2008 Tour: Philadelphia

Saturday was an extremely dense, long day in Philadelphia, just at the point that fatigue was closing in... I'm not complaining, really, for we heard a lot of fabulous new talent. It's just that I'm craving a good night's sleep, and the 18-hour Philadelphia odyssey was a bit much for this point in the tour. Add the truly frigid temperature of the audition room (never happened before... don't know what that was about...), another poorly planned set of meal breaks, and the looming deadline for carving out a repertoire plan and making some offers, and you have a recipe for mental meltdown.

We've greatly appreciated the opportunity to hear more of some of our best candidates due to our new callback system; but I seem to have made a serious logistical error in planning our days. Seems that most days we didn't get lunch until about 4, which led to a repeated cycle of starving and stuffing that did no one any good. Note to self to fix before next fall. (Actually, all I need to do is mention this once to SSW and she'll make sure I don't forget! She's good at saving me from myself.)

We now have depth in representation of every voice type save one, and we are simply stuffed to overflowing in brilliant singers in two particular voice types. Casting and repertoire selection will take some serious discipline and creative problem-solving. The reality of the complexity of this year's puzzle is hitting me with a sucker punch, and the mental gears are locking.

Thus, this content-free blog post. Just to let you know that we're still kicking, and that I will weigh in this week and next with audition tour wrap-ups. But for today, I'm doing triage with the few functional brain cells I have left.