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May 2, 2006:

THE PLAY READING

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry because I must get my beauty sleep and then leave quite early to do the musical theater workshop. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had any time to figure out what I’m staging tomorrow, but I’m guessing it will be the finale of act one, which, aside from the opening number, is the biggest number in the show. Of course, I’ll only have an hour but I’ll get as much of it done as I can. But I’m getting ahead of myself which, I suppose, is better than getting aknee of myself or even ahand of myself. Yesterday, I had quite a day. It started with boxing and shipping Kritzer books. After that, I went directly to the editing room and hung around whilst the picture was uprezzing. It looked quite good, I must say. After that, I came home, jogged, then shaved and showered. By that time, people started arriving for the reading of the new play – Miss Tammy Minoff, her friend Billy, my friend Miss Barbara Deutsch, and our very own PennyO. Oh, and I was there, too. At seven promptly, we began the reading. It took a few pages for everyone to get in the rhythm of the piece (everyone was reading the script completely “cold”), but once they did everything went pretty swimmingly. It was a fascinating read-through for me. I was very happy with the laughs – plenty of them and they’re spaced out very well. I was also really happy with the structure and the characters and the pace. The first act ran about fifty-five minutes, and the second act about thirty-five, which is just right. As we read, I found a handful of typos and stuff. Tammy’s friend Billy was wonderful – I don’t really know him, but I kind of based the character on Tammy’s description of him, and it worked perfectly. The scenes between he and Tammy all worked very well. The most interesting thing about the reading was Tammy’s complete misplaying of the dynamics between her character and the older man character, the character I was reading. I found that extremely interesting, as if she were purposely afraid to go there. She certainly “got” the dynamic early on, but then when the play goes where it goes, she just didn’t go with it – fascinating. When I discussed it with her afterwards, she said it was just because she was reading it cold, but I don’t know that I believe that at all, because the dynamic is all there in the writing – it’s almost impossible to misplay it, frankly. Barbara started off just saying lines, so we got off to a slow start, but once she sort of got the character she showed flashes of wonderfulness. I had a grand time reading the older man character – it’s very me, and so all that dialogue and its rhythms are very natural and easy for me. PennyO read our stage directions and got a few laughs of her own. Tammy’s friend Billy absolutely loved the piece and said it was a pleasure to say the dialogue. He also liked what the play had to say and how it said it and he was quite specific about it. Barbara said that she didn’t think she’d be rooting for the characters but that by the end of act one she totally was. All in all, I was pretty happy with everything. I’m not sure where we’ll go from here – it would really be a fun show to get on its feet and play, that much seemed clear. I may talk to a couple of theaters that expressed interest about my working with them. We shall see.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because my boudoir is calling me and I must hit the road to dreamland very soon.

Today, I must do the musical theater workshop (MTW), and then I must go directly to a long six-hour audio session. By the time that ends, we should be very close to being finished with everything; at least I hope we are. When we’re completely done, then a week later I’m hoping we can start editing the Kevin Spirtas video. I’m probably going to be at the post-production house quite late, because my editor doesn’t start his work until about five in the afternoon, and I have to be there for the final color correction and the audio layback. Perhaps I’ll bring Ye Olde Laptop with me.

Now wait just a darned minute – I do believe we’d all better put on our colored tights and pantaloons, I do believe we’d better break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, I do believe we’d better dance the Hora or the Cha-Cha-Cha, because today is the birthday of dear reader FJL. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader FJL. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER FJL!!!

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a class, do an audio session, do color correction, eat, and then sit on my couch like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: Who are your all-time favorite character actors and actresses – those stalwarts who went from film to film and were never less than memorable. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? We shall.

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