Little Mermaid at the Heinen Theatre

This week's blog is by Erin Bales, who recently played the lead in the Heinen Theatre Matinee performances of Dvorak's Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid has always been one of my favorite stories. I used to watch the Disney movie constantly as a little girl, read mermaid stories, and I always pretended to be a mermaid when I was in the swimming pool during the summer. So when I learned I was going to play Rusalka, the little mermaid herself, in this winter's Opera to Go! show, I was very excited!
But before all the fun of performing and touring could happen, there had to be some work.

We all had to get together and learn the music and staging for the show at Houston Community College. We only had two weeks to learn everything – so we had better work fast!

First, each singer met individually with our musical director Kade Smith and our wonderful pianist Youngha Guk. We worked on learning all the correct pitches and rhythms. Since opera is storytelling through song, it was very important that we get all of that right! After each of us knew our parts, we began staging – learning our acting parts and choreography. It was a lot of fun for all of us to be together learning our dance moves and really getting into our characters. And after two weeks of intense concentration and memorization, it was very rewarding to be able to perform at HCC's Heinen Theatre for one week.

The set and costumes were amazing – they really made us feel like we were under the sea. And now the show was no longer work, it was pure fun. It's hard to believe that only two weeks ago we were all just learning these parts.

Thanks to Houston Community College and Heinen Theatre, the Little Mermaid is now ready to tour!