Well, dear readers, it’s show time. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it’s show time. Or, in other words, it’s time for the show. Tonight, Two’s Company plays its one-night-only engagement at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. We began working on the idea for this show back in late March. It’s been quite the journey, and not an easy one. Back then, we had high hopes that many of our alums would be helping out with the show. That was not to happen. What was to happen is that the bulk of the work fell to just four people, one of whom is a full-time teacher, one of whom is a full-time student, and two of whom got waylaid for seven weeks in New York doing The Brain From Planet X. The fact that we have it pretty much together is amazing. I’ve had to be a tough taskmaster for the last four weeks, and I can certainly say I’ve not been the nicest person to work with at times, but one does what one has to do to get the job done. All four of us have done incredible amounts of work and we’re just praying it all pays off this evening with a smooth and wonderful show. Certainly I could not have asked for more wonderful performers – what an fantastic group we have. Losing performers along the way (including one on Saturday) is terribly frustrating, but because of the generosity of my performer friends it’s all come out just fine. Our team may have been small, but they have been mighty, and done the work of thirty. The fact that no one stepped up to the plate to help us is an issue that I will deal with after all this is done, and, yes, Virginia, I will deal with it. I think we’re going to have at least seven hundred people in attendance, which is a bit disappointing, but I’m told that could change with last-minute ticket buyers tomorrow. I’m keeping all digits crossed. Speaking of all digits crossed, yesterday was a very nice day. I’m so happy I worked so hard the few days prior and got all my work done – that was the smartest thing for me to do, as it enabled me to not have to be too stressed yesterday. I got up, changed all the clocks, answered e-mails, and did an errand or three. I did some last-minute cleanup work on the lighting script, and then I toddled off to the band rehearsal. We had our full six-piece group and it was really wonderful to hear some of these charts with the full group. And again, it was just one great performer after another – Michelle Nicastro, Juliana Hansen, Linda Purl, Alice Ripley, Zane Huett and our wonderful ensemble, David Burnham. It all went very smoothly. After the rehearsal, I stopped at Gelson’s and got some toy food for dinner, then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish and ate it.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Cockleshell Heroes, a nice little 1950s war film starring and directed by Jose Ferrer. It’s about a rag-tag group of Royal Marine volunteers in WWII, and Mr. Ferrer’s bold plan for infiltrating French waters and planting English bombs on German ships. He clashes with officer Trevor Howard, who is, as always, superb in a very well-written role of a by-the-book Royal Marine. A young Anthony Newley plays one of the volunteers, and the rest of the cast is excellent. Mr. Ferrer’s direction is competent, and the Cinemascope photography is quite good. It’s amazing that Columbia (region 2) can produce a transfer from a 1956 film with absolutely perfect color, but Warners consistently gets the color wrong for most of its 60s films and a few of its 70s films. The source material isn’t in pristine condition, but I’ll take perfect color any day of the week.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I need to get as much beauty sleep as I can get so that I am filled with energy and focus for the very long day ahead.
Today, I must be at the Alex at nine. Once there, I will oversee the setup of the stage and its orchestra risers, so that if I want to move anything around that will be the time to do any adjustments. I suspect that one of the big risers will have to be even a little deeper than we’ve got it, but I won’t know until I see it. Additionally, the projector will be hung and focused, and then Cason will be operating the computer and PowerPoint and getting used to running the show’s projections. I will then sit with the lighting person and my lighting script. We’ll come up with various looks and color washes for the cyc, and then we’ll probably spend two hours writing the cues for the show. I’ve tried to keep it simple, and only have interior cues on a handful of songs. The most cues are taking the cyc lights out at the end of every song so that the projections can be seen clearly – but it’s all called out in my lighting script and should work fine. Our stage manager Xeroxed my lighting script and incorporated it into his script so he can call the cues. He’s been on his own dealing with what mics are for which people – that can get very complicated. I think we’re only using lavs for the opening number and a couple of others, so that simplifies things a little. At one we begin sound checks with the performers, and that continues throughout the day. Each performer will run his/her entrance and exit, and go through their song with Richard on the piano. The band arrives at three-thirty and has an hour for their sound check. We finish all that by five, and hopefully within that time we’ll have run cue-to-cues of all the light cues. We have an hour dinner break, and then we open the forecourt and people can show up and check out the silent auction items. We have quite a few helpers for the auction, as a run crew, and others to just do whatever is needed. It’s really flying by the seat of your pants and it’s scary and exhilarating – fortunately, all these wonderful performers have done a whole slew of benefits, so they know the routine.
Tomorrow, I do nothing, and I’ll probably take the rest of the week off as well. Oh, I’ll have checks to write and a few things to deal with, but the days will be mine all mine and it will really be the first time this year that I don’t have anything to think about.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, attend to every single show detail including lights, sound, projections, performers, entrances, exits, some blocking stuff, and then I must attend Two’s Company. It will be nice to see Stephen and Alan and lots of other people in attendance. Today’s topic of discussion: I sometimes forget just how much I love soup. In days of old, soup was a popular first course, but salad is usually the first course of choice these days. I’ve sometimes gone a whole year without having soup, and then I’ll have some and remember how fond I am of various and sundried soups. So, what is your all-time favorite soup, where did you have the best example of it, and what are your other favorites. More importantly, share soup recipes, because I have no idea how to make soup from scratch, although I do know how to make scratch from soup. For the record, I love most cream-based soups, most especially fresh cream of mushroom soup. I love tomato bisque, I like good chicken sould, don’t much like minestrone, but love cream of asparagus soup. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and do send us lots of excellent vibes and xylophones for a successful performance of Two’s Company.