July – The Wiz
In July/August, after close to 6 months of preparation, along with my good friend Kayla Sims I musical directed Ave Maria College’s school production of The Wiz. I teach guitar to a group of students at Ave, and it was a rewarding challenge to take a step further and run a full band for the first time.
The show was a tremendous success, with the band, cast and crew all putting on their best performances and making a thoroughly entertaining and accomplishing show. I was awfully proud of my students in the band, and was helped out by some wonderful friends including Oscar Neyland, Nathan Power, Patrick Paevere and Tom Doublier.
I’ve been becoming progressively more interested in the role of MD as a guitarist over the past few years, and this was a great opportunity to see how it went. While I could use a few more hands (and enlisted several students to be so), it definitely seemed to work well. Let’s do it again!