Well, dear readers, there will be no notes today. April Fool! And that’s the last April Fool joke you’ll hear out of me. I know that most of the chat boards will be rife with these things but they do become irritating after about the second one. So, of course there will be notes today because I would be a real April Fool to miss a day of notes after never having missed one since November of 2001. In any case, it’s a brand spanking new month, namely April. And I’m praying it will be a good one because we need a good April after the rollercoaster ride that was March. Oh, March wasn’t all weird – it had some nice moments, but also some not so nice moments. We want only nice moments for April, for everyone. Since I don’t think there’s anything wrong with occasionally being foolish, let us all be April Fools and have nothing but merriment and mirth and laughter and legs. Speaking of the latter, yesterday was the last day of March and it was a perfectly nice day. For example, I got up. That was perfectly nice. I then did a whole slew of errands including buying a much-needed new pair of sneakers, only my second pair of shoes purchased in the last seven years. I then did some work at the piano, then some work on the computer, then did a second batch of errands that needed doing. And then, somehow it was three-fifteen and time to be on my way to the Heim of Ana. The drive was mostly very good, with just some of the usual completely pointless slowing on the 210 around the 605. We went to Chili’s again, and I again had the three appetizer thing, although I did not finish all of it. Three of us split a very good Molten Chocolate Cake – I really only had around four bites. It was then time to head over to rehearsal.
Last night, we had a rehearsal, going through scenes, cleaning up blocking and doing detail work. Some good things were happening, and I’m just enjoying watching the actors bring stuff to the table and basically all I’m doing at this point is letting them experiment and trying to make certain bits have the sharpness they need to land properly. But it was good to run scenes several times and they do get better each time, and the actors get more comfortable doing the scenes sans script. We also ran several of the smaller musical numbers, and I blocked one little thing that hadn’t been blocked.
After that, I drove home and then sat on my couch like so much fish, listening to Mr. Elmer Bernstein’s marvelously marvelous scores to The Caretakers and The Young Doctors, recently released by Varese Sarabande as a limited edition CD. I really do love The Caretakers score, a rerecording of which was available on Ava Records (Fred Astaire’s label), and, for a short time, on a Mainstream CD. This is the complete soundtrack, in mono, and it’s quite different than the rerecording. I’d never heard the score to The Young Doctors before, and it’s Elmer in his classic early 60s mode and it’s very much of a piece with The Caretakers.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we all sing Bacharach and David’s title song to the motion picture, The April Fools.
Today, I have more errands to do and then I must also do more errands. I have work to do at the piano and on the computer, things to proof, nice e-mails to hope for, and then another rehearsal this evening.
We’ll be doing more scene and musical number work, basically just continuing from where we were last night. And it will be more of the same on Wednesday and Thursday. Then, on Friday night, I scored comps to go see my pal Judy Kaye in the John Doyle production of Sweeney Todd at the Ahmanson, which I’m very much looking forward to seeing. Then on Saturday, we begin the staging of the big numbers with our choreographer, Mr. Adam Cates. A very full week indeed.
I also had a nice telephonic message from Mr. Patrick Cassidy and we’ll hopefully be having lunch very soon, and I’ll also be seeing our very own Miss Alet Taylor later this week, which I’m really looking forward to. We’ll also be having a LACCTAA board meeting in the next week or so, something we haven’t done in quite a while.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands, write, do more errands, proof, and then attend a rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite Elmer Bernstein scores? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s all be April Fools all the livelong day and evening.