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Speed singers race to finish
Durham Savoyards host Patter-Off
BY ADAM RODMAN
ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
Talking too much usually isn’t
considered a virtue.
But Sunday evening, at the
Durham Savoyards first Patter-
Off at the Arts Center in Carrboro,
theater fans gathered in a compe
tition to celebrate the obscure art
of singing really, really fast.
“It’s a fun, relaxed event with a
lot of audience participation,” says
Chris Newlon, a Savoyard and the
main organizer of the event.
“There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek
stuff.”
The Savoyards are a citizen the
ater company based in Durham
that produces a Gilbert and
Sullivan play each year.
As such, the competition mainly
featured the works of that dynamic
duo, opening with the famous “I
Am the Very Model of a Modern
Trading
Post to
get new
friends
Four businesses
grace old space
BY ALEXA DIXON
STAFF WRITER
Downtown Carrboro’s Trading
Post, an antique furniture store,
is squeezing in to make room for
some new neighbors.
Once home to a dry cleaner,
the 14,000-square-foot building
located at 106 S. Greensboro St.
has housed the Trading Post since
1973.
New building owners Runyon
Woods, Johnny Morris and David
Jessee have made several renova
tions to the building and have made
room for four new businesses.
Construction began the summer
0f2005, and the first new business,
a hydroponics garden store called
the Fifth Season, moved in last
week.
The Fifth Season Gardening
Cos., which specializes in high
tech and organic gardening,
moved to Carrboro from Durham
on Feb. 19 when the Trading Post
moved into the new section of the
building.
Fifth Season store manager
Melissa Crouch said that the busi
ness been busy with the move but
that it is pleased with the new loca
tion.
In a few months, co-owner
and photographer David Jessee
will move his photography and
color consulting business from his
Pittsboro house.
The Furniture Lab, a furniture
design firm, is slated to move in
from Durham by June 1.
The owners hope to add a res
taurant at the left of the building
during the summer, but Morris
said they still are working out the
lease agreement.
Morris said the restaurant will
be a locally owned and managed
business and should feature out
door seating.
Woods added that it should be a
combination wine bar, wine retailer
and restaurant.
Trading Post owner Richard
Moody said he is excited about the
changes despite his business space
being reduced.
“We are occupying about 3,000
square feet,” Moody said.
“The main thing we have to do
is be a little more picky on what we
buy because we have less space.”
Moody added that he thinks
more businesses in the building
will draw more traffic.
He said he is pleased with the
renovations that have changed his
space.
“It’s good our space has been
renovated,” Moody said.
“It’s like night and day.”
Woods said he wants the TVading
Post building to be another feature
that draws people to Carrboro.
Morris, owner of Morris
Commercial, said that the proj
ect is a solid restoration of an old
building and that he expects it to
be a worthwhile addition to down
town Carrboro.
“I think it will simply add more
activity to downtown Carrboro. It
will be a great addition and a great
fit for Carrboro,” he said.
“It re-energizes that building
and that location.”
Contact the City Editor
at citydesk@unc.edu.
Major-General.”
Among the other acts per
formed were “The mid-19th cen
tury equivalent of the Village
People’s ‘ln the Navy,’” says
Savoyard Bruce Conner, and Tom
Lehrer’s “The Elements,” which is
the tune of the “Modern Major-
General” song sung with elements
of the periodic table.
The patter found its begin
nings in the Middle Ages, the
word coming from the mechani
cal mumbling of the Lord’s Prayer,
which begins with “Pater noster”
in Latin.
The patter-song developed
in subsequent centuries, culmi
nating in Gilbert and Sullivan’s
famous musicals of the 1800s
and finding modern versions in
the works of Cole Porter and Tom
Lehrer.
Sunday’s competition for best
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patter was won by the Felder fam
ily, performing, “My Eyes are Fully
Open” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s
“Ruddigore.”
Mary, 12, and Ben, 9, sang with
their father, Kenny, spitting out syl
lables at breakneck speeds while
the audience joined in with the
chorus.
They said practicing for their
winning performance wasn’t with
out troubles.
“My tongue kept going to the
right of my mouth when I wanted
it to go to the left,” Ben says.
Pattering is a challenge for
even the most experienced speed
singer.
Balance is the essential element,
says performer Ray Übinger, a
Savoyard since 1998.
“It’s a challenge not singing too
fast or too slow,” he says. “As soon
as you drop one syllable, you’re
completely lost.”
And the often obscure lyrics of
typical patter songs, skewering
News
everything from 19th-century
politicians to locomotive car
riages, require special memori
zation.
“You’ve got to get it so you don’t
think about it,” Conner says.
The evening ended with a speed
pattering contest, with contestants
blabbering so fast that the piano
accompaniment could only bang
chords to keep up.
Pattering is a fairly humorous
pastime, Newlon says, and orga
nizers tried to have the Patter-Off
reflect that.
“What’s nice about Gilbert and
Sullivan is that Sullivan was a real
ly serious composer, but Gilbert’s
lyrics were the really neat comic
part,” he says.
“If a performer can pull that out,
it really lends itself to this type of
parody.”
The actors themselves lent to
the comedy of the night, play
ing an international panel of
judges and an official scorekeeper
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2006
DTH/ANGELA STRADER
Daryn O’Shea, the official rule keeper at the Patter-Off, sounds the gong
at the end of an act in the production put on by the Durham Savoyards.
from the International Pattering
Association.
“In the future, we might find
parody is much more important
to the Patter-Off,” Newlon says.
He says he has high hopes for
the future of the competition.
“It’s the kind of event that gets a
reputation,” he says.
Now try singing that one five
times fast.
Contact the Features Editor
atfeatures@unc.edu.
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