Well, dear readers, March has marched off to a fine start. June may be busting out all over (especially June Wilkinson), but March has marched off to a fine start. In fact, one might say that thus far we are having a perfectly perfect March. For example, I did not have one annoying thing happen yesterday. Normally, there are always one or two annoying things that happen, but yesterday there were no count them no annoying things that happened. I got a reasonable night’s sleep, awoke, did some things around the home environment, and then was on my way to the audio layback for the Disney spots. Allyce Beasley was back and had to redo all the voiceover tags, which she did quickly and well. Then, while the audio man began preparing to lay back the new tracks to the video, Allyce and I had a great chat about this and that and also that and this. Both she and the audio man are going to come to the play in the next couple of weeks. I then delivered the deliverables to Disney. I then came home and the pressing plant lady came by and picked up the CD master for the STAGE album. I then invoiced Disney. I then went to my mail place where I picked up some packages and a nice check. I then came home and got the news that a ton of new DVDs had come in to my little DVD store – I had lots of credit built up, thank goodness, because they got the mother lode in. I must have lugged home about 15 new DVDs, which I shall now have to find time to watch. I then ate a reasonable meal, made some telephonic calls, and answered a ton of e-mails. And that was the start to my very nice March.
Last night I watched one motion picture on DVD, but before I watched one motion picture on DVD, I watched two episodes from the new Dick Cavett “comedians” box set. This is the set I was waiting for. I always liked Dick Cavett – his was probably my favorite talk show back in the late 60s/early 70s. I found him witty, bright, and opinionated, and he always had great guests on. The shows hold up beautifully. I watched a 1969 show with Mr. Woody Allen and Miss Ruth Gordon. As I was watching it, I remembered the show immediately and it was just as hilarious as I remembered it. Woody was non-stop funny, and Cavett kept up with him. Miss Gordon was delightful, funny, and endearing. Then I watched a 1974 show with Mr. Jack Benny. Mr. Benny was really showing his age by 1974, but he’d lost none of his timing. It’s very subdued but I just howled from start to finish. Cavett obviously idolized Benny, and it’s great to watch his face while Benny scores one huge laugh after another. Benny is followed on the show by Bill Cosby who, compared to Benny, is an amateur. Other shows include Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Groucho, another Woody show, and several others. Wherever they stored these tapes, they stored them well, because they look as good as the day they were aired. I then watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Ten Little Indians, a 1965 adaptation of Miss Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Niggers (aka Ten Little Indians, aka And Then There Were None). It’s not very good, unfortunately, but it is watchable. It stars Hugh O’Brien, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Wilfrid Hyde White, Stanley Holloway, Fabian, and Dahlia Lavi. Only Dennis Price and Hyde White are excellent – the others get through it okay. None of the film versions of Miss Christie’s book are anywhere near as good as the book itself. The film is directed by George Pollock, who did all the MGM Miss Marple films with Margaret Rutherford. He’s competent and keeps the action moving along. Unfortunately, the film has one of the worst musical scores I’ve ever heard. The transfer is nice and sharp with good contrast, but there are emulsion lines and scratches here and there, for those who are bothered by such things.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Shouldn’t we March right onto the next section by cleverly clicking on the Unseemly Button below? We should and we shall.
This morning I shall be having another musical theater workshop (MTW) class – I’m going to have certain people sing their songs again, to see how they’ve addressed the notes they were given. Then, I’m going to do a Q&A session, and talk about their next assignments – duets, with at least a few lines of dialogue going into the song, and hopefully a few lines of interior dialogue as well. If any of you dear readers have suggestions for interesting duets, please post them.
After the class, I shall come back home, where I shall write at least five pages of the musical, and smooth out some of David’s pages as well. Then I shall find something amusing to eat, then I shall toddle off to the theater for tonight’s performance. I may run a few things before the show, just to get the actors back in performance mode. We only play Thursday and Friday this week, because they’re taping a Jimmy Kimmel Oscar special on Sunday and they bought out our performances so they could use our theater as a holding area.
Speaking of the Oscars, I do hope all of you dear readers and dear lurkers are getting ready for our annual haineshisway.com Oscar Bash. This is the place to be on Oscar night – there is no website whose partay and running commentary is better than this. Last year we had over nine hundred posts, our record. Will we beat that record this year? Well, that is up to you, dear readers. So, get your food and beverages and be there or be round for our annual Oscar Bash.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must make sure the STAGE benefit CD package is at the pressing plant this morning, I must do the class, I must eat, I must write, and I must do a plethora of other things. Today’s topic of discussion: Your favorite musical theater duets. Let’s have loads of lovely postings as we continue our perfectly perfect March.