Thursday 20 December 2007

Rock cast announced


The cast for Rock are as follows (understudies in brackets):


Peter - Devon Brown (Martin Fisher)

Jesus - Simon Cooper (Paul Sodzi)

Cornelius - Bill Carpenter (Richard Harvey)

John - Jonathan Chappell


Peter's Mother-in-law - Ann Steer (Catherine Muggleton)

Peter's Wife - Alyson Ottaway (Claire Rogoff)

Maid - Helen Gray (Rachel Walker)


Paul, Richard, Alyson, Claire and Rachel have never been part of a touring musical with us before, so a big welcome to them.


Please pray for the whole team and also those who did not get a part.

Tuesday 18 December 2007

Rock gathering pace...

One of the main features of office life at the moment is Roger's daily 'Rock chat'. He comes into the office and talks for a couple of minutes about how far he has got with some composing the night before, or what is going on behind the scenes. It's quite exciting having a daily update in this way, so I thought it was time for the CMM blog to have it's own 'Rock chat'.

Roger has finished most of the songs now, and sent them off to various people - Chris King, the recording producer, Tim - Roger's son, and Annie, who will sequence them and design backing tracks. There is a date fixed in early January where Roger will play and sing to EBRG, his support group, so that they have more of an idea of what they will be focusing on for the next two years. So Roger has his first deadline...

Also, auditions for the solo parts in Rock took place a week ago. It was a very successful evening, if scary, for the quality of all the auditionees was very high indeed. The cast have now been chosen, and they will be formally announced soon. Please pray for them, particularly bearing in mind the understudies who have very much a servant role. Also pray for those who were not chosen, as the news will have been very painful.

The tour of Rock itself is also coming along well, with many venues confirmed and booked ready for choirs to begin rehearsing ahead of their performance. There are many nervous administrators out there who have paid deposits on halls before Roger has even finished writing. Please pray and thank God for them.

Finally, still to come is the dance auditions in April, a hunt for instrumentalists, and Alison Fuggle will soon begin work on the drama. There are so many loose ends, but gradually things are falling into place.

Monday 10 December 2007

An evening at home

On Tuesday evening last week, CMM paid a visit to St. John's House, an anglican community in the heart of inner city Birmingham. St. John's has also been Helen's home for the last 2 years.

Roger led an evening based on the canticles at the start of Luke's gospel, accompanied by carols and songs from the CMM repertoire.

The CMM team for the evening was Roger, Mary, Annie, Helen and Pat - Pat's cold meaning that Helen had to sing the high notes in 'For to us a child is born'. She didn't attempt the top C, unsuprisingly.

The sisters were delighted with the evening, and put on a wonderful spread of home-made mince pies - delicious!

All together for once...

On Saturday evening, a special one-off performance of the Inn Crowd was put on at Kidderminster Baptist Church. For one night only the original cast from the CD recording were all together in the same place, singing (roughly) the same musical...

The cast were ably supported by the Kidderminster New Life Together Choir, who also provided three wonderful shepherd soloists. They looked fantastic in their bright red sweatshirts.

Kidderminster Baptist Church in Franche is now under the care of Simon Gudger, who played Joseph on the recording. Simon, veteran of four touring musicals and numerous CMM recordings (Simeon, The Christmas Collection, A Grain of Mustard Seed to name just three) is currently training for the Baptist ministry, supported by his wife Louise.

Friday 7 December 2007

Showtime!

We're getting into the Inn Crowd performance time of year, with lots and lots of events across the country. Amazingly, we're onto our third reprint of the books, which means we've sold over 1500 copies. And when you think of all those who used word copies too, that's a lot of singers!

The CMM choir's performances are going well. Two are completed and there is one to go. Peter Hazelwood and Sue Walker star as Sam and Debbie, and Jonathan Chappell and Fran (?) make a wonderful Joseph and Mary. Prayers are needed for their conductor who has not been well - the audience at Marston Green on Saturday were treated to a suprise visit from Roger as stand-in conductor. Hopefully, Penny will be well enough on Sunday to hear the results of all her hard work training the East Birmingham choir.
Photos: Fran and Jonathan as Mary and Joe in rehearsal; the three 'wise' men rehearsing.