Well, dear readers, this week is already flying by, like a gazelle in a 1952 DeSoto. I mean, it’s already Wednesday – how can that be? Just two short weeks from tomorrow and The Brain From Planet X will be having its opening night at the Acorn Theater. From what I was told today, ticket sales are going very well, so that’s a relief to hear. And we have some publicity stuff happening this week and next, so hopefully that will continue to help sell tickets. There is a lot of work to do over the next two weeks, and by gum and by golly and buy bonds, we’ll do it. The scariest part of this whole thing is having to completely tech the show in five hours prior to our opening night performance. We get into the theater in the morning, the lighting guy writes the cues, we get the band set up and miked, we dry tech cue to cue for lights and sound cues, and then the cast comes in and we do cue to cues all afternoon for five hours. We never get a complete tech run-through – it’s very scary, but all the NYMF shows save for one have to go through the ordeal, so we’re all in the same boat. Speaking of the same boat, yesterday was an interesting day. For example, I woke up. That was interesting. I then toddled off to rehearsal. The minute I walked into our new rehearsal room I knew there was trouble. The piano, which was fine the day before, was suddenly not fine. The entire pedal mechanism broke, and I mean literally broke into pieces, which caused half the keys to either stick or not work at all. After a half-hour of being promised a new piano and not getting one, and of becoming completely cognizant that the floor in the room was going to be way too dangerous to tap on, we had a pow-wow, the result of which is we called the rehearsal and reconvened at Nola, our first rehearsal place. Our tough general manager then did her thing and got us a bigger room with a nice black floor and a working piano, one floor below the bad room. Additionally, because we have to be in the bad room one more time, today, she got them to put down what they call a Marley floor, which is a black something or other that you can tap on, and to get a good piano in there. After that, with the exception of this Saturday (when we’re back at Nola), we’ll be in the nice, larger room and all should be well. We began the day’s rehearsal by putting Rob Evan in all the group numbers – the poor guy is, I’m sure, overloaded with so much information, but he’s doing an amazing job and is a thorough pro and extremely good-natured. After that, I blocked him into the two big scenes we hadn’t done the day before. Then we broke for lunch.
After lunch, we started at the top of the show and began running everything in show order. As we got to the end of each scene, we set the scene change movement and assigned the set moves. We actually weren’t supposed to start doing that until Friday, so we’re slightly ahead of the game. It was slow going, but we managed to just about get through all of act one. It’s like playing connect the dots, with all the disparate pieces finally coming together to form a picture. It was really helpful for the cast to begin seeing how the show flows. We’re not working on performances at all right now, just getting through the scenes and blocking. Once we finish doing this, then we’ll go back and begin doing detail work in the scenes, although, that said, the actors are all doing wonderfully, and every day they find new and fun things. At this point, I really have no idea whether New York audiences will take to the show or not, but I’m hoping they’ll find something to enjoy.
After rehearsal, I came home, answered some e-mails and then decided to sup with dear reader elmore. He asked me to come to his neck of the woods, and so I did the forty block walk and we dined at some place called A Good Place To Eat or something like that. We both had the mac and cheese, which was really faux mac and cheese, what with it really being ziti and cheese. It was quite tasty, and we also shared an order of their homemade corn bread and honey. As if that weren’t enough, we shared some coconut cake for dessert – it was very sweet and very rich and very good, but between the two of us we only ate half of it. I then did the forty block walk home with a little break to visit the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble to check out their DVD selection. By the time I got home, I was ready to collapse. It was very hot today and was very hot in the evening, too. My feet were killing me (no mean feat or feet), and I was really tired, so I sat on my chair like so much fish and listened to the rhythm of a gentle Bossa Nova.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it’s a very hectic and busy day and I simply must get my beauty sleep because frankly dogs are starting to shy away from me in the street. And don’t I need a title for today’s notes? Thus far nothing is leaping out at me. I hate when nothing leaps out at me – nothing scares me out of my wits which, given today’s notes, aren’t all that much in evidence.
Today, we’ll be picking up where we left off – finishing the first act connect the dots and beginning the second act connect the dots. At eleven-thirty, our choreographer takes over to run his big tap number, whilst Rob Evan, Amy Bodnar, Barry Pearl and I tape a podcast called Broadway Bullet – happily, the place we tape it is literally one floor down from where we are. The show runs an hour, and then we’ll be on a lunch break for an hour, and then we’ll finish our connect the dots by the end of the day, and we’ll be all ready for the arrival (finally!) of Miss Alet Taylor, who will, believe me, have her work cut out for her tomorrow.
After rehearsal, I have to hie myself to the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble to see Milla Ilieva, and the directly after that I have to hie myself to Chelsea and some nightclub, The Metropolitan Room, to see the opening night of Miss Penny Fuller with my pal Mr. Alex Rybeck. We’ll sup after her show, so I’ll be getting home a bit later than I’d like, but I’m sure it will be a terrific evening.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse, tape a podcast, see Milla Ilieva, see Penny Fuller, sup and even do a bit of whatnot. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you dear readers get to ask me or any dear reader any old question and we get to give any old answer. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, whilst I wrack my brain or, at the very least, rack my brain trying to figure out a title for today’s notes. Wait – by George I’ve got it: A Title For Today’s Notes. Brilliant.