And first question is, from your perspective, what was your experience like working on Kosta quartet as a music director? Or what were responsibilities? And what was it like working on time?
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, well, I was I was the music director last year. So I came into this with with experience, like, I kind of knew what I expect, like what to expect. And I think that kind of helped me adapt and be more flexible with the online platform. In terms of like music director responsibilities, you oversee all the the musical and acoustic versions of this show when you connect it to how that translates to the character development and the director's vision. So a lot of collaboration. So over the summer, I made all the rehearsal tracks or like I recorded all the music, and I added everyone's vocal line so that they could record because I figured this was back in the summer when we were unsure, like a business school going to open or not, so we weren't sure if we were going to be totally remote. But yeah, so we prepared for being totally online. So I made all the rehearsal tracks. Auditions, were interesting, because it was all done online. And normally, when you when you listen to people, you want to hear them all sing together to hear how their voices blend. But we but we couldn't do that. And we got really lucky that we have a very talented and hardworking cast. So yeah, and then I guess just a lot of collaborating with the director, organizing with the stage manager having rehearsals. And what's unique about this musical is that it's instead of having like a separate cast and separate like musician group, like band. This musical I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's like every, like the cast does everything. So they play the music, they sing they act. So I so I wasn't just teaching like to separate rehearsals, I was just teaching them like the entire like the all the music, essentially. That's
to build more more onto that. What was your strategy and process for practices during the year considering that you couldn't get people over in one room for these practices? Yeah, so
we would have, we essentially broke it down to one rehearsal is one musical song. And then they were always done in two hour, roughly two hour increments. So then there are four cast members. So I would split it up, we'd always start with like a check in to see like, how is everyone doing? And then we would go in depending on depending on the the song and how much sometimes their solos, sometimes it's split pretty equally in terms of like four part harmony, I would I would split up the rehearsal. So if everyone's doing the same amount, everyone wants to get like 30 minutes. And at the very end, we would all stay behind and sing it all together. So one person's unmuted, and they'd be singing along with their rehearsal track. And other three who are muted would sing along to that person over zoom. And so that was really building like, like their musical ear actively listening to, to the person because a lot of communication is nonverbal and music, like just seeing like, what are you breathing? When are you coming in matching those rhythms matching the consonants. And so, so yeah, even though it was online, we did a lot of singing together. And we also use band lab, which is like the Google Doc version of GarageBand, where everyone can just record their own parts and sing it together and see other people's parts. So we did a lot of that, too. So even though we were a part, we were still able to mute make music together.
interesting to hear and you have some familiar with the current events are actually here. There's a collaborative element there too. And I guess, one thing I'd really like to learn more about is from a perspective of someone who's considering tuning into ghost this year, why do you think it's an excellent production for them to move into and tune and learn more about?
Yeah, for sure. Well, I think my personal opinion is I think it's always a good time to, to watch an art artistic production. What I really appreciate about these CDs is how financially accessible all their shows are. I think it's about $5 for students and $10 for non students. And it's going to be April 2 to fourth. But there's no like there's no exact time of streaming just from that time period, you can watch at any time. So whether you're in this time zone or a different time zone, it's it's super accessible to everyone who's able to access it. And then in terms of the plot, I think it's just a very unique musical. It doesn't follow the normal musical traditions. It doesn't even sound like a traditional musical like, you know, like those big Broadway pop songs. It doesn't. So, yeah, and it just it just interesting. Like, it's very much. Like if you're into like, really listening into like the lyrics and, and seeing how Dave Malloy, the composer of the musical, kind of laid out the whole thing. It's just four characters. For actors, and they just they play all the characters, and they they jump to different, like time periods and country. So the musical kind of takes influence from from different, like aspects of different types of storytelling. And so just the way it's weaved, I think is super unique. And yeah.
Yeah, because the plan itself is, is, like, quite interesting, like, I have, like, I mean, like, the cast members have like these very, very different roles. So um, so it is something that I'm very much curious about. And that would be interesting to me, Jefferson. And I guess some last questions in terms of what audience can what audiences can it can expect to see? Um, what do you predict the runtime to be? And then I guess, just to confirm how much the cast you mentioned? Well, of course, are actors, adult podcasts, or would there be more?
I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that last part where we were talking about the forecast.
Um, what was the size of that of the cast? I think you mentioned before, that it's about before actors doing all the roles, which I think is pretty interesting. Would there be additional cast members as well? Or does that? I guess, because it is it is it is a portent?
Yeah, um, okay. I remember the second half of that question. And, yeah, so essentially, it is the four main actors and they, they play all the different characters. And they play about 90% of the instrumental parts, and then all the piano descent, that's me.
And then,
we had we had to other musicians come in, just to help fill in some of the sounds. So we had, so Victoria one of the cast members is playing the cello. But we also had someone come in to play a few cello pieces. And then for in terms of percussion, more, almost all of them play a percussion piece, like percussion instruments. But we also had one additional person come in to help because it's quite demanding, because we had to learn to music, we had to learn their lines, they had to learn their blocking. And then they also since it's remote, they also have to set up their their little stage filming area. And they have to, like record themselves. And so just to save time, because we were filming it all in a very short timeframe, we also brought in two additional musicians, as well to help out with that. So everything is listed in our program as well. So everyone gets the credit. Sorry, I missed your first half of the question.
Um, it was related to the rent, would expect rent have to be and add on one more question. As last one I had in mind. What platforms will this be presented on? How can people access the event as well? So how long is the event?
Yeah, for sure. So the runtime is approximately an hour and a half. Yeah, approximately an hour and a half, give or take. And then the platform from what I understand from vcds, it's going to be streamed on Vimeo. And then the way people are going to access it is, if you look at the Victoria College Drummond society, social media is on Instagram and Facebook, you can go and purchase, they'll have a link for you to go purchase a ticket. You can you can buy the ticket online, and then you'll receive an email with the link to access the musical.
Perfect. Yeah, that sounds really exciting. And would you have any information that you'd like to add that you'd have a chance to?
Um, yeah, I just think this is a really unique musical. It's like a concept album. So it's what's what's what makes it so interesting is it's very meta, the musical is very aware of itself and like it, like the characters will go back and forth between changing characters and then also playing themselves and recognizing that they are actors within a musical. And so it's it's limited staging, but like limited blocking, but the set design and the lighting i think is beautiful. The set designer and the lighting designer did an amazing job. This new sickle is also highly improvisatory and experimental. So there's a lot of. So there's there's a lot of just that like, like the actors like artistic interpretations implemented into this musical. And I think what for me is most unique is how it's a circular story. And even though the four separate actors, they play different characters, and so each musical number they take on a different character and their relationships to each other change. And so at the very end, we see how, even though it's like the numbers, the musical is not done in a linear form. At the very end, we see how it all comes together and how everything is connected. And so yeah, I just think that's just so fascinating.
Yeah, like, um, yeah, like I can remind you about the wakeup of Blackadder the BBC show or like some or some of those stories on coronation. dadless sounds like a really interesting. Like, I'm, thank you. Thank you very much. For your time and your perspective. I'm very much excited to put this perspective into the end of the future. Yeah, thank
you so much for for this opportunity. I hope everyone enjoys the show. It's, it's definitely a very unique storytelling experience. But I think, yeah, I think it's just so fascinating. And in this time of COVID you know, art always makes things a little happier. So yeah, I hope you have a great rest of the day. Thank you so much for this.
