Student Blog: On Tour with the Catawba Singers

day 6: chicago pt. 3

by Kara Procell '13

Day 6 - March 8th, 2011
Chicago, Illinois

We started our rehearsal in the Auditorium Theatre this morning, our final rehearsal before the performance this afternoon at two. It really started to come together, and we got a really good feel for how all the different parts of the show fit together as a whole.

This afternoon, we returned to the theatre for the performance!! There are absolutely no words to describe the energy, emotion and passion on that stage. Everyone was so connected and put everything into the performance of this beautiful music. The feeling of being part of something this exciting is indescribable. Getting this opportunity to work with these people and this music is something that doesn’t happen very often. We are all so, so grateful.

After the concert, the amazing stage management team arranged for the leads to quickly sign our scores or badges. We anxiously waited backstage for a chance to tell them how much we loved them and how much we appreciated this opportunity. Everyone got a chance to get signatures and some people got pictures. All the cast members were as excited to work with us as we were to work with them. They were so humble and thankful and such genuinely wonderful people. It was awesome!!

We were done after, so we rode back to the hotel and dispersed from there. There was more eating, more shopping, and some people went to see the opening performance of Hair, which opened today, I believe. Later in the evening, several of us got the opportunity to talk to one of the actors from our performance. Rodolfo Nieto and his girlfriend Claire Gardner were staying at the same hotel as we were and talked with several members of our choir about life in the performing arts world. It was a great conversation and we learned a lot of truthful things about the performance world.

We leave very early tomorrow morning and head for Louisville, Kentucky. Bring it on!

Honest to blog,

Kara Procell