If you are an aspiring singer, the Capitol Centre is looking for you.
The theatre is looking to put together a large public singing event called Spring Sing inside the concert hall on April 14.
“What brought forward the idea is a couple of things,” Caroline Parnell-Barry, marketing director at the Capitol Centre said. “We’re wrapping up our 90th anniversary celebrations, so it would be something to signify that, but also over the last year we have seen large, mega choirs online. They’re all over the world and they looked fabulous getting thousands of people together to sing one song. We thought that would be a great thing to do to wrap up the year and welcome spring.”
“It’s in our wheelhouse, we do have a theatre,” she continued. “We have 932 seats we can fill and we will invite everyone as a free community event.”
The song that will be performed is “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John, a song that Parnell-Barry says embodies what the Capitol Centre is looking for.
“It was a difficult choice because if you think about all the possible songs that you could sing that would be amazing, it wouldn’t end,” she explained. “It just happened that we were talking about the classic rock icons and the songs that are out there and then we started talking about the movie Rocket Man and how that song ended the movie and as soon as we said the song we were like ‘that’s the one, that’s the song.’”
“We were actually heading in a different direction before that discussion, but it’s perfect,” Parnell-Barry continued. “It totally represents how we feel about still being here after 90 years and it’s a celebrational kind of survival and positive song so everyone can apply their own meaning to it while they are singing it.”
Although the theatre holds 932 seats, Parnell-Barry says they could end up bringing in more than the seating capacity.
“It seems like a lofty goal to fill the theatre as is, but if it starts looking like it is going to go more than that, we will have to come up with additional plans,” she said.
The plan is to film a documentary-style video to celebrate the Capitol Centre which will be shared all over social media.
“It will take a couple of weeks to edit it together,” Parnell-Barry explained. “We will be letting everyone know who is at the theatre when it will be released. We do hope if this goes well that it will become an annual thing.”
To register, head to the Capitol Centre’s website.
“You will need an email address and we need to know how many people you are registering so we can keep track of the numbers,” she said. “We just need to know when we are getting towards capacity to make other arrangements. You can register your family or a whole choir.”