Battling the elements at BRB

[toursenlair]

BRB's tour blog has a cute article about the hazards of dealing with the elements:

http://brbontour.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/battling-the-elements/

[2dancersmum]

A lovely article - it brings back memories for me for a ballet show my DD took part in aged about 9 where there was heavy rain all week. I always remember my DD being brought home one evening by a friend in a 4x4, who then took off socks and shoes, rolled her trousers up and carried my DD through the flood water to get her home to me. Two of the performances that week were temporarily halted due to power cuts in thunder storms aswell.

[Jan McNulty]

Katherine, I've moved this to the Performances/General Discussion Forum.

 

I do hope people will want to chip in with their weather experiences!

[Jan McNulty]

I'd already put a comment on the blog about the "snow" performance of Cyrano and 2 occasions when we were evacuated because of fire alarms.

 

The day of the "snow" performance I had left work aroun 1345 because I was worried about the weather.  The traffic was lighter on the M6 than usual and I was making really good time until I came off the M6 at J6 (5-6 miles from the city centre).  It took me well over 2 hours to do the rest of the journey!  I got to the restaurant where I was meeting friends and there was a table occupied but it was the staff.  I was able to have a quick bite before I slithered over to the theatre.

 

David Bintley made an announcement before the start of the performance saying that all the dancers and technical staff were there but the orchestra pit was only half full.  They had made urgent modifications to the score to include a piano to cover all the missing instruments and the performance was going to go ahead.  There were 3 conductors in the pit, one conducting and two playing.  As the performance (which was utterly magnificent) went on I could see more and more of the orchestra creeping in.  There was about 50 of us in the audience at the start and around 600 by the end.

 

It had taken two of my friends 4 hours to drive the last 25 miles from Worcester.  The friend I was due to stay with had not been able to come at all due to living at the bottom of a blummin' big hill.  I was able to book into the hotel over the road from the theatre after the performance as most of their guests had not arrived!

 

When I woke up the following morning the snow had all gone.

 

Trog described the performance as being like Haydn's Surprise Symphone in reverse!

 

It was an incredibly memorable evening, not only because of the weather but because of the magnificent performance too.

[alison]

Hang on, I've been at BRB (at Sadler's Wells) when there's been a fire alarm, too. Don't ever remember one with ENB. Mind you, I do remember a few first-night ENB Nutcrackers at the Coliseum where it was touch and go whether they could get the temperature in the theatre high enough to be able to perform that night. During the rehearsal, the dancers were swathed in as much clothing as they could put on!