Well, dear readers, Monday started off with a bang, not a whimper. At nine o’clock sharp my telephone rang with a bang, not a whimper. I got out of bed with a bang, brushed my teeth with a bang (no mean feat), and met the day with a bang. I finished writing all the patter, and sent Cindy’s opening monologue off to her via e-mail. She called me later to say she thought it was just right, and she liked all the humor, so that was nice to hear. I then went to my mail place, where I picked up a lovely amazon package containing two count them two new DVDs of Fritz Lang movies from Kino. I also picked up a nice envelope from my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim, who finally sent me a signed musical quote from Sweeney Todd for our silent auction. So far, we’ve got four – Sondheim, Flaherty and Ahrens (the title song from Ragtime), Harvey Schmidt (Try To Remember), and Rupert Holmes (Moonfall, from Drood). I’m hoping to get one or two more. I then had to hie myself over to LACC, where I sat with my assistant Svetlana (whom I adore), and we worked out the rehearsal schedule for the rest of the week, and then she began her arduous task of setting appointments for our Friday evening band rehearsal with the singers, and our sound check on Saturday. It’s a logistical nightmare, but she’s doing a great job. At five, we began rehearsing the faculty number, and they’ve gotten better but are still quite a ways from having it down. They’re not performers, so they’re brains are not communicating with their bodies yet – the good news is that no matter what, it will be funny. The better news is that if they get it down, it will be fall out of your seat funny. They actually are at least getting through it without falling completely apart, but they’re not understanding that the number is really just variations on three different steps – and if they figure that out, then they’ll stop forgetting things. We’ve got four more days of drilling them, and I’m confident they’ll get it. I then rehearsed the two big first act numbers – we had to put in a new girl, and she picked it up pretty fast and now just needs to get secure. But, everyone else really seems to have it down, and the numbers are looking very sharp, indeed. We’ll be running them at least once a day from now until the show, sometimes more if we need cleanup. They then learned Our Time, and I staged it. I was originally just going to have all twelve of them come on, stand there, and sing the thing, but that had no build to it and was boring. So, I bring the kids on in groups of four, each group adding vocal power to the number as it goes along. There is very simple staging, which mostly has to do with their initial group entrances, and then slight repositions, ending with a dynamic and slow walk forward (to the music) for the “me and you” repeated ending. They all end in a straight line at the front of the stage for the final “me and you” and it’s quite exciting. They picked everything up very fast, and I think it will be a very effective finale.
I may as well tell you my other news, which I’ve been holding in abeyance, oh, yes, which I’ve been holding in abeyance. Two months ago, the head of the department approached me with a bang, and asked if I would consider teaching a musical theater workshop for the department. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and, two weeks ago, said yes. It would only be two to three mornings a week, and I think I would have a really good time doing it. Many of the kids I queried were very psyched about the possibility, because the school has never had a class devoted to musical theater (even though they did two musicals a year up until the 80s), and they haven’t done a real musical in over a decade. So, I have to figure out exactly what the workshop will be, but I’m sure it will involve all aspects of performing for the musical theater, along with some history, and it will culminate in some sort of production that I will direct in May or thereabouts. I even get paid. If I have the fun I think I’m going to have, I’ll probably do it regularly from then on. Karen Morrow has been doing this sort of workshop for years at UCLA and I know people love it, so I’m really looking forward to starting it in February.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, and let’s click with a bang, not a whimper, shall we?
I didn’t get home until ten last night, and I had some yummilicious tuna pasta salad (one of my specialties) that I’d made earlier. I hadn’t eaten a single thing before it, so that’s another reasonable day of eating – plus, I get a lot of exercise at these rehearsals, running back and forth between the house and the stage, plus running the numbers endlessly.
Today, I must hie myself to the Oaks of Sherman early this morning to pick up the new DVD of our celebrity clip reel – this one with higher contrast and brighter image. I’ll then have the morning to deal with various and sundried things (like trying to book a haircut between now and Friday – has to be in the morning), and booking a car to get me to and from the airport, for my San Francisco journey. Will any of our up north hainsies/kimlets be attending Simply Sondheim? Around two-thirty, I’ll hie myself over to LACC to make sure everything is running smoothly, and then we rehearse the faculty number at five, and we run the three big numbers at six-fifteen for the tech department. At six-thirty we begin a band rehearsal (sans singers) – a read-through of the entire musical portion of the show. We should be able to get through everything in the three hours allotted for it. After that, there is still no rest for me, as I must meet our very own Miss Tammy Minoff and our special effects person for the play at the House of Pies. At that meeting I shall be told how our special effects work, something I need to know prior to beginning to stage the show next week (next week??!!).
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must for example, do everything with a bang, not a whimper – whimpering is for fools and simpletons, not necessarily in that order. A bang, I tell you – that’s the ticket. Today’s topic of discussion: If you could choose any role in the musical theater or in straight-play theater, what role would you want to tackle and why? You don’t have to be a performer to answer the question – you just have to figure out which role you’d like to do and tell us why that role would be fun for you, or have significance for you, or be important to you. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? And let’s have postings with a bang – that’s the ticket.