Coming Soon, Genki Musical 2013!

On Saturday afternoon, there were auditions for this year's Genki Musical. As I may have mentioned before, this year's theme is "Star Wars". The musical will be about Luke, a young man who runs away from home because his father is constantly pressuring him to get good grades and eventually become a workaholic businessman (like the father). He goes to his grandparents' house somewhere in Kochi, and falls asleep while watching the movie Star Wars with his grandpa. Over the course of a few dream sequences, he joins forces with a group of rebels who are fighting an oppressive corporation that is forcing people to work like slaves. He must train to master the spirit of Tosa (Kochi) in order to overthrow the evil corporation. When it is finally time to battle Darth Vader, the regional manager, he realizes that Darth Vader still has some good (that is to say, some Tosa) in him and manages to convince him to help overthrow the corporation. When Luke wakes up from his dream, his father has come to take him home, and they have a confrontation about the father's workaholic lifestyle and the overwhelming pressure to succeed which the father has put on Luke. In the end, Luke expresses his concern over his father's health, and his father takes a day off to go fishing together. 

As usual, auditions were held at the Kochi International Association. It was the standard procedure; you sing a song (or part of a song), read an excerpt from the script in English and in Japanese, and discuss your availability for rehearsals (how much time you can dedicate). My approach this year is to go all in. I told them that I'm willing to be there every weekend, and that I'm up for anything. One of the questions they asked was about my willingness to play a male part. Since there are only two female roles in the musical, and since the cast is largely female, at least a few people are going to have to play a character of the opposite gender. While I had initially been very doubtful that I could play a male character convincingly, after thinking about it a bit, I decided that I would be willing to try it. 

I thought my audition went quite well, overall; I sang about as well as I possibly could, and did a reasonably good job of reading the script in Japanese. I think the biggest thing in my favor that was I went in with a lot of confidence. Since I've done Genki twice before, I know the procedure and I know the people who are involved. Since the audition panel was made up entirely of people I like and trust, it wasn't a big deal to go in and do my thing. And it probably also helps that I've had to audition for things before, like orchestra. I had to audition for chamber orchestra every year in high school, and also for All-State Orchestra and All-Northwest Orchestra. Overall, it wasn't a terribly stressful experience for me, and I think that showed. I was quite happy, because usually a lack of confidence is how I shoot myself in the foot.

So, this year there was very low turnout for auditions. That is to say, seven people auditioned. Given that there are seven central characters in the script so far, there's just barely enough to cover the main roles. We still need to find extras for some of the scenes that require additional people. But only having seven people to choose from, casting apparently didn't take a lot of time. By that night, though nothing had been officially posted, most of us knew which role we had gotten. And this year, I will be playing... Luke! 

It still seems pretty crazy to me that I got the largest role in the musical. I'll be in every single scene, and I'll almost certainly have a LOT of lines to memorize. I'm excited, though, and I think I can do it. I went in sort of hoping that I might get the role, but not entirely sure I was a good enough actor to do it. But I'm ready to try. Hopefully I won't regret it when it actually comes time to buckle down and memorize everything. Besides the words, it's necessary to memorize the intonation and stress patterns, because those are part of what makes Tosaben different from standard Japanese. I really hope I can do that. And I'm still a little concerned about trying to move and talk like a young man. But I'm expecting Julie can give me some lessons, since she was massively popular as Chosogabe (the male central character from two years ago). And it's probably a requisite part of her job, since she'll be directing this year.

Anyhow, for now I get to bask in the glory of getting a main role in something. But rehearsals start next week, and from then it'll be a lot of pressure to learn five scenes worth of lines and cues. Still, I think it could be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it. Wish me luck!