I realized that I didn’t know how to create a template that’s 11 X 14 (again, I know it’s not impossible- just impossible for someone as ignorant as me, with no time to educate himself).
So. . . I put together the Magic Flute printed program with literal cutting and pasting. I printed up all of the basic elements that needed to be in the program- cast list, list of thank you’s, synopsis, director’s note, cover material, etc. – and all in various sizes – and then spent about an hour and a half at Office Max cutting apart what I had printed into little strips and then laboriously laying them out and trying to get them to be nice and straight and properly spaced on the page – and of course, once things were as I wanted them, I had to go in with my bottle of Liquid Paper and paint over all of the seams so the edges of those strips of paper wouldn’t show up as unsightly lines. And it was only when I had finally created an adequate master that it was time to start duplicating them.
As I did all this, and especially in the first phase involving all of the laborious cutting and pasting, I felt so Amish . . . like a horse-drawn carriage in a NASCAR world. But now I look back and realize that it actually worked out so nicely for me to be occupied like I was. If I hadn’t been busy getting the program together, I would have spent Friday afternoon grinding myself up with worry about that night’s performance and all that could go wrong. It was so much more soothing to have this project to do – and for there to be so many steps I had to methodically follow in order for it to get done. With all that, there was no time for pointless fretting.
I use the term “Amish” very specifically because I remember reading once that the Amish have emphatically resisted the modernization of technology in their farm work not because it’s beyond them- but because they do not want the work they do to be made too efficient. . . too quick. They see real value in the time it takes to sow their crops – or harvest them – with the old methods. It takes time / it takes teamwork / and it also fosters a deeper appreciation for and connection with the land itself.
Of course, it’s not like I made some wise, reasoned decision to spend my Friday afternoon cutting and pasting at Office Max. I did it because when it comes to word processing, I’m the Village Idiot – and this was literally the only way I could get the job done. And in this one instance at least, the long, laborious way was also the best way.
Isn’t life strange sometimes?
pictured above: a look at my cutting and pasting project Friday afternoon