Well, dear readers, today I move to my new digs, which I’m looking forward to very much. I shan’t miss my old digs, I don’t think, except maybe for the piano, which I enjoyed playing. I have a morning rehearsal, so I’d best write the notes in a hurry so I can get my beauty sleep. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when I don’t have to get up so early. Speaking of early, yesterday was a humdinger of a day. We had our official meet and greet, I gave a little spiel about the play and the approach and then we had our read-through – and what fun it was. I generally loathe read-throughs, but the cast really got into the spirit of it and despite having to endure the dreaded read stage directions, it was most enjoyable. All the new material worked very well, and the new cast members are going to be wonderful. Most amazing was the group number – with just one rehearsal under their belt everyone sang them and they were just fantastic sounding. Our Joyce, without any music rehearsals on her songs, sang them beautifully. Our Rod is very quirky and very funny, and our General Mills is terrific. Our supporting players are all very talented and everyone came away from the reading with really good energy. After rehearsal, I stopped by Virgin and bought two Bossa Nova CDs, one of them being a Mancini Bossa Nova thing from Brazil that’s out of this world. I then came home to very good news indeed – we finally cast our leading man, and he’s a humdinger. Mr. Rob Evan is on board to play Fred and I think he’ll be excellent. He’s a great singer, and I enjoyed his performance as Jekyll (and Hyde) in the musical of the same name, a role he played for six hundred performances on Broadway. I don’t know that he’s ever played a down-to-earth guy like our Fred, so I think it will be fun to take him there. I then met Cason and BJ and we cabbed it down to Washington Square to have some supper with Barry Pearl, prior to seeing Merrill Grant in her Fringe show, Slammer. We ate at a wonderful Thai restaurant. The food was great, the conversation was pretty hilarious, especially ordering the food and saying names like Pad Prik or Prik Thai or other most amusing sounding items – at one point Cason ordered something that sounded like Thaigefiltefish. After dinner, we walked to the theater and waited until the box-office opened. I must say, it was disgracefully disorganized and Barry Pearl actually went and spoke to the producer about it. As it turned out, the theater only had about 150 people in it (there were four hundred seats) so we got good seats. After a while, the house lights dimmed and Slammer began.
I always know from the opening number what sort of evening I’m in for, and unfortunately, Slammer’s opening number was a portent of things to come. The subtitle of the musical is “A New Women In Prison Musical.” Now, when you slap a subtitle like that on your show, you are clearly saying to people that it’s a tongue-in-cheek show, a spoof of that genre of films. There have been several women in prison musicals, and, bad or good, they knew what they were about. Here, we’re presented a basically serious piece with no laughs at all in the first act – maybe a titter or two, but that would be stretching things. Next, we get one song after another that sounds exactly the same and none of which advance the plot one iota. Some songs lasted about thirty seconds. Close to the end of the act, a very talented Black lady inmate gets killed. Despite her being dead as a piece of smoked whitefish, she gets up and sings a Gospel number. Since there were lots of family and friends in the audience, it got a rousing hand. At that point in the show, however, I was so low in my seat that I practically slid to the floor. The act mercifully ended – I was quite sure it had lasted close to an hour and a half, so imaging my surprise to find out that the first act had run forty minutes, certainly the longest forty minutes in the history of the musical theater.
The second act was more of the same country-flavored tunes. And about ten minutes from the end of the show, they decided they were a spoof and threw in a few jokey jokes – too late, I’m afraid. Note to authors: It is very important to know what type of show you are doing and to let the audience in on it from the first number. There wasn’t a character on stage that we cared about, and therefore there was nothing to hold on to. The actors, of course, did what they could with no material. We saw Merrill after the show, and our Rod was there, too. It was very hot out – about eighty-five degrees. I finally came home where I sat on my chair like so much fish and caught up on all my e-mails and messages.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I dream of Thai gefilte fish.
I Dream of Thai Gefilte Fish – that’s the title of my next novel. I’ll tell you where the real laughs were at Slammer – in the lobby at intermission, as we tried to pick out the people we felt would most likely be posting on the chat boards that it was a masterpiece.
Today, we have our final music rehearsal, mostly with Merrill, Amy, and a couple of other people. Directly after the rehearsal, I’ll return to the digs and pack, and then Cason is being kind enough to come over and assist me in the move up the street – I assume we’ll just be able to walk it. It’s just my suitcase and laptop and one box o’ stuff. I just want to make sure I don’t leave anything behind, although if I did I could come get it, since I officially have this place until next Wednesday.
I’m not sure what I’ll be doing after the move – I may see if Cason and BJ want to grab a bite to eat somewhere, or I may just stay in and relax and watch TV or a DVD. Tomorrow, I have a production meeting from one to two, otherwise the rest o’ the day is mine all mine.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse, move, do a couple of errands, and then sup and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the single worst musical and play you’ve ever seen? What was wrong with them and do you think they could have been fixed? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I ponder getting some Thai gefilte fish.