Don Quixote and Opening Ceremony

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 6/20/02 9:10:38 AM Central Daylight Time, Tom writes:


> This strikes me as typical of a community theatre production.  Where is the 
> director when these choices are being made?  In professional theatre, where 
> I 
> dwelt for 25 years, you would not be given the "opportunity to interpret 
> the 
> script in a way which shocked" anyone unless the director had a say in it.  
> 
> I was also amused by your phrase, "the guy I was playing AGAINST", as if it 
> were some sport or competition.  If there is an analogy between theatre and 
> sport, it would be that the acting ensemble is a TEAM, not individuals 
> vying 
> against one another.
> 
> Don't quit your day job.
> 
> Tom Sivak
> 

Well, it just so happens that this is a professional theater company and the 
director asked me to do whatever I could think of to enhance the role.  The 
show was Leonard Bernstein's On The Town.  He said that the show was about 
New York where there are any and all kinds of people.  When he saw my idea, 
he was delighted and said, "Leave it in".  I always view both acting and 
singing as competitive.  If I didn't, I would not get the jobs I do get.

In last night's rehearsal, the kind of mocking voice and screeching I have to 
do when Aldonza shoves her knee in my crotch is not the kind of singing I'd 
rather do but when it says to do that in the script and the director also 
says to give it everything I've got and I did so, again, this was quite 
effective.  I've also been singing and acting for some 25 years.

I've now been a professional piano technician for 33 years.  In another post, 
you wrote, "(Unfortunately, I suspect that for many of you, the last thing 
you may want to hear is a piano.)"  What you obviously don't realize is that 
most piano technicians never tire of their work.  We are not jack hammer 
operators who don't want to hear jack hammers at the Convention.  We go to 
the Convention to *hear* pianos, not to shun them.

I only wish the Institute Director would realize the obvious, that your 
playing at the Opening Ceremony would be the perfect opportunity to present a 
piano in another tuning arrangement such as mine.  Instead, he begrudgingly 
allows Ron Koval to haul in a beat up old school piano to tune a few 
temperaments in the hallway.  That's pathetic.  There is no reason whatsoever 
that he should not allow Ron or anyone else to tune your piano in a way that 
Ron considers appropriate for what you are going to do.

The iron fisted insistence on ET only serves to hold the profession back.  
I'd register and go to the Convention for the single privilege of being able 
to tune your piano for you for that event and sing the Star Spangled Banner 
and Oh Canada in both English and French as I've done in the past. 

But I know what the real thinking is here:  the Institute Committee and 
others running PTG do not want its members to get the idea that other tuning 
systems are a viable alternative for one and only one reason.  If the idea 
gets to be to well known, someone will eventually ask *them* to do something 
different and that, they are afraid to do.  It will mean that they themselves 
will have to learn something new and a different way of thinking about tuning.

Your comment, "Don't quit your day job" is highly insulting and 
condescending.  I'm inclined to offer you the same but will refrain from that.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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