So, first of all, thanks to Rick Daly's response to my posting this question at Kingston Crossroads I had the clip in my inbox very quickly. I was also apprised of it's inclusion on the "Wherever We May Go" video, which I ordered and now have. So that part is solved.
The show we're doing at the Camelot Theatre in Talent, Oregon is called "Spotlight On The Kingston Trio." The theatre has produced several other "Spotlight On..." shows, including Neil Diamond, James Taylor, Billy Joel, The Eagles, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Julie Andrews and Peter, Paul & Mary (which I narrated and played band leader for last year.) The concept is to provide a retrospective of the artist's career and musical contributions in story and song.
So I've enlisted the aid of two local musicians to play the parts of Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds, while I'm portraying Dave Guard in Act I and John Stewart in Act II. We've selected 24 songs for the show, and the hard part was deciding what to leave out. I wrote the script and will narrate most of it with John and Andrew (my cohorts) chiming in with brief comments.
We've been rehearsing since January and we're starting to sound pretty good, altho we'll never get close to the originals. The X-factor can't be duplicated. For me the challenges have been multi-faceted. I've had bring my banjo skills up to a higher level and I've even learned to frail. I'm also singing Dave Guard's "joker" parts, which is requiring me to extend my low-end range down a few steps. Vocal lessons and power walking are helping. (Another interesting breathing technique I've discovered is playing nose flute!)
I really do miss singing my old Nick Reynolds parts and playing tenor guitar. Andrew has a great tenor voice, altho he's opera trained, so we've had to bring him down to earth a bit. He's also been challenged learning tenor guitar, even tho he does play 6-string guitar in our worship team at church. (He's also our choir director.) But it's surprising how confused he is about the missing two strings.
And one more challenge has been finding striped shirts. There was nothing available for months on the internet, until suddenly just this month I found two perfect sets, one red and black and the other blue and white, at Macy's. And they were cheap too - $15 each. So that's now solved.
Anyway, we open a 3-week run on Aug. 9th and after that I'm going to take a long vacation. This has been a lot of work and theater doesn't pay well. I'm doing it out of love for The Trio and I know it's going to be successful. Nice too that it's all right here in town. I'm done with the road!
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