 During the 2024 season of The Wedding Show, K-HOUSE Karaoke Lounge & Suites was one of the rehearsal spaces for the cast. This all happened because we had an audience member last year suggest having a wedding singer as a character in the show. So when I was casting for the season, I put out a message to get suggestions of great sisters in the Ithaca area. The list that I got included Alina Kim, the owner of K-House Karaoke Lounge & Suites. I sent Alina an email and she told me to swing by the venue. I feel like that night I rolled up to K-House I fell in love with everyone about it (including the dazzling and talented Alina) and now when I need to fill up my heart, it's the place that I go. Alina was more than excited to be a part of the show and sing in a few performances and after a few songs and drinks and duets and air guitar solos she offered up the venue for some rehearsals as well. In the storyline, the wedding singer is just an audience member with a little clout and when the couple realizes that the DJ has bailed for a colonoscopy and sent a karaoke play list to replace him, they rush to find someone who can sing, saving them from a wedding karaoke disaster. Fortunately Alina Kim, owner of K-HOUSE is a friend of the bride and she is happy to take the stage. See what we did there? I little promo for K-HOUSE and a breaking of the fourth wall...? The fun thing was that Alina was only scheduled to perform 3 of the 7 nights. But after the first night, she decided she wanted to be at every show so she created new characters. That was one of my favorite things about the show this year. I worked with the cast to come up with the supporting characters that they wanted to come out of the audience. We made character queue cards and as audience members arrived they could choose a character to play. The card gave them a little background story to build on and an action to perform during the show to further the plot. One nightly character which was not of the audience options (initially) was The Photographer. This character was played by Ben Mumford-Zisk in the 2023 season. For 2024 Ben Mumford-Zisk rehearsed with the cast in this role, but there was a night during the first week that he wasn't available to attend the show and Alina offered to fill in. After that, it became a rotating role! With Ben as the photographer he played a famed videographer for the teletubbies who has done too many drugs in his wild youth and toured with some big bands. I jumped in to play a version of the photographer one night who was a NYU drop out, smacking gum, getting in everyone's face and fumbling outdated video equipment, but taking it all too seriously. When Alina played the photographer she put on a thick Jersey accent and twirled around, snaked across the dance floor and spoke loudly at inappropriate times. And then it just became this great gimmick that the cast never knew who would be the photographer on a given night. One night the real life partner of one of the cast members stepped in as a brash artist who was perturbed by the lack of professionalism from everyone around them and insisted on posing people to get the impossibly perfect shot, and complaining about everything from the lighting to the decorations that weren't up to snuff. Songs featured in this video include Love on the Brain on Rihanna, Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan (muted for copy right issues, but just imagine the glory when they walk down the aisle), At Last by Etta James, Let's Get it On by Marvin Gay, Take me or Leave me from the musical Rent, The Middle by Jimmy Eat World, I Put a Spell on You by Nina Simone, Seasons of Love from the musical Rent (performed by the cast and crew of The Wedding Show) I digress...this was all to say that because of Alina, K-HOUSE became the perpetual cast after party venue and after the final curtain call, it was where we all gathered for a final night, with new friends from the audience invited to attend! Turns out most of the actors were also trained singers...who knew! They're a pretty exceptional bunch of folks! So we had some pretty excellent nights that involved certain crew members jumping and dancing on tables. Sorry about that K-HOUSE...we won't do it again!
Check out some exclusive behind the scenes footage from rehearsals, dance practice, karaoke parties and group sing-alongs featuring the cast and crew. Shout out to Alina Kim for hosting The Wedding Show at her venue and appearing as The Wedding Singer and the Photographer in the live performance!
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