Closing Night

If you like practical jokes and enjoy watching people goof off a little onstage, schedule your theater tickets for a closing night performance and then keep your eyes peeled. In high school drama club I learned about the little devil that seems to get into performers on closing night. From a shake of salt in someone’s coffee to extra lines thrown in to catch others off-guard, closing night seemed to be the time when you really had to stay on your game.

When I was at college this phenomenon wasn’t really an issue because we only had one or two opportunities to perform, meaning we took each performance very seriously. But after experiencing two closing-night performances in Coburg, it seems like the last show (normally the 20th performance or so) is pretty much open season for pranks, practical jokes, and clowning around.

Der Bettelstudent closed last weekend and I didn’t realize how much I had to watch my back (literally!) during a closing night show. During a café scene in the first act where I am seated during a soloist's aria, I could feel that someone was touching the bow on the back of my dress. At one point I turned around and found that someone had tied a red string to the back of my dress and at the other end was a huge fake pretzel! Good thing I noticed it before I had to stand up and walk upstage dragging a bouncing carb behind my back! Also, another chorister brought his camera onstage and started taking pictures during the same act. The piece was set in modern times, but it was still funny to see him snapping groups of singers together during the crowd scenes.

Not all closing night antics are actual pranks. Sometimes they are just lively expressions of the performers' personalities. For instance, one woman in the choir has a tradition of wearing sparkly butterfly clips in her hair for every final performance. I think the tradition has lived for about 15 years, so those butterflies are probably an institution in Coburg by now. And when the opera Martha closed last month, the white powdered wigs of some women in the chorus became more and more "bedecked" as the night wore on, until I noticed during our final bows that many of them actually had pieces of plastic fruit arranged among their curls. And one of the lead baritones had a large black heart on his powdered face instead of a typical beauty mark.

None of these jokes affect the actual performance in a negative way. In fact, if anything a few pranks will liven up a show if for no other reason than the fear of having a pretzel tied to your dress will keep you more alert and focused during performance #20 than being lulled into the same old blocking from shows 1-19.

Pics of the theater (and dressing room!)

The Landestheater in Coburg is located just steps from the downtown area of Coburg (to the left of this picture). The big area in front of the theater acts as the parking lot during performances.
















This is the Reithalle, which is at the other end of the big gravel parking lot from the main theater (my back was to the theater when I took this shot). It is a former riding hall that has been converted into a small theater that seats 100. The lobby of the Reithalle is where we have our theater parties, so it's really great that my apartment is only about a 2-minute walk from there.
















Here's a closer look at the theater. The main steps lead up to the front entrance and the ticket office. The second floor windows are the Spiegelsaal (mirror room), which is a fantastic lobby area where the audience can order wine and champagne during intermissions. The stage entrance for the performers is on the other side of the building.















This is the women's dressing room. The blue curtain can be pulled across our door for extra privacy. The postcards on the wall are the pride of the choir. It is practically a requirement for vacationing choir ladies to send postcards back. The costumes for half of the choir are on the rack to the left of this picture. And my dressing station is the one almost at the end, with the pink caboodle on the tabletop.















This is the other bank of dressing tables. Just so you keep your orientation, the postcard wall is to the right of this shot.















Here's a look at the dressing room from our door. See, there's my station again, second from the left!

Theater Traditions

There are some fun, wacky, and just plain strange traditions and superstitions in the theater industry. Some I am more familiar with than others. For instance, when someone tells you to “break a leg” before a performance, they are not actually asking you to break a bone onstage. They are hoping that you get so much applause that the “leg” of the curtain (the rod used to weight the fly down) breaks from going up and down so much.

You can also wish someone luck by saying “toi toi toi.” This is essentially spitting at someone (hopefully done over their shoulder) to wish them luck. I don’t know where this tradition came from, but I do know that it is considered impolite to say thank you when someone spits over your shoulder.

A fun tradition that is very popular in Coburg is giving out premiere gifts. Normally cast members will make cards or signs and give little presents or candies to the other members in the production to celebrate the night of the premiere. So far in the chorus we have received chocolates, cards, pictures, and even participated in an opening-night coloring contest!

A tradition that has almost gotten me in serious trouble is whistling onstage. Apparently this is a HUGE no-no, and I was told in no uncertain terms to stop immediately when I whistled onstage during a rehearsal. The theater folk have a great sense of humor, so I thought I was being teased, but it really is something you should avoid if you want to get along with your coworkers. I don’t remember the exact reason for the superstition, but it may have something to do with the use of candles onstage before electricity and the risk of fire. Who knows.

Pictures of der Bettelstudent

This is the ugly stepchild opera of our season. It is overwhelmingly popular with our audience (almost every show is nearly sold out) and overwhelmingly UNpopular with the singers. I can take it or leave it, personally, because I get to eat a lot onstage. After a very long run, our last show will be tomorrow evening.

This is my costume for the first scene, where the women beg the prison warden to let our husbannds out for a visit. The visit is really short and the guys get sent off almost immediately after we get to see them (hence my frowny face.)




















This is Suzy. She has been singing in the choir for over 20 years and was actually in the choir when my voice teacher Tom started his career in Coburg in 1982! After I started the job and Suzy found out that Tom used to sing in Coburg, she looked through all of her old theater programs and found pictures of him when he was my age and brought them to a performance. What a fun coincidence!



















The blue dress above is one of my favorite costumes. In one scene I get to wear it with this absolutely fabulous maribou shawl. I was thinking about trying to heist the shawl after the production ends, but the costume women have their eye on me...



















These are some of the women in the choir. They are congregated in this general direction because the mini-fridge is directly to the right of this photo. It was time to uncork the evening's champagne and these are the die-hard bubbly drinkers.

Jet-setting opera singer. Who, me??

The last several weeks have been kind of a blur. I flew back to the States on January 13th to begin rehearsals for the Tacoma Opera young artist program and just returned a couple days ago. I sang one of the lead roles in Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti" and also sang in a few scenes from a couple of his other shows. The reality of my jet-setting lifestyle took awhile to sink in. Although my plane ticket and gas driving to and from rehearsals actually cost more than what I got paid to sing in the young artist program, it was a really cool thing to fly halfway across the world to sing in a show. It was also great to get a little more experience as a soloist, since my singing duties in Coburg have all been within the relative safety of the chorus.

In general, I feel very protected and relaxed when singing with the choir. The rehearsals are not super-stressful and the performances are a total blast because we get to jump onstage every so often and try to steal the show from the soloists. But during preparations for "Trouble in Tahiti," I got a completely different perspective. The rehearsals were pretty draining because I felt on the spot all of the time. I tried to think through each of my lines and make sure that every action I made onstage was for a reason. And vocally I had to be very careful to not oversing during rehearsals, and also not to talk too much outside of rehearsals to save my voice. Of course, in addition to rehearsing I was also busy cleaning out my apartment and visiting with my friends and family, but I did notice the amount of focus and preparation for this show was about quadruple what I have to put into a show as a chorister.

This experience was great for me as a young singer to build my resume, but it also makes me wonder what kind of lifestyle I want for myself in the future. Having my contract in Coburg extend through next season gives me a fairly large cushion of time to decide what I want to do as my next step here in Germany. But a part of me thinks that the constant strain of being a soloist would probably shorten my time as a performer due to the stress and pressure. The carefree feeling I have onstage as a choirister and lack of pressure really makes performing an awesome experience. But I wonder if my sense of ambition and training as a soloist will eventually override these feelings of comfort to push me to the next level into the world of solo singing.