The year was 2012. The Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society had announced that they would be performing HMS Pinafore that summer, and would be holding a sing-through of that show early in the year. The public was invited to come and sing along.
Being a member of the public, I decided to go. Getting in my car with both my sister and a sense of deep foreboding, I began the hour-long drive from Galveston to Houston.
I loved Gilbert and Sullivan, mind you, but I cringed at the thought of meeting a host of new people all at once, especially since I was secretly convinced that any musician residing in Houston must be a jerk.
You might ask, why go to a sing-through if I were certain it was going to be an experience filled
with annoying, difficult people? It's a good point. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have bothered. It's a long drive from Galveston to go sit in a room where you don't know anyone and have to sing surrounded by people who probably won't even be polite enough to tell you hello. But it was HMS Pinafore, and I have a soft spot for HMS Pinafore. I was six years old when I first saw it performed, and I didn't understand any of it, but it didn't matter. I had fallen in love with Gilbert and Sullivan.
My limited experience with Houston and musicians had taken place in high school. I participated in a piano competition located in Houston twice. I hated it both times, and only did it at the insistence of my mother and my piano teacher, who, for some vague reason, thought it was good for me. I'd played in plenty of competitions in Galveston before, but the Houston competition was different. In Galveston, all the judges were encouraging and personable. They'd ask me who my teacher was, how long I'd been playing, what kind of music I liked best, and so on. In the hallway, while we waited to go in and play our pieces, the other competitors and I would wish each other luck and talk about what we were going to play that day. But in Houston, the judges were distinctly brusque, never talking to me unless I took too long to start playing or leave the room when I was done. And, when I tried to wish a fellow competitor good luck, all I got in return was a suspicious look and frosty silence.
I was therefore convinced that everyone in Houston who loved classical music must be snobby
and standoffish. I’d been to two performances by the Houston G&S Society in previous years, and had noticed that the same people were in the show both times, which told me that a) they either loved it so much that they couldn’t think of not returning to the cast, or b) you had to know someone in order to get in. But I thought singing through a show with a bunch of other people would be nice, and since I knew HMS Pinafore by heart and I’d been playing it on the piano and humming along with it for years, off to Houston I went.
The first person to greet me was the director, Brian Runnels, who was so very pleasant that I
almost thought I was in the wrong place. Still, I reminded myself, directors are supposed to be pleasant. Otherwise how can they expect people to sing for them?
(I was very young and naïve in 2012. For some reason I believed that choir members pay attention to their directors. I have no idea why.)
It mattered little; I was sure the alto section would be filled with people who couldn’t wait to not talk to me. Consequently, I was quite taken aback when I found myself sitting next to Julia
FitzGerald. She wasn't a jerk. She wasn't snooty. She was actually nice. It was very disconcerting.
Worse yet, she insisted on my coming back the following week to audition for a part in the
show. “What part are you thinking about?” she asked me.
“I wasn’t,” I replied. “I just came to sing through the show for the fun of it.”
“Mm-hmm,” she replied, smiling and nodding in that annoyingly winsome and persuasive way
she has. “And – what part were you thinking of auditioning for?”
It was no use telling her I’d never auditioned for anything before in my life, or explaining that I’d
never done anything on stage, or, in short, protesting at all. Julia was adamant, and, to be honest, I kind of wanted the chance to sing the show through again.
So I returned the next week, ready to rabbit and not entirely certain why I was there. I had no idea what I was doing, who to talk to or what to write on the form I had to fill out, and
I was sure that everyone in the waiting area was staring at me.
It was then that I met the nicest tenor in the world. He told me his name was Glenn Taylor and
said he wanted to take my picture. That was something I hadn’t expected or dressed for, but he
immediately put me at ease, asking me how long I’ve loved Gilbert and Sullivan and what part I was auditioning for. When I answered alto chorus, he told me that altos are just sopranos who can sight-read, which made me grin.
After the picture-taking process was completed, Glenn vanished in the direction of the check-in table and I nervously perched on a couch in the waiting room. My anxiety must have been rather palpable because he returned in a moment specifically to tell me that I really had nothing to be nervous about. He regaled me and my family with tales of his first audition as we waited, and I was almost at ease by the time Julia called my name and told me they were ready for me.
Inside the audition room was even worse. Instead of tersely telling me to hurry up and finish singing, the audition board patiently listened to me sing all three verses of “When Frederic Was a Little Lad” from Pirates of Penzance.
They even smiled at me and didn’t object when I flubbed the words somewhere during the middle. They were attentive and encouraging and not even slightly gruff. They were, in fact, not at all what I expected and I left fighting back tears. It’s an odd quirk of mine, but I
react with tears whenever anyone is unexpectedly kind to me, which in this particular case caused my mother no end of worry on the ride home.
Julia called me two days later and asked if I’d be willing to join the alto chorus. I honestly have
no idea what I said to her; all I really remember is my mother excitedly screaming in the background, “Yes! She’ll do it!!!”
I’ve been with the Society ever since, which I think we can all agree is entirely Julia’s fault. But
the truth is that the majority of the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society are truly welcoming people.
There are exceptions, of course, but the primary reason I continue to return each year is because of the kindness shown by the board, the directors and by the cast. The music and acting are fun, too, mind you! I’ve never been so pleased to be so wrong.