Music on the Ladder - Auditions for Come and Sing The Mikado

Hi there folks.  Plans are full steam ahead at Music on the Ladder HQ for our latest come and sing event - Come and Sing the Mikado, which will be on Saturday, 8 June with rehearsals starting at 1pm and a concert performance at 7pm at St Paul's Church on Wightman Road.  As for our previous come and sing events, it will be £10 for singers, £5 for audience (all monies taken on the door, but singers please let us know you're coming by e-mailing musicontheladder@gmail.com and telling us your voice part).

In addition to a fantastic chorus, we're also going to need 9 (count them, nine) principals to help tell the story.  Therefore, we're going to be auditioning for soloists on Saturday, 23 March from 2 to 4 pm.  The short of it is that if you want to audition, you should also e-mail musicontheladder@gmail.com, telling us which part (or parts!) you would like to audition for, but below is a bit more long-winded blurb on what parts there are and where to find the music and wotnot.

Although we're putting on a concert performance of The Mikado, we are looking for people who can portray the characters, rather than just singing prettily. The principals will be permitted to use books in the performance if they wish. The auditions will take place in St Paul's Church Hall (entrance on Cavendish Road).

Here is a link to a selection of free scores available free on the internet, all of which are more or less the same. We will also have hard copies available on the day. http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Mikado_(Sullivan,_Arthur)

The principal roles and audition pieces are as follows:

The Mikado of Japan (bass or bass-baritone) (Act II, No.6 "A more humane Mikado")
Nanki-Poo, His Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel and in love with Yum-Yum (tenor) (Act I, No.2 "A wand'ring minstrel, I")
Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu (comic baritone) (Act I, No.5a "As some day it may happen" (the List Song)*)
Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else (baritone) (Act I, No.4 "Young man despair")
Pish-Tush, A Noble Lord (baritone) (Act I, No.3 "Our great Mikado, virtuous man")
Yum-Yum, A Ward of Ko-Ko, also engaged to Ko-Ko (soprano) (Act II, No.2 "The sun whose rays are all ablaze")
Pitti-Sing, A Ward of Ko-Ko (mezzo-soprano) (Act I, No.11, from "away, nor prosecute your quest")
Peep-Bo, A Ward of Ko-Ko (soprano or mezzo-soprano) (As for Pitti-Sing)
Katisha, An Elderly lady, in love with Nanki-Poo (contralto) (Act II, No.10 "Alone, and yet alive")

In addition to attending the Come and Sing event (obviously!), we will be asking principals to commit to one or two ensemble rehearsals to go through the trickier principals-only numbers during the few weeks prior to the event.

* Note that most of the free scores are quite old and have the unadulterated, not politically correct lyrics to this song. As is now usual, we will begin verse two with "There's the banjo serenader."