He is utterly in charge, greeting members of the choir as they arrive, coordinating adjustments to the risers, smiling, joking, scolding, talking with a latecomer on the cell phone, selling tickets, writing something on his clipboard, reviewing the draft of the program to be distributed at the concert, and all the while thinking about several upcoming engagements, the need to stay healthy and in good voice, the many tasks yet to be done.
‘Show me that diva posture!’ he tells one woman. ‘We sent ya that a loooong time ago,’ he says to another, in a Gullah accent. ‘I’m only doing a million things in a day,’ he tells a visitor.
Having thrown into the air an armful of balls, Lee Pringle sits in the first pew at Citadel Square Baptist Church working diligently to keep them there. It is what he does. Then, 10 or 15 minutes after rehearsal was supposed to start, Pringle announces that the rainy weather has held them up long enough; it’s time to start.