The Sandwich Board

If you drove by the parking lot of Our Lady of Fatima on March 6th, you would see something very curious. Sixty or so cars, arranged in semi circles, some with wires sticking out of the cracked window. A U-Haul with a space heater and an electric piano inside, with people coming in and out. A marching band podium with a conductor waving her arms. But you wouldn’t hear anything – unless you tuned 107.1 FM, which normally has nothing broadcast to it. That afternoon, we sent an FM signal from our transmitter to everyone’s car radio, and anyone within about 200 feet could hear the blend of all the people singing into mics. Some with wires, some wireless, this was the chorus that sang through The Pirates of Penzance. We, Kathryn and Bryce Denney, have been doing this since May 2020, a few months after the pandemic shut down theater performances and choral rehearsals. We’ve called it the Driveway Choir because the first events involved a few friends in cars in our driveway. Soon, one of our driveway singers asked them if they could pack our equipment into a car and bring it to the church where he directed a choir. Since August, the Denneys have gone to meet nearly one community chorus per week, and have taught many other technicians to set up their own driveway choruses. (More on the technical side.) While Pirates was the 40th event we have run, this was our first attempt at a piece of musical theater in which people played roles and acted in real time and looked at each other through the car windows and sang duets. It was an incredible event, a little chilly, but the bright sun was in the sky and also in our souls.