A Taffeta Wedding, Part I

Cars speed along the road outside an open kitchen window, spinning water up from the rain-soaked road.  I sit in the breakfast nook just of the room in which I sleep, listening to music called Pale Yellow, stretching my heart and contemplating the lyrics of a song in a show I'm playing in Maine.  I've been working for the past three weeks as a musical director for The Arundel Barn Playhouse.  The scenery is beautiful (I need to purchase a camera and start uploading photos before I have to go home); the beach is incredible and I'm making many great friends.

We've been rehearsing a relatively new show, titled A Taffeta Wedding, for the past two weeks.   Set in a TV Studio (MBC), circa 1964, and concerns the on-air wedding of four singing sisters known as The Taffetas--Kaye, Peggy, Cheryl and Donna--and their fiancees, "those singin', swingin' guys" from Alpha Mu Phi Pi, The Cardigans--Chuck, Johnny, Frankie and Buddy.  It's a great show, cleverly written and full of shoo-wop favorites including "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" and "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)."  The four couples, dressed in matching pastel dresses and sweaters, travel through the ups and downs of love all in an hour and a half, culminating in a quadruple wedding--complete with a cute flower girl planted in the audience--in the second act.

The couples sing "Love Me Forever," as recorded by The Four Esquires, for their vows.

Love me (love me)
Love me completely (love me completely)
Tell me (tell me)
You will be true

Promise (promise)
Promise you'll never (promise you'll never)
Leave me (leave me)
Lost and alone

Kiss me (kiss me)
Strongly and sweetly (strongly and sweetly)
Tell me (tell me)
You will be true

Love me (love me)
Love me completely (love me completely)
Now and forever
As I love you.


Coming into the first rehearsal, I didn't have any idea that this silly show would have such an impact on my summer. I remember singing through this eight part music with these talented and gifted actors. It was getting late in the rehearsal on a humid afternoon; they were singing half-heartedly and weren't really connecting to the lyrics. I sat up at the piano, put on my music director hat and started improvising.

“Ok guys.  So, let’s take a look at what’s happening here.  These words are your wedding vows.  These are the words you are giving to that one person who has become everything to you.  More than flesh and bone and blood, and you’ve become more than flesh and bone and blood for them.  You have become breath and love and life for each other and you want to make breath and love and life together, forever.”

I took a beat, listened to what I was saying and realized I actually meant it.  I took stock of the room and saw that my actors were also deeply invested in what I was saying--some of them were even crying.  It was the first moment of many we’ve experienced together as colleagues working on A Taffeta Wedding.