Well, dear readers, I do hope no one is finding these here notes dreary because of all the rehearsal reportage. I’m trying to keep it to the bare minimum or, at the very least, the bear minimum. Is a short mother a minimum? Just asking. In any case, I am trying to keep the rehearsal reportage to the bare minimum, but if it’s not minimum enough, we’ll just have to make do. Speaking of do, yesterday was another fun day. There really is nothing like walking into a rehearsal room with a bunch of pros and just doing the work and having so much fun whilst doing it. Today we did some choreography and some book scenes. We began with Good Girl/Bad Girl – Miss Patti helped get the blocking restaged, but it all looked completely wrong. She then realized she’d put the wrong page of notes in her script and she had blocking from before Merrill was even in the show. Happily, we had the DVD in the room and we got the thing on its feet in short order. Our new Rod is just wonderful and quirky and he makes me laugh without doing much of anything. We then did The Plan and its reprise – again our choreographer kept the basic structure of what I did, but smoothed it out and made it even more fun, especially for The Brain. We did The Brain’s Song, too, in rough form, and then I blocked a few scenes (again using the LA staging, but I find I’m adjusting it constantly when seeing what our new cast members are bringing to the table). Our Joyce, Amy Bodnar, arrived and we did Here On Earth (again there were some problems with the blocking until Miss Patti realized she was looking at her diagrams upside down) – she’s got a whole different quality but one I’m really enjoying a lot. We then did Independence Day, which blocked very easily. Mr. Barry Pearl is really honing in on what’s working for him and even at this early stage some of his stuff is priceless. Of course, there is much work to do, and I’m having problems rethinking all the General Mills scenes, since we are without the set piece we had in LA – it will come to me at some point, but for now it’s mildly frustrating. However, the actor playing General Mills, Richard Pruitt, is terrific and it’s so much fun to hear and see the part being done correctly. The day just flies by, like a gazelle doing a triple lutz. We lunched at some diner, and I had a very good chicken salad sandwich, and, amusingly, we were sitting in the “Jackie Mason” booth.
After rehearsal, I came home and had to answer about ten e-mails and also have a telephonic conversation with our set designer, which was productive. I then took a long walk, then met up with Cason, BJ, and Miss Patti. Just what up was doing with the threesome is anyone’s guess. We walked for a bit, then ended up at the Westway Diner on Ninth and 43rd. The food wasn’t so hot, but we had a wild and wooly time, I must say. Mr. Cason Murphy posted photographic evidence of the wild and wooly time in last night’s posts, so check them out if you missed them. After that, I came home and answered a few more e-mails and then I sat on my bed like so much fish and ate some Swedish what is it fish.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because frankly I’d like to keep this section to the bare minimum.
I forgot to mention that when we were sitting in the Westway Diner, my pal Paul Kreppel (who’s here acting in a show) walked by, looked in the window, and dropped in. We had a nice chat – he’s actually like a sequel to Barry Pearl.
Today we’ll be blocking a bunch of book scenes and a couple more numbers. Tomorrow I think we finish the rest of the numbers, so we’ll be in pretty good shape. There’s also built in time to review everything. Our new Fred joins us on Monday, and we’ll put him into his scenes as quickly as we can. By the end of next week we’ll be having our first stumble through, and Miss Alet Taylor joins us Thursday morning. She should be up to speed quickly because we’ve sent her a video with all her new tap choreography so she can learn it before getting here, and we’ve sent her extensive notes on any changed blocking. Miss Patti will be working with her twice to put her through her paces before she comes in. Then it’s run-throughs every day.
My seeing The Fantasticks got pushed to next week because half the cast is going to be out this weekend. So, I may try to see something this weekend if I can score a ticket. We shall see.
I completely forgot to mention that my test books arrived on Tuesday. What a thrill, as always, to hold the finished book in my hands. We’re going to try and have it up for preorder in the next few days and, as always, the first fifty people who order will get something special with their copies.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse, sup, have a meeting with my costume designer, then I’ll probably take a nice long walk, which is really enjoyable in the early evening. Today’s topic of discussion: If you could go one place you’ve never been where would it be, why would you choose that place, how long would you stay, and what would you mostly do? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s not keep the postings to the bare minimum.