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[music]
Our working rehearsals are almost overwhelming.
When you have a cast of over 40 students because each one of those students needs to know where they are,
why they're there, and what the audience needs to learn from their presence on stage.
What ever shall we do now?
That requires working with props, learning dance moves, and making sure that each actor and singer
and dancer knows why they're there and why their presence on stage is vital to telling the story.
[singing]
I am easily assimilated. I am so easily assimilated.
The students are working together, theater majors and voice majors are working together and learning from each other.
The students are learning dialects for over 10 different countries and regions.
Although I can only ride with half my *** because I am missing one buttock.
You give your all to your part but you also have to see everybody else giving their all to their parts.
And that's how it comes together; it can't just be on you.
And it's really an incredible thing to see.
[singing]
They are learning to sing in a specific style that Bernstein wanted for Candide,
which is both musical theater and elements of classical singing.
[singing]
Today we're having one of the most exciting days in our preparation for Candide.
We are having a sitzprobe.
The word is German for 'sitting rehearsal."
So it's a combination of the orchestra and all the singers, but minus costumes and minus action on the stage.
So it's basically you have the whole cast there.
There sitting in chairs ready to just run through the music of the entire show.
[singing]
It's where you get the specifically musical problems worked out.
[bells]
So that everybody's comfortable with the whole musical side of things.
Be bop boop bah bah bah oomph!
And then you can add all the rest of the magic of drama and the costume and the blocking and lighting,
all of that other stuff that makes the whole experience so great.
But this just gets the musical core of the thing really solid.
[singing]
It's really exciting to hear the orchestra and I think it's coming together rather quickly.
This was really great.
This rehearsal was really efficient.
Definitely an exciting step forward.
[whip cracks]
One of the students has to learn to crack a whip.
Just so happens the actor who's playing Candide has experience and even makes whips.
We are using a whip that he personally made.
And he is teaching the other actor how to crack a whip.
Who knows what you'll have to learn when you are cast in a show.
Yeah, it did something.
Why is this door locked? Open this door.
The students are also working on a very specific acting style.
We want the audience to always be aware that this is theater.
And so we allow the audience to see some of the work that of people bringing things on stage and taking them off stage.
We don't try to hide that, and it's a theatrical story that we want the audience to enjoy being at the theater.
[singing]
Energy is exceedingly high and we're all really ready to show this to an audience.
[singing]
[applause]