What Joy to Sing Again

After the longest, most challenging year in most of our lifetimes, a group of We the People actor/singers and various and sundry friends gathered in a snowy parking lot in Hanover, NH.  Thanks to the clever technology developed by the Denney family in Massachusetts (#drivewaychoir) and thanks to the generosity of the Choral Arts Foundation of the Upper Valley who purchased the gear and is providing it to local groups, we were actually able to safely sing together.  It was glorious! It was thrilling! It was heartwarming! I am running out of superlatives. 

Our wonderful piano man, Matt McGrath, was inside on the keyboard.  He had even brought his sound effect machine so that we could hear thunderous applause after some of the songs.  I stood out in front of the building, looking down at the 20+ cars that had gathered and did my best to lead the singing.  I am no conductor.  At best, I'm a camp-style song leader, but I did my very best to keep us together. There were kids and dogs in cars and friends who had come along to listen and enjoy.  And then there were my intrepid singers.  We had sent lyrics sheets in advance of the songs we planned to sing and most people had them on iPads or printed in their cars. Each car was given a headset and a wireless microphone to sing into. This allowed the group to stay safely sequestered in their cars while the full sound was broadcast back to the headsets and/or the car radios. We weren't perfect. We forgot some of the trickier bits of songs and our pitch might have wobbled once or twice. But no one cared! We pressed on even through the most intricate songs. "One Day More" from Les Mis comes to mind. What a stirring song with multiple parts overlapping, sometimes in counterpoint.  Much to my amazement, we got through it with aplomb!  Then there were the more sentimental songs that fit the time we are in.  

"The sun will come out tomorrow, Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, they'll be sun" (Annie) 

"Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow" (The Fantastiks) 

"Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect and whistle a happy tune, and no one will suspect I'm afraid.   (King and I) 

"Kiss today goodbye and point me towards tomorrow, we did what we had to do, and I won't forget what I did for love, what I did for love." (Chorus Line)

We soldiered through some of the songs from our last three shows.  We sang songs from Working and from 1776.  Then we were all granted an enormous treat when our own Don Quixote, Ham Gillett, lead us in singing The Impossible Dream from Man of la Mancha, the production that never quite made it onto the stage a year ago.

Don Quixote speaks- "It is the mission of each true knight... His duty... nay, his privilege!.."

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the un-rightable wrong.
To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star! 

You know the rest. I trust that you are singing along by now. Fortunately, I was far enough away from the assembled crowd so that no one could see the tears in my eyes. Even though our production was cancelled a year ago, on this day, in this place, with these people, we were singing our hearts out again.  Our driveway choir gave each person the joy of seeing dear friends, even from behind masks, and of singing together. It brightened a gray day on the cusp of mud season after a year like no other.

And finally "Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?" (Rent)

How can we measure a year like the one we have had? It will take a long time for many of us to leave it behind. We will move slowly with caution and undoubtedly will feel awkward as we try to get back to our friends and our fun. But there is one thing that is for certain. There will be music and theatre at the end of the tunnel. I hope many of you will be in the audience.