After a quick rehearsal on the preceeding Tuesday night, almost all of the cast gathered at Hinckley Methodist Church for a full rehearsal and performance in front of an unpaying audience. This is what Roger calls a 'Pre-Season Friendly'.
And very friendly it was too. Hinckley Methodist is Simon Cooper's home church, although he has since moved to Worcester with his wife Laura. Simon plays Jesus in Rock, and he has a huge fan base in Hinckley, which was great to see. Simon's sister Rachel trained the choir, made up from singers from all over the Methodist Circuit, who had all closed their evening services specially for the performance. The choir did a brilliant job, even managing to perform from memory on not a great many rehearsals.
We performed in the church itself, which gave rise to some interesting challenges. The stage was fairly large, but due to the layout of the church, we had to perform diagonally across it. This meant that one of the most challenging pieces when almost all of the cast are on at once - Were you there - was even more so. Some of the men had to stand up the steps to the pulpit to give the dancers enough room. The instrumentalists had their own minstrels' gallery up above the back of the stage by the organ console. Special mention has to go to Malachi Theatre Services for dealing well with the complexities of the venue.
After a bit of a ropy afternoon runthrough, we had a really good evening performance in front of a packed house. Many thanks go to Simon, Rachel, and all those at Hinckley who helped organise the event. We were made to feel really welcome and were well looked after. Well done all round!
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