The Colonus Family

Monday June 13 2011

"You sang your face off tonight!" Jevetta said to Sam.

"When Jearlyn let out that piercing cry during the mourning scene, it hit me, right here," said her brother JD, thumping his heart. "I had tears running down my face."

"You were on tonight, Preacher!"

"You were working it tonight, Carolyn!"

Even after 20 years, or in some cases 30 years, the Gospel at Colonus performers are impressed with and moved by each other. Every night, I am floored with aural awe. And I am a relative 'newbie', having been sound engineer with the show for only 16 years. : )

And it's no wonder they are awed by each other. The Colonus cast and designers and crew are talented enough to have, over their years and individual careers, worked with: Prince, Sam Cooke, Ben Harper, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Donald Fagan, Kim Carnes, Carol King, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, Laurie Anderson, Bobby Womack, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Marc Anthony, Frank Zappa, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Natalie Merchant, Natalie Cole, Justin Timberlake, Eryka Badu, New Kids on the Block, The Manhattans, Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, David Letterman, Conan O'Brian, Spike Lee.

I like to say that the big names listed here are talented and lucky enough to have worked with our company. The Steele Family from Minneapolis, who sings in the Gospel at Colonus, has sung with Prince a couple of times. They say he's brilliant. No offense to Prince, but I think the Steeles are pretty brilliant and he is lucky to sing with them.

We are such a varied group of people from around the country (and world) - Argentina, Pennsylvania, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Indiana, Minnesota, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina - and Idaho. The musicians and singers and actors all have extraordinary talent spilling out of their fingertips. Some of them are Grammy winners. Some should be. There are American Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards, a Dramalogue and a Helen Hayes Award, an Obie Award in the bios. A couple of them are teachers. One hosts a radio show. One is a preacher. One is stage manager for the Lion King on Broadway. (Me - I'm just a horse person!)

Maybe it's once every year, or two - or maybe it's five years between shows - but we all drop what we are doing to get together to put on the show one more time. Theatre really is magical, when the lighting and sound technology blends with the artistry of diverse actors and musicians and singers to create a piece that never fails to touch people, every time it's performed.

I am so proud to say that I am a part of this Colonus family. I am always awed and humbled to be working for them. I love this job. I love these people, I love this family.

And so ends another epic Gospel at Colonus adventure, at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Now we go our separate ways, each heading back to our normal lives of stage, studio, classroom... or a saddle. : )

One Hot Gospel

Thursday June 9 2011

98*F and 98% of heat and humidity slapped me upside the head as soon as I stepped out of the Charleston, SC airport. Mortifiyingly hot. Staggeringly unbearable (for the Ice Princess). I am sure now that the word "sultry" originated in Charleston.

But most of the time here was spent in the dark theatre, prepping, setting up and teching for The Gospel at Colonus. Actually there wasn't much 'tech' at all (meaning rehearsing with full lights and sound and stopping and reworking pieces when necessary) - it was all setting up. Usually a show gets a couple of days of tech before a couple of previews before Opening. At a Festival where things are on a tight schedule, you get but a couple of days of 'tech' before Opening. This time we spent every single minute setting up, and we didn't have but one run-through the afternoon before Opening night. One and a half days of setting up is cutting it very tight for a show to open, especially when you have the usual sound tech problems of, say, your 14 wireless mics not working, and your help liason in Germany stopping returning phone calls for help, and the next set of microphones delivered not compatible with the receivers, and one of the three 'transistor cards' on the mixing board not working, and the guitar and bass amp cases being delivered - without the amps inside, and on and on, and everything behind schedule...


But as always, Ron the sound designer pulled a couple of rabbits out of his hat, and by 7:30 PM of Opening Night, everything was working (almost) seamlessly, the performers were brilliant, and the show a rollicking success.

After all these years, the songs still knock my socks off and the voices never fail to move me.


Even if the weather is stultifying, I am so lucky and grateful to be together with the talented Gospel cast and crew once again.

A couple of videos from rehearsal:

that's a couple of the Blind Boys of Alabama


That's the Missionary Baptist Choir, and (among others) the Steeles and Soul Stirrers

Gone Gospel

Sunday June 5 2011

It's a long way from Owyhee.

2500 miles. From 55* F to 95*F. From the boonies to the big city. From light to dark. Northwest to Deep South. From riding in the great outdoors to sitting in a small cramped space. From the rhythm of hoofbeats in the desert to the rhythm of voices in the theatre.

It's time for the Gospel at Colonus! This week I shed my riding skin and morph into a sound engineer for the black gospel musical version of Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus, in Charleston, South Carolina for the Spoleto Festival.

We last resurrected the show in August of 2010 in St Paul, Minnesota, and Edinburgh, Scotland (see my archives if you want a fix, or in the search box bottom right, type "Gospel at Colonus") - and here we are in sultry Charleston, gearing up for another revival.

The Spoleto Festival USA is "one of the world's major performing arts festivals," founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. The annual 17-day event showcases both estalished and emerging artists in more than 120 performances of opera, dance, theatre, classical music, and jazz.

I can't sing for beans, but I can listen well and I get to mix the sound for some terrific singers: the Steele family from Minneapolis, the Soul Stirrers from Chicago, the (5-time Grammy winning) Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Royal Missionary Baptist Church choir from Charleston, and a host of other talented singers and actors and actresses, all together on stage in this show that started in 1975. I joined the show as sound mixer in 1995 in Seattle and have been with it, over the years, in far-flung places like Sao Paulo, Moscow, Athens, Minneapolis, St Paul, Tuscon, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Harlem, Scotland. (Me? Did I really get to do that?!)

Tech and rehearsals start Monday morning; first show is Wednesday night; last show is Sunday. Wednesday night after opening there is a party in our honor. "Please bring festive cocktail attire." I don't know what 'festive cocktail attire' is, but I'm quite sure I don't have it. I wonder if my leopard spotted riding tights might do?