I recently finished up a gig that was unusual for me--that's most of the reason I took it in the first place (it didn't pay terribly well...). I played Joe B. Mauldin, bass player for the Crickets in Buddy! The Buddy Holly Story. A local community theatre contacted me and said they needed an upright bass player for the show. What I did not realize at the time was that this would be my first foray into acting. I learned a lot on this gig that made me rethink a bit about what I do in the classroom (and as a bassist).
First, the musical parts were really, really bad. I'm used to playing from those terrible handwritten parts that accompany most musicals. These, though, were computer generated and despite that, riddled with errors. Also, for some reason, I only got the first page of about half a dozen songs.
So I downloaded a recording of the original London cast performance and learned most of them by ear (I was going to have to memorize about half the tunes anyway). Aural skills helped me twice here: I realized that there were errors (E-B-B-E-E in "Not fade away" instead of E-A-A-E-E; an open repeat with no close repeat in "Chantilly Lace"--different from what was in the score) and I was able to listen to the music and figure it out.
To aid in memorizing the music, I drew up charts. Most songs were 12-bar blues in A (which in and of itself simplified things quite a bit) with a "middle 8." Rather than learn note by note by note, I learned the charts, and indicated whether it was a walking or "country" bass line (1-5-1-5) and just improvised. Some of you might say "No big deal--jazz players do this all the time." But I'm a classical player, married to the "notes on the page."
I'm also not a rock player. Our Buddy was a good singer and guitarist and had just come off another run of Buddy elsewhere, so he had his parts down. Our drummer was also quite good (he and I were both about 20 years older than the parts we were playing... Suspend your disbelief). Rock musicians communicate very differently from classical musicians, so I had to pick up on that. (It's been years since I've played in a rock band. To their credit, the directors found time for the Crickets to rehearse together as a band before we started worrying about lines and blocking, etc. This proved to be a good strategy.)
I've never acted before (save for the time I played third orphan for the left in a fourth-grade production of Nicolas Nickleby) so I was faced with the challenge of learning lines, blocking, etc. I made index cards with my lines and the cue--the line before mine. I figured if I can rely on cues for entrances in orchestral playing, a similar strategy might work in this setting as well. (I didn't have all that many lines. I couldn't figure out if the part was written for an actor who couldn't play bass, a bass player who couldn't act, or both). I marked up my script a lot, and spent plenty of time studying not only my lines, but entrances, movement, and exits.
Finally, clothes make the man (or woman). More accurately: costumes make him or her. It wasn't until I donned my purple tuxedo for the Apollo Theatre scene that I really felt like I was a different person. The Apollo costume change was a rough one--I had about a minute to change from a button-down shirt and jeans into a tuxedo before I had to pick up my bass, play "Shout" backstage, and then get ready to enter and act.
I learned a lot during this show, and have newfound respect for my musical theatre colleagues. Having played in many, many pit orchestras, it was interesting to see and be a part of what happens above ground--it really never stops and is quite a rush. I'm not sure I'm going to act (if you could call it that) again, but I'm grateful for the opportunity.
As far as teaching, I had plenty to share with my history of rock and roll course (several of whom attended a performance), and I talked with my theory classes about the ways I which I used the things I was teaching them to help me learn the music efficiently. The gig world is a'changing and this opportunity set into sharp relief the kinds of skills and versatility that we need to teach our students.