hello

i'm in a historically gay women's choir that is under the same umbrella organization as the local gay men's choir. there are a lot of dynamics and politics about the whole thing but the short is there is a vicious cycle of the women not being given enough resources or support to generate interest in our choir then not being given opportunities or near the same level of investment as with the men's choir with the justification that we don't bring sales/audiences.

so this is an adult women's community choir that meets once a week about 8 months out of the year. i'd say half or more members are over the age of 40. maybe 10 people total are performers outside of the choir, and i don't think even all of those are vocalists.

this is to set the scene that, due to post-covid budgets, the men's choir shows got reduced to 2 a year and ours to 1. obviously this was really upsetting and the women's choir has been wanting to have a second show since it got cut. this season we were told we were having a cabaret show and then much later (like not until our first show was almost done with rehearsals) given the details about cabaret

basically the ask was that we, the individual members, choose and prepare the songs and ensembles as we would perform them for the show. There would be auditions 2 months after our current show ended and the selected pieces would have 1 month of rehearsals before the show. for a community choir of people who are used to singing choral music and maybe auditioning occasionally for assigned solos or small groups.

obviously not enough people auditioned to make a show. everyone is an adult with lives and so few have access to things like accompanists and rehearsal spaces to feel comfortable to present a near performance-ready audition.

then our director (kind of. he doesn't like working with us so now only directs the men's chorus and we have a new choral conductor who is wonderful) has the gall to send a scolding email about how disappointed he is at the turn out after the excitement about the show and because not enough people auditioned we have to cancel.