Well, dear readers, let’s get the dispense with suspense and say that The Big Event, the Tourette’s Syndrome Benefit went wonderfully. The audience ate the show up and the entire cast, musicians and crew did a fantastic job. I would say that in an evening that could have been fraught with disaster there was not one major glitch – no one missed an entrance, no light cues went awry, the sound was there and the show, which ran long, was very tight and never seemed long.
I have not gone into great detail about the production process on the behemoth known as this benefit. These things are crazy – you rehearse each act separately, the acts never really see each other until the day of the show, the bands rehearse separately and, unlike some other benefits, we never had even a full run-through in show order until last night’s actual show in the actual theater.
The Wechters first asked me to be involved in this benefit a year ago. Since I had attended many benefits but never actually directed one, I told them my concerns and asked for them to trust me in terms of pacing and how it should all be put together, because I was determined to avoid the pitfalls that are inherent in charity benefits. Even though I knew that we, in fact, wouldn’t avoid all of them (you simply can’t) I knew if we all tried that there’d be less of them and that we could control them.
David and I both knew we wanted a scripted and highly structured show, something that we knew worked “on the page”. He did a great job, going through many many drafts of the script. At the beginning everyone wanted every single thing Julius Wechter had ever been involved with in the show. My job was to keep making everyone focus on the important things and to tell a story. It was sometimes difficult, because this was so personal for everyone, especially Cissy Wechter. But David and I have worked together for so many years and he is such a good writer that he totally understood what had to be done. Early on, we made the decision to have a lot of video clips so that Julius would seem like he was part of the show. Video clips are a dangerous game, but David did a brilliant job of editing them, keeping them short and making sure there was always a point to them. We also had a great video projection team and I’d say that those clips were one of the highlights of the evening, crystal clear, great sound and the audience absolutely loved them.
Anyway, to make a long story long, we all worked very hard over the course of the year to really keep the evening focused and clear. I asked to be very involved in the music, and I sat in on every rehearsal with every performer right from the beginning, so that I was sure the arrangements (something I’m fanatical about) were all great and did what they needed to do. Our house band arranger, Mike Asher, did an amazing amazing amazing (that is three amazings) job and the show would not have turned out like it did if it wasn’t for his tireless efforts.
Our cast could not have been better or more wonderful to work with. Directing something like this is quite different – there are so many different personalities – from each and every guest performer, to each and every musician, to the tech people, the producers – and you have to handle each and every one of them differently. Fortunately, I like most people, so I found that part of it a lot of fun. In the last few weeks, my entire focus was making sure everyone was having a good time, doing their work, and moving forward. Interestingly, the most problematic parts of the show for me at least was the Baja Marimba Band. Before I tell you why, I think we’d better all click on the Unseemly Button below because this first section has become both unseemly and unwieldy. We simply can’t have an unwieldy section because “unwieldy” is such a stupid-looking word and I don’t like to think I would do anything that would cause the use of a word like “unwieldy”. That’s such a Jerry Lewis word, isn’t it? Let’s all put on our Jerry voice and say “unwieldy”. On the count of three – one, two, three: “Unwieldy”. That felt good. Click away.
Our core group of Baja players (nine players) never seemed to be available at the same time for rehearsal. We’d always planned for them to have five full rehearsals because they were all twenty years older, most of them hadn’t played in some time and they were involved in a lot of the show. Well, as of last Monday night they’d only had three, and that final rehearsal was a total disaster. They couldn’t find charts, they didn’t know which versions of songs we were doing, they hadn’t written down the routines of the songs. On top of all that, I was trying to stage their entrances and exits and get their comedy routines (which were always a big part of their act) tight. But we couldn’t even get through a song let alone a comedy routine. Everything else about the benefit was in tip-top shape and we all knew we could not allow what was happening to happen. So, David and I insisted that they come back for another rehearsal on Saturday, and thankfully they agreed and understood why we had to. Then, last Thursday, David, Cissy and the Baja leader, Bernie Fleischer, all met and we went through every musician’s “book”, removed what didn’t need to be there, put everything in order, clarified their arrangements and then David wrote a “cheat sheet” for every single one of them so that they knew what they were doing, where they were supposed to be and what songs were in what set.
And Saturday, I worked them until they were sharp and focused – I ran every set and every comedy bit until they were comfortable and knew where they were coming from, how to leave after their sets and the difference was incredible. And you know what – they were great last night and the audience went wild for them. Julius would have been proud.
David and I were also insistent that the “speakers” on behalf of Tourette’s should be brief and to the point, because that is where these things always go awry and get endless and horrifying. But they understood and they were great. For me, the highlight of the evening was Vicki Kramer and her son Jackson (who has Tourette’s), who spoke briefly and movingly about how Julius had helped them and come into their lives. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
I had been maniacal since the beginning that the show run two hours (plus a fifteen minute intermission). I knew it never would because I knew I’d never see a run-through to make certain it would, and indeed the show ran two hours and forty minutes (plus intermission). But the pace was there and it never ever felt long to the audience. Yesterday, in the theater from eight in the morning, it was like a war zone. They were not ready for us, they had severely misunderstood how many sound people we’d need, even though we’d had several meetings with them and they assured us all would be swell. I spent the first three hours of the day sitting with the theater’s lighting designer, going over each and every cue (which, thankfully, I’d planned way in advance and had in my script) – he did a flawless job. The sound took forever to get up, and we were behind all day, but it eventually came out fine. The body mics, which were only used a handful of times, were never as loud as I wanted them to be, but thankfully everyone was heard. We had the legendary sound engineer, Larry Levine (he did all the Phil Spector hits, the Herb Alpert albums, etc.) supervising, and he was invaluable. I also had our very own Vinnie there to record it. I made certain that everyone was comfortable with their entrances and exits, and that everyone knew the show order. We had a lot of PAs running around attending to all manner of details. My stage manager, Mr. Ronn Goswick, was great, even when I occasionally would get a little testy (who me?) about the sound problems. We never really had time to run the Baja stuff, but they really came through.
At six, we got everyone on stage and I put them through the Finale, and Herb Alpert came in and we rehearsed Spanish Flea, and that was that. Showtime came and, as I said, it could not have gone smoother. I always say that if you hire the right people both onstage and backstage that that in ninety percent of the job. After the show, everyone we all heard from thought it was one of the best benefits that they’d ever seen and that we indeed had avoided all those pitfalls that we all knew needed to be avoided.
Today, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Other than a few things to take care of, I’m going to relax for the next few days, then David and I are going to seriously get back to work on our brand spanking new musical. Also, and it’s not for sure yet (many details would have to be worked out), but the Tourette’s people have asked us to do the show in New York, perhaps in October. We would all love to do it (I would recast all the performers with Broadway folks), so I will keep you posted on whether that will happen or not.
I know these notes were very dry today, but I feel the notes have been entirely too wet recently. We’ve had nothing but wet notes, so I felt a day of dry notes was in order. Tomorrow we shall return to wet notes. I just thought you might enjoy a bit of the story of what it took to get this behemoth on the stage.
Confusion is still running rampant (damn it all to hell and high water) in terms of our Unseemly Trivia Contest. Other than just giving the answer I don’t really know how to make it any more clear. I will try, however. The up-and-coming director/choreographer who was in the show ended up working with someone several times who went on to create a smash hit Broadway musical. Key words: Several times. Create, as in write. I will tell you that only one person has guessed all the elements of the question correctly. I will also tell you that no one has guessed the tie-breaker question correctly (if you have no clue what I’m talking about, these questions appear in Saturday’s notes – just use the handy-dandy Unseemly Archive Button to read them). You still have until this evening at midnight to send your guesses.
I’m not certain if Donald got back and put up a wonderful rerun of a past radio show – perhaps he’ll mosey over and tell us. But, next week there definitely will be a brand new show and it will be great.
Well, I must run off to sign some legal documents, after which I shall sit on my couch like so much fish and vegetate the day away. Today’s topic of discussion (and we want to see many posts): I grew up loving standard pop singers – the kind they don’t seem to make anymore (although, if you’ve heard any of the solo albums that I’ve produced, you know that that is what I’m trying to emulate) – who were/are your favorite vocalists on recordings, from the early 50s to the late 60s? I’ll start: Dorothy Collins (I loved this woman!), the early Streisand (those first albums were as good as anything ever done in the history of recording), Steve Lawrence, Jack Jones (smooooooooth), Andy Williams (will there ever be better versions of Moon River and Days of Wine and Roses – although my single favorite Andy Williams track is the great Can’t Get Used To Losing You), Lana Cantrell (loved her), Ella Fitzgerald, Arthur Prysock, the wonderful Carmen McCrae, the sultry Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, of course, although I only really came to appreciate him later), well I could go on for days, but for now: Your turn.