I'm a newb compared to some of you..
Everyone was new at one time or another. Don't let it bother you.
WHen I was drafted into the Army in 1969, I was in the initial equipment issue line when I had a transcendental experience. I was standing there with my pile of fatigues, web gear, boots and other military whatnot when a pair of what looked like combat hardened soldiers came into the building, there to get some dry boots.
(It later turned out that they could not have been in the military for more than eleven weeks, this being the maximum amount of time anyone could have been in training before going out for the week-long bivouac that these two worthies had been on.)
At that time, I can recall myself thinking "Wow! They look like real soldiers!"
Fast forward just under two complete years. I was one or two days away from discharge, with a full year of combat under my belt in RVN and the CIB and other decorations to prove it, when I made the rounds of Fort Knox to say goodbye to friends and settle any small outstanding debts. By that point, I had gifted off all of my fatigue uniforms and was living in Class B khaki shirt and pants (on which all of the decorations were to be worn), along with my drill instructor hat and whistle (which got you a lot of respect around the post, both from military and civilian alike).
Among my stops was one at the post issue facility, where I had two sets of boots and an Alice rucksack waiting for me when I brought a case of beer by for the boys. (Them boots lasted about forever - my son lost the rucksack the first time that I let him use it.)
When I arrived, the staff there was in the process of making the first issue of uniforms and gear to a newly arrived group of enlistees, and there they stood, wearing much the same sort of look on their face as I must have had two years earlier. The difference then was that I was not some trainee, fresh out of the Advanced Individual Training units, wondering where I was going to be sent in the next month or two, but rather someone who had been through the mill, complete with the hardware and ribbons to prove it.
At that point, I recalled my experience at Fort Jackson almost two years before. Wow, man! How far off base I was back then. And, for that matter, how far off base I would be if my former platoon (with fifteen years in the Navy and twelve in the Army) had been standing there instead.
From your listing of shows, you have done more than perhaps 90% of the clarinet players of my acquaintance (pros and students alike). Nothing to be ashamed of there. At least you haven't done
Once Upon A Mattress twice in less than a calendar year. (Or, two different productions of
Carousel within three months of each other.)
Keep it up, with one or two college or community (or traveling road shows) a year, and pretty soon you'll be wondering where all the time went.
One show I forgot to mention above was
Threepenny Opera. Very exposed parts (soprano clarinet/alto and soprano clarinet/tenor in the normal version), very "modern" music sound to it all, and some pretty interesting tunes in the bargain. Plus (for the guys in the orchestra) a stage full of prostitutes in various stages of undress...
