"Barnum" questions

[ArnoldGottlieb]

Howdy,
My theatre has the musical "Barnum" coming up next, and I'm looking forward to playing the horn and not the bass for a few months, so, I was wondering if anybody knew what doubles were in the book. Also, anybody know who the tuba player on that CD is? Any advice?
Thanks.
ASG

[Bill Troiano]

I don't know about the cd, but I'm almost certain that John Stevens played the show when it opened on Broadway. I got to play it for 2 weeks about 20 years ago at Westbury Music Fair. I was told to bring a tuba and a sousaphone and that I would get doubling. There's plenty of tuba in the pit orchestra, but there's also a marching band on stage using the sousaphone that opens the second act. In an effort to cut budget, they decided to cut the marching band part and the sousaphone. I was annoyed because I had trouble finding a good sousaphone, it was a pain getting it there along with the tuba and I lost the double. I felt better when I saw the part. The marching band part starts with unaccompanied tuba playing a jazzy tune in the key of D. I ended up playing it on a 186CC in the pit and it felt a whole lot better than doing it on a sousaphone.

[ArnoldGottlieb]

I'll let you know after we open in may.......

[ArnoldGottlieb]

One other thing I've wondered about for awhile:

Comparing the "street" productions to the "road" productions...

Do you guys get more than one run-through of the music the morning of the first show...i.e. real "rehearsals"?

I'm not doing either one in this case. This is my steady Dinner Theatre gig about 1/2 hour outside of New York City. We do about 5 productions a year, and I've had the gig for about a year and a half, it's keeping me off of the road and subbing on higher paying gigs in New York City proper.
I'm assuming I'll be pretty 'involved' in this production between the tuba and probably something on the bass and who knows what, so I'll probably get the music well in advance. Generally in my theatre, we get a music rehearsal on a monday which is usually sightreading, run it down, play a dress rehearsal weds night and people are paying to see the show on thurs matinee.
Peace.
ASG

[Rick Denney]

One other thing I've wondered about for awhile:

Comparing the "street" productions to the "road" productions...

Do you guys get more than one run-through of the music the morning of the first show...i.e. real "rehearsals"?

When I performed it, the dress rehearsal was the only complete run-through we had before opening night. We had one prior sectional rehearsal just to look at the music prior to that.

Okay, here's the punchline: It was a middle-school production where the school band decided a week before the show opened that they could not play the music, and the drama teacher called in a friend who put a pick-up band together at the last minute.

The solo that opens the second act is indeed in D, and I complained about that mightily. But since then I've played it on my 14K (which I did not own at the time), and found that it actually worked quite well. The duet with the cornet that followed was more difficult because it was in the lower register with a number of low B-naturals--not the best note on any three-valve sousaphone.

Our production did not put the stage-band material on stage. I was 35 years too old to be able to perform on stage for this one, heh, heh.

The most fun part was not the solo, but the Jumbo the Elephant theme. You'll know it when you get to it. I was glad I had the Holton for that one--the kids got a big kick out of that sound when they started moving those big legs around the stage. They hadn't heard it until the dress.

Rick "who thinks 'Come Follow the Band' would have worked just as well in Eb and would have been easier to play on sousaphone" Denney