Roger's latest email update

Dear Friends,

We are nearly there – the World Premiere of ROCK is just over 2 weeks away. The opening night (Sat 01 Nov) is already sold out, but there are still tickets left for Sun 02 Nov at 4pm and 7.30pm. You can order in the CMM online shop

Click here for details of other venues for Tour One

A vital issue I must mention is our 2010 AND BEYOND appeal. We urgently need support for life after ROCK. As things stand we will not be able to support Annie, Helen and myself once the Tours are over, but we have a great vision for extending and developing the ministry. A small monthly or weekly commitment from our supporters will go a long way towards enabling this to happen. Please download our 2010 AND BEYOND appeal leaflet and consider responding.

Many thanks for your time, prayers and encouragement.

Bless you all!

Roger

Learning to dance

At one moment in the performance, Jesus washes Peter's feet. Now we've decided that Peter is going to be ticklish - and why not? And after he's had his feet washed, he's going to get them dirty again by joining in with the dance.

The photo I've put on here is Sally Jones (choreographer) teaching Devon Brown (Peter) to dance. Devon is of course famed for his dancing in Pharisee, 12 years ago, and I have to say, he is a suprisingly good mover...

Rock Website Update

The CMM website has been updated with lots of new Rock information, including all of the tour 1 venues, ticket prices and contact details. Also, there is now a special offer for Sunday evening - groups of 15 or more all tickets are at £5.

Sheffield Venue Change

The venue for Rock in Sheffield on Friday 21st November 2008 is no longer the Victoria Hall. It is instead the Hillsborough Leisure Centre. More details to follow...

Cheadle Hulme

The Rock Cast's first away event was a great success. After a very early start (the day before for Bill!), the team arrived a Cheadle Hulme for a Rock from Scratch day organised by Paul Barnsley and 'Heart Notes'.

During the day Roger and Annie trained a choir of over 90, while Helen rehearsed the cast separately. Roger and Annie found the time invaluable, discovering what are the 'accident blackspots' in the musical, and which bits will be good to work on with the choirs at previsits. The cast worked incredibly hard - particularly the understudies who had a chance to really work at the drama.

At the end of the day we put everything together, and performed the musical to one another, even including small bits of drama. Bill, as Cornelius, had memorised the narrations from the vocal score, which gave the overall performance great coherence. Looking forward to putting the drama in now!

If you'd like to see photos of Cheadle and cast rehearsals, click here.

Rock Dancers

After a bit of a crisis a few weeks ago, we are now delighted to annouce that our dance team for Rock is now complete:

Sally Jones (also choreographer) - previously danced in Snakes and Ladders, Wildfire and Jail Break
Ann Walters - previously danced in Jail Break
Laura Rhodes
Anna Salmon
Felicity Norris

Grovelling apologies...

I am so, so sorry for the lack of update on the two CMM blogs and website. I've sent some updates for the main website through to Alex, our webmaster, so there should be some more up to date info on the tour soon.


Rehearsals are going well after a slightly shaky start, and we had our first rehearsal combined with cast and dancers on Tuesday. Most of the songs have been marked out now, so we simply need to practice and refine things. A huge thanks goes to Darren Close, our producer and Sally Jones and Gill Johnson, the choreographers for all their hard work.

The cast have their first away mission tomorrow, at a Rock from scratch day in Cheadle Hulme. After the scratch choir have spent the day learning the musical, we will be performing a concert version of Rock at 3.45pm. Should be great fun.

Other aspects of Rock are going well. Please pray for all the tour 1 organisers and those responsible for selling tickets. It'd be fantastic for the choirs to be able to perform in front of a full house.

Roger recently wrote this in an email:

"I’m thrilled to tell you that we have recently had two tremendous
“Tasters”, at Exeter (Crediton) and Weston. Considering these are both Tour Four
venues and there is a long way to go before they even start rehearsals, it was
so encouraging to see such large numbers and the great excitement and “buzz”
amongst them all!"