Well, dear readers, last night’s rehearsal started off poorly but ended up going very well. Our choreographers were a bit at sea with the What If they were staging, and, after seeing where they were going with it during the first twenty minutes, I called a break and gave them my thoughts on what it should be. I showed them the kinds of steps and they “got” it right away and then managed to stage the whole thing in two hours, and it is very cute now. Yesterday, I also made my first stab at a show order; in fact, I did two separate orders, both of which we’ll try next week. That will tell me if I’m on the right track or if I need to rethink what the flow of the evening. Today, prior to rehearsal, we have a huge production meeting with every department in attendance. Then we get tomorrow off, and then we have a long day on Sunday, honing all the staged numbers. Starting on Monday, I finish staging all the solo and duet numbers we haven’t gotten to yet, and then I’m hopeful of beginning the long process of assembling everything into a whole. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Last night I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled La Ceremonie, un film de Claude Chabrol. I find Mr. Chabrol’s films a mixed bag, but this is one of his best (from 1995). It stars Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Pierre Cassal, Sandrine Bonnaire, and Isabelle Hupert. The film is based on A Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell, and it’s a strange thriller that has some genuinely creepy and shocking moments. The DVD transfer is fine except that the entire film is mis-framed at the top. You can tell immediately, because the subtitles aren’t at the very bottom of the screen – if they were then the top of the frame would have more room. Right now, on long shots heads are completely cut in half and that is not how the film was framed, that much I can tell you. It really is mind-boggling that someone can sit in a telecine room and transfer a film and not see that there is a problem with the framing. An idiot would know there was a problem. If this weren’t a Home Vision release, but were Universal or Columbia, there would be a huge outcry. I suspect there will be none.
I do wish all of you could have been there to see me demonstrating choreography. I looked quite insane. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I have much to do this very day.
Our poster looks quite spiffy, and everyone is very pleased with it. In the next day or two we’ll have our postcard design and our theater marquee design. Now, for those of you in the Los Angeles area who are thinking about seeing our little show, simply go to www.plays411.com and click on What If. You can make reservations online or you can call the phone number that is listed there. I do hope some of our hainsies/kimlets can join us during the run. A few dear readers will be there opening night, which will be lovely.
Oh, dear, oh dear, I am late getting these here notes up. I am filled with skammen, dear readers, and I must hurry and finish them up before someone bitch-slaps me from here to eternity and hell and back. Tomorrow we’ll have longer notes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write, I must organize, I must have meetings and I must rehearse all the livelong night. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – DVD, next up The Assassination Bureau. CD, in honor of Mr. Jerry Goldsmith, Islands in the Stream (not the terrible rerecording or the terrible bootleg – no, I have a CD directly off the master tapes from when Varese Sarabande was going to issue the soundtrack way back when – it didn’t happen, but I had 15ips copies of the score made, and I recently transferred it to CD and it is spectacular. And Capricorn One, again not the rerecording, but the original soundtrack with spectacular audio quality. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? We shall.