a courthouse line
Behind the Curtain with the Bard Show Band
By Sid Barrett
Bass Guitar and Uninvited Criticism,
Georgia Department of Public Health
[email protected]
E
very eighteen months, a man in sunglasses and a black suit comes up to
me in a restaurant, offers to buy my wife
and daughters, and then tells me “we’re getting the band back together.” That’s when I
know that it’s time for another Bard Show.
The Bard Show’s music director is Kim Meyers,
a classically trained pianist. Kim helps the
writing staff develop the music, and arranges the
songs. The music consists of modified popular
songs with the lyrics rewritten for comic effect.
Measures and verses are added and dropped
throughout the rehearsal process, partly to
fit the tempo of the plot, and partly keep the
Band occupied so they don’t cause trouble at
rehearsal. I am told that Kim plays the piano
quite well. I wouldn’t know, since her piano
sits twenty feet away on the edge of the stage,
and I sit behind the curtain and between the
drums and the guitarist’s Marshall amplifier,
where the volume is roughly equivalent to a
mortar attack. The Band can see Kim, though,
and we often wave at each other. Hi Kim!
the heart to tell Kim, since she works so hard on the sheet music.
Most of the Band members spend at least half the show behind the curtain
This means we have no idea what the actors are doing at any given point
in the show. When we hear the audience laugh or applaud, we don’t know
if it is because a joke went off well, or because one of the stage crew got
caught on stage when the lights went up. Being behind the curtain also
carries with it the risk that certain actors – we won’t use names, but let’s
say “Greg Presmanes” just for the sake of conversation – will step on your
cord and rip the input socket clean out of your $2595 Eric Clapton Tribute
Fender Stratocaster. But there are advantages. For instance, we only
see the actors from the back. For many of them, that is their best side.
In conclusion, I’d like to say thank you on behalf of myself and the
Bard Show Band, and I hope we passed the audition. I’d say “see
you at the show,” but I probably won’t see you, since Kim will probably
make me sit behind the curtain again. Especially after she reads this.
The composition of the Bard Show Band
changes from show to show, but is usually
comprised of acoust ic piano, electric
keyboards, bass, drums and guitar. This
year we will add sax. We may not be very
good, but as lawyers trained in the school of
rock & roll, we have embarrassingly expensive
equipment and we play real loud. Every year
and a half, the Band members eagerly open
the draft script, hoping to find “Layla,” or maybe
“Stairway to Heaven.” Every year and a half
we open the script to find show tunes, with
maybe a Katy Perry or Cee Lo song thrown in
to appease the younger Bar crowd. If you’re
a rocker raised on the Allman Brothers Band
and ELP, nothing gets your sap rising like a
good show tune, except maybe the breakfast
buffet at the Colonnade. One guitarist actually
cried when he was told not to use his new
wah-wah pedal on a ballad from Le Miserables.
None of the Band members reads music,
so we learn the songs by ear. No one has
12
THE ATLANTA LAWYER
October 2013
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association