busy doing nothing real

i have had a week where i started rehearsals for the Edinburgh Festival, did about 4 hours teaching, met up with an old friend, had an unusual gig, a regular gig, and a fundraiser where i was utterly self indulgent.

Rehearsals began on Tuesday for our show. Not without hassle, as our rehearsal venue, which we had booked for every Tuesday until mid July, decided they had never heard of us and were booked up, so we had to move AFTER we had been let in and set up our equipment. Combine this with our Musical Director calling in sick, and it does make it hard to teach the cast a Musical.

But it worked out ok, we got some things done, i played bad piano for the one number we did and we managed to use the University thanks to one of our company.

Teaching is excellent fun when my students are fired up, and at the moment they are. It’s great. Traffic problems meant i spent over an hour in one tiny village on the way, but that was soon forgotten once we were working on our devised piece for my students’ end of year showcase.

After teaching Thursday i met up with a friend who i don’t see very often. She’s a long term friend, we were at college together 14 years ago, and have been great friends this whole time, and she even came to my fundraiser many miles away, but i can’t shift the feeling she will always be a rather negative person. She’s often had some bitterness towards the entertainment industry, and isn’t backward about coming forward with her opinion. i have no problem with this, if you have something nice to say once in a while. I’m beginning to wonder…

Fundraiser was a cabaret with lots of very talented friends performing, singing, playing violin, playing piano, reading poetry, and working with almost no rehearsal to put together a wonderful night.

3 people called in sick within 24 hours of this event so to fill out the programme i decided to sing (not something i do at these events very often, i do plenty of it elsewhere) and was thoroughly self indulgent singing a Buble number. It was fun. And people smiled, or cringed, either way, we raised more money for the cause and had some great news. A donation by a local company of £500 towards our Edinburgh costs.

Unusual gig, Singing Chef! one of those things where a wedding goes along fine and then a waitress gets up and sings badly, is told off and then her and 2 others burst into song. Opera is NOT my thing, but i managed to fake my way through Nessun Dorma and Brindisi.

Regular gig was a Charity one tonight with my more usual Rat Pack group. Fun was had, and money was raised. If only i could find a way to make £30,000. We would be more than settled for Edinburgh!

So now i’m home, ready to sleep i think. Except more of the same awaits from tomorrow morning.

It’s tough doing nothing.