Hello,

I am a sophomore in high school and I am working as rehearsal accompanist for our show of "Wizard of Oz". I have been given the piano/conductor score for it.

My problem is, is that it is not really a decent piano arrangement. It is almost as if they just crammed 18 orchestra parts into 2 staves and put "piano" on it.

How does one go about preparing something like this? There is a lot of ridiculously fast stride piano, and very rapid scales. Is a piano accompanist expected to play things like these?

Either way: Is there any specific advice on learning how to execute scales and stride? Those are my two worst weaknesses.

You have to decide what is important. Mostly you need to provide rhythm and harmony, and fill in the melody when nothing else is happening.