Well, dear readers, so it begins – another week of rehearsals and some potentially exciting things. I always enjoy some potentially exciting things especially when they actually turn into exciting things, don’t you? One cannot possibly have enough exciting things, can one? I remember exciting things and I can say unequivocally that one cannot possibly have enough exciting things. The only question is when, and I’m hoping when will be this very day and before I leave for the Heim of Ana to rehearse. So, check in on our discussion board throughout the day, won’t you, because you’ll hear it here first. If not today, then tomorrow for sure there will be an exciting thing. And here is one little clew as to what the exciting thing is: Amarcord. I can say no more about the exciting thing, oh, yes, I can say no more until later today. Speaking of an exciting thing, yesterday was our second day of learning choreography. Once again, we had a very early start and we worked straight through till four, with just a quick thirty-minute lunch break. And once again, the cast absorbed a huge amount of information that came flying at them – all in all, today we did six numbers. There are some new bits of staging because we have some fun stuff set-wise that we can play with in this production. In any case, it was a fun day. It didn’t exactly start out fun, since this here website was down at least five hours in the early morning, due to “emergency maintenance.” After rehearsal, I came back home, where I relaxed for a little while until it was time to be on my way to sup with the always-delightful Julieanne Pogue.
Last night, I supped with the always-delightful Julieanne Pogue, along with a couple of her friends. We dined at our very own Genghis Cohen and the food was, as always, superb, as was the conversation. We had an eclectic array of dishes, all ordered by my very own self – orange chicken, green beans, crackerjack shrimp, garlic chicken, Jade scallops, barbecue pork and cold sesame noodles. All I can tell you is, there wasn’t much left when we were through. I’m hoping Mr. and Mrs. Pogue will be able to come see The Brain From Planet X this time around, but we shall see what we shall see. After dinner, I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I also watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Black Widow, starring Mr. Van Heflin, Miss Ginger Rogers, Mr. Reginald Denny, Mr. George Raft, and Miss Peggy Ann Garner. I’d never seen it before, and I quite enjoyed it. Again, this is part of the Fox noir series, but I don’t really think this film can really be called a noir. It’s well-written and competently directed by Nunnally Johnson, with a good score by Leigh Harline (there is an isolated score track) and the transfer is beautiful, with excellent detail and color. Mr. Heflin is, as always, excellent, Miss Rogers is over the top, but fine, Mr. Denny is a very underrated actor, Mr. Raft is Mr. Raft, and Miss Garner is the best thing in the film.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because today is going to be a very busy day with, I’m hoping, a lovely bit of exciting news.
Other than hopefully revealing the exciting news here and elsewhere, I do have a few errands to do before leaving for the third and final session with our choreographer. This evening we will review everything, plus he’s going to clean up one number that I did the staging for, just to get it really sharp for our new actress playing the daughter.
Tomorrow, I’ll be having a breakfast with our very own Miss Alet Taylor, and then it’s back to run-throughs. We have a designer run-through on Thursday, and I’d like that to be as smooth as possible so they can get a real sense of the show. I did see a preview of some of Yoni’s costumes and they’re great – I decided that we should go much further with her wardrobe in this production. In the other two productions, the character basically had two outfits – her alien outfit, and a leopard pantsuit. She’ll have at least five or six different outfits in this production.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands, hopefully make an exciting announcement here and elsewhere, and then have a meal and attend a rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: The other day I mentioned a game we’ve been playing in the car to pass the time, and I’ve had several people ask if we can play it here, and so today’s topic will be the game. Everyone will be on the honor system not to use anything but their own noggins and not partake of books or Internet to help them get answers. So, the game we’ve been playing is Initials. We are given two initials and our job is to come up with names for those initials, said names being known people in the worlds of entertainment, sports, news, or politics. So, we’ll start with a double initial – MM. I’ll do the first one, then everyone can jump in, one name per post only. And you can only continue with a new name when someone has posted a name after yours. That way we’ll avoid one person just posting one name after another. So, my MM is Mahlon Merrick, Jack Benny’s long-time musical director and conductor. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and please send excellent vibes and xylophones for an exciting news release this very day.