Rent

Rent, Rent, and more Rent. That's been the story of this month. No, not the monthly payment towards to real owner of your current residence. I call that "mortgage". But I've been playing the musical at the 24th Street Theatre - two of them in fact: the mainstage version and the school edition version.

So this weekend wraps up the end of the runs of both, and by tomorrow we will have played the show in tech rehearsals or performances 11 times in 10 days. And that's a lot of Rent.

It's actually quite a fun show to play, and very challenging for me since I'm not a rock musician by nature. The parts offer a lot of variety, a far cry from the oom-pa bass parts you see in a lot of classic musicals. But it has been tiring, and my left wrist has been hurting for a week now (tendinitis anyone?) It's been so bad that I've had to resort to taking ibuprofen just to make it through some of the shows.

Due to the playing position needed for the left hand on a electric bass, my wrist stiffens up after most numbers and I have to slowly bend it back to a straight position and loosen it up between numbers. And don't even get me started on the loss of dexterity I'm having on those fast moving rockin' bass lines!

But it's been really fun to play, as I've said, and the cast is uber talented (some folks have told me it's the best production they've ever seen RSP put on).

If you missed it, too bad for you. At the moment there's less than 30 tickets available for the final two shows, tonight and tomorrow afternoon. Then I'll get a bit of a break to rest the wrist before the next project begins: directing The Wiz from October 29-November 21. Good thing conducting uses the right hand...