Playing on Annie, Hairspray and Legally Blonde
Over the last couple of months I have been fortunate enough to play guitar on a number of shows in Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. This has been instrumental in keeping my sight-reading in fairly nimble shape, and has been a lot of fun!
Annie was at the end of March, and I used the Variax Acoustic to cover the banjo and steel string sounds which seemed to suit the vibe of the show pretty well. There’s a lot of chord work in this show, with limited single notes lines – but they’re pretty exposed when you get them! – and there’s a real big band-style to some of the playing. That was the approach I took, and it was great to play alongside some less familiar brass instruments than I’m used to! 
Hairspray took place at Wyllyotts Theatre in Potter’s Bar, and was a great play! I was covering both guitar parts, and the pad was organised in such a way that they ran concurrently rather than in separate books. This meant it was easy to compare both on the fly, and bring out what was most important at any given time.
This is a 60’s show, with smattering of tremolo and largely clean sounds, so I engaged my USA Deluxe Strat for this, and my Les Paul for the more jazzy-type numbers. It was definitely worth taking both as they complimented each other well and were perfect foils! 
I’m currently prepping for Legally Blonde, which runs next week at the New Theatre in Oxford. It’s a beautiful theatre, and the company is fantastic so I have high expectations of the product we’ll all be able to put together!
The music is very pop-based but with lots of variety with traditional Irish, rock, dub reggae and disco well represented too! There’s a lot of detail in the part and I’m really trying to bring everything out, and more, to make it as dynamic and interesting as possible. Come down and check it out!
