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 Disney’s The Little Mermaid

Produced by The Players Theatre Company, Conroe, TX

Directed and Choreographed by Carole Lamont
Music Direction by Robert Lewis and Sal Jimenez

Background

I worked intermittently with The Players Theatre Company of Conroe, TX from 2015 to 2019. This was the fifth show I directed with them. For this production, I was thrilled to reunite with Carole and Sal, with whom I'd previously collaborated for Meet Me in St. Louis. We’d work together one more time on Beauty and the Beast the following year.

About the Show

Based on the 1988 Disney movie, The Little Mermaid tells the story of Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton. Fascinated by human life and culture, she sells her voice to the sea witch Ursula in order to live among humans. She must share a kiss with Prince Eric before the third day in order to fulfill the terms of the deal.

A great deal of humor and pathos are supplied by Ariel’s sidekick Flounder, the crab Sebastian, the seagull Scuttle, and Ariel’s six older sisters.

My Work

Officially, I was billed as Vocal Director for this show, much the same as on Meet Me in St. Louis and the later Beauty and the Beast. This show was pretty well stacked with an excellent cast of performers, though we did suffer from a lack of skilled male-identifying cast members—a common problem in community theatre.

For me, the standout members of the cast were the six Mersisters. They sing in three and four part harmony throughout the show, including classical and girl-group pop styles. These talented ladies could all have been Ariel in another version of the show, but they put their egos aside and became a close-knit ensemble.

The most important tasks I completed were:

  • Deciphering and teaching the score which was tightly written for a very different cast than we had.

  • Working with less-experienced singers to feel comfortable in solo and harmony parts.

  • Covering the rehearsal piano book for many rehearsals due to schedule conflicts for our official pianist. I was fully able to play a complete run through the show.

  • Creating MainStage Concert files for both Keyboard 1 and Keyboard 2 in the pit. I was able to run the programs independently on two laptops I owned at the time. Keyboard 1 is a fairly straightforward part made up of mostly piano and harp. Keyboard 2 is a more heavily programmed book covering a variety of specialty sounds. It was so extensive, I separated Act 1 and Act 2 into separate files.

  • Playing Keyboard 2 in the pit, operating the MainStage program I created for it as well as filling in occasionally when musicians were absent. I played 2/3 of a string trio once!