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November 16, 2008:

SLEEPING BEAUTY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, in exactly one week I will be winging my way to New York, New York to put together all the disparate pieces of Bacharach To The Future, the BC/EFA benefit I’m directing. I’m very much looking forward to the trip and the show and will be even happier when I’m told exactly where I’ll be staying, which I obviously hope to find out by mid-week this week, so I can send ahead some clothing (I like to pack light). I think we’re one person shy of having our full cast, and I think only two numbers are still undecided – we’ll be deciding on them by Wednesday. Speaking of Wednesday, yesterday was Saturday, and it was another odd little day, although nothing terrible happened, so that’s always a plus. I got up early, did the long jog early, and am happy to say that my feet are finally getting used to the new shoes. I then did some errands and whatnot, picked up a couple of packages, and then came back home. I had a few e-mails to answer, and then I went out and ate some lunch at Islands – I had the Big Wave hamburger with bacon and cheese and a small amount of french fries, all quite yummilicious. I came back home again and by about four o’clock it became apparent that the telephonic call I thought was coming wasn’t going to be coming. So, perhaps that means it will be happening today, so please send excellent vibes and xylophones for a non-annoying telephonic call or, even better, no telephonic call at all. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.

Yesterday, I watched another excellent episode of Route 66, this one guest-starring Miss Elizabeth Seal and Mr. Akim Tamiroff, directed by Arthur Hiller, and all shot at CBS Television City, both exteriors and interiors. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Miss Seal in the flesh (I’ve heard her on the cast album of Irma La Douce) and I thought she was really excellent in the show. She plays a former Broadway dancer who gave up her career to take care of her alcoholic actor husband who, at the beginning of the show, is being laid to rest after killing himself with booze. Martin Milner and George Maharis are working in the scene shop at CBS – Milner’s character had a crush on Seal from her Broadway days. He and Maharis convince her to audition for a dance spot in the chorus for a TV show. She does. It was really a fun episode and featured a very young Elaine Joyce as one of the dancers. There were some eerie parallels to A Chorus Line, the London production of which Seal, cast as Cassie, was let go from. I noticed that on the final disc of this set that all the episodes are set in and around Los Angeles, including one episode shot at Pacific Ocean Park. I’ve got one episode left on the current disc and then I’m skipping directly to the LA episodes. I did check out a couple of other episodes – one of them guest-starred impossibly young James Caan and Martin Sheen. I’d never seen Mr. Sheen’s real teeth before (at some point in the mid-1960s he had them all capped), and it’s easy to see that he would never have had a career had he not capped his teeth – he had perhaps some of the ugliest teeth I’ve ever seen, and they completely made him look like a goofball – his hairdo didn’t help, either.

I then went to LACC to see their production of Rabbit Hole. I’d heard a lot about the play, and, in fact, it ran concurrently with The Brain From Planet X at the Chance Theater. I didn’t get to see it there. And I know that the Roundabout production directed by Dan Sullivan and starring Cynthia Nixon and Tyne Daly had gotten great notices. It was nice to see an old-fashioned play, very 1950s in feel, and while I don’t think it’s a great play, I did enjoy myself and it certainly held my interest. This production was very well directed by Leslie Ferreira, and the small cast did a splendid job. The set was terrific, as was the lighting, and the costumes did their job just fine. The play has lovely things in it – it’s both funny and touching, and, of course, the playwright, David Lindsay Abaire, is very hot at the moment, in both film and theater. Best of all, there was a nice-sized crowd in the theater.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it’s late and I’m tired and I must get my beauty sleep, during which I shall be sleeping beauty.

Today, I have to do the long jog, make a trip to storage to get a chart for Linda Purl, who’ll be recreating her wonderful performance of A House Is Not A Home that she did on my Broadway sings Bacharach CD in the Bacharach benefit, then I’ll be back home and not doing much of anything else other than relaxing, because the upcoming week is going to be really busy – I especially have a lot of little meetings and meals, plus getting ready for the trip. And if the telephonic call happens today, hopefully your excellent vibes and xylophones will make it a non-annoying phone call.

As noted, I’ll be having lunch with the head of the LACC Foundation on Tuesday, a breakfast meeting with Miss Leslie Ackerman, although I can’t remember which day that is – I think it’s Thursday, plus a work session with two LA performers who are being flown in to do the Bacharach show. That happens on Wednesday. I have to take clothes to the dry cleaners, ship clothes ahead for the trip, be told where I’m staying, and I know I have some sort of meeting with someone on Friday, and perhaps a work session with Alet Taylor, although I may push that until my return on December 3.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, go to storage to get a chart, and then relax, find something amusing to eat, and watch DVDs all the livelong day and evening. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics, and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I go do my superb impression of Sleeping Beauty.

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