Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus is ready for its close-up when it performs “Lights, Camera, Sing!,” a series of performances featuring songs from famous and cult-favorite Hollywood classics, March 17-19 at Prince Theater.
Joseph J. Buches, PGMC artistic director, said the concert really gets into the spirit of Hollywood and the awards season with audience votes and awards given out to add a heightened sense of spectacle.
“This concert is always around this time of year so that’s why we decided to go the awards-ceremony route because of all the award shows happening,” Buches said. “We’ve done a movie-themed concert before, which was probably around eight years ago, but this time I wanted to do a concert where the audience got to pick.”
The voting aspect was even involved as the chorus prepped for the show, with members taking a survey to narrow the song list.
“My committee and I came up with a large list of songs for them to pick from. From that, the chorus members voted on their favorite songs from that category. And then we broke them down into drama, comedy, action and gay must-sees and cult classics,” Buches explained. “Then we sent out some email surveys to our audience members to get the audience favorites that we are adding in at the end of the categories. [The idea is] just to have a little awards show to have a different spin on it instead of singing from start to finish.”
Buches added that anyone who even casually enjoys movies will be highly entertained by the concert.
“We’re doing the theme from ‘Rocky,’ ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ and ‘Time Warp’ from ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ to name a few. So everything is definitely notable from the audience’s perspective. We have dancers, a narrator to host the evening and costumes. It’s definitely more of a fun, light-hearted show.”
The chorus hosts numerous shows, and a few auditions, every year.
Buches noted the holiday shows usually draw the biggest crowds, but said audiences have been coming to their performances in increasing numbers year-round.
“The December concert is definitely our most attended. I think people just love the holiday music,” he said. “For the most part, recently, the March and June concerts have been pretty consistent.”
PGMC’s membership has also been consistent as of late. Buches said the chorus is always bringing in new members, who are often impressed by how much work goes into an operation like PGMC.
“It takes a lot for new members,” he said. “Sometimes people don’t know what is expected when they join a chorus, especially one with 120 people. It is demanding. We have three-hour rehearsals weekly. We do all of our concerts from memory. We have a Saturday rehearsal for every concert. We have sectionals once a month on Sunday evening. So there are a lot of demands on the singers that sometime they don’t comprehend right away. But this year we had a really good retention.”
Buches said the chorus’ next series of shows, this summer will retail the fun of the movie-themed show but also venture into more dramatic territory.
“In June we are having our ‘Modern Families’ concert,” he said. “In the first half, we’re doing a piece called ‘Alexander’s House,’ which the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., commissioned a few years back. It’s like a staged mini-musical. It’s about a guy who got married and had a kid and then came out. His wife disowned him and kept him away from his son. Throughout the years, he’d send his son birthday and holiday presents, but his ex-wife would always send them back. So the story is about his son coming to terms with his father’s death and finding out about his father through his family and friends. It’s very funny and emotional. I’m really excited to do this piece.”
The second half of the show will feature “Summer: A Fantasia on Family,” an original piece the chorus commissioned from Andrea Clearfield, a local composer known around the globe.
“It’s based off of texts and stories from our chorus members who were interviewed about a year ago. It’s really nice with percussion and piano accompaniments. And then we’re filling it in with songs about family. That’s our June concert.”
Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus presents “Lights, Camera, Sing!” March 17-19 at Prince Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. For more information or tickets, visit www.pgmc.org or call 215-442-4580.