Well, dear readers, I am thoroughly exhausted, so I shall write these here notes in a hurry, then I shall scurry, for my eyes are blurry, but do not worry, after this brief flurry and some sleep, I shall return. I tell you, I am a rhyming fool. That’s cool. Speaking of cool, yesterday was an incredibly long day and night, resulting in the aforementioned exhaustion. I got up at six-thirty in the morning, did some stuff on the computer and was on the road jogging by eight. One thing I had to attend to pre-jog were the notes I’d received for our upcoming cast album release – as I knew they would be, they were much too long. I made some suggested cuts along the way, but when I got to the end I realized you could just cut the final page and a half and be close to what we needed. That, in fact, was what ultimately was done, plus a few other nips and tucks. Still, this one has to go to a twelve-page booklet, as we’re also including a lengthy synopsis of the show and photos. After returning from the jog, I had to quickly shave and shower and be on my way to our ten-thirty work session, to which others arrived at eleven. I then began the session with some more words of wisdom about collaboration. I said to everyone that I felt the biggest thing this team had learned from their year-long collaboration was how to push each other’s buttons. I then spoke some more on the nature of true musical theater collaboration, on “rules,” on librettos versus scripts, and on the necessity to create a true musical feel for the show. This time I was not interrupted, which was good. I then began by going over each of the songs we’d heard. I spoke first, being very specific about what I felt worked and didn’t work both musically and lyrically. Then the book writers offered their two cents. And so it went for the first three hours, because one of our authors talks – a LOT. I finally began riding herd over him because I saw we would never finish otherwise. We then began on the book and we went through every scene, with me giving my thoughts on content, structure, and clarity. And even though I was fought at first on a lot of issues, within fifteen minutes they were thinking about what I was saying – sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but finally finding some alternate solutions and ways of fixing things. And by the time we reached the end of act one, I felt I’d achieved everything I’d wanted to – I got them to agree to the way I saw the show open, and, more importantly, the use of runners, scene-setters, that help us know where we are and what we’re seeing – they’d created two really good devices that they just didn’t know the importance of – once I got them to see it, they really did jump all over it, which was great. As we went along, I’d say, gee these scenes are herky-jerky, too much back and forth, and out of that came consolidation and the creation of real musical theater sequences. The really fun thing to watch was how instead of bombastic pontificating, suddenly there was a palpable excitement in the room, with ideas flying back and forth, which enabled me to just sit back and enjoy watching their creative juices flowing. At four, I had to leave to meet my fellow LACCTAA board members at the House of Pies for our meeting, which went very well. After that, I hurried home and we had part two of our work session. I actually said I was good until nine only and that we really had to try and finish by then. So, I really barreled through the rest of my notes, and again, we came up with some really interesting solutions for problems, including one pretty grand idea that came to me on how to make a way too long scene interesting by placing something dance-wise happening in counterpoint. That was very exciting. We came up with a really interesting way to end the act, I got the act two opener I’ve been fighting for, and everything in the second act at least got smoothed out. I then said that we had to now do index cards where we can all look at thumbnail descriptions of each scene in the order they appear in the show – so we can ascertain if we’re missing any beats, or if we have too much of this and too little of that, and how the ballads stack up against the ups, and all that sort of thing. And we were indeed done by nine, at which point I toddled off to Gelson’s for some evening snacks. I then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I started watching a motion picture on DVD but was too tired to finish, so I’ll write about it when I’m done with it – the motion picture is entitled The Cat And The Canary and stars Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. It came from amazon.uk – I hadn’t ordered it, however. I’d ordered a region 2 DVD of Kurosawa’s Ran and instead they sent this Bob Hope comedy. How they confused the two I’ll never know. I wrote them, and they’ve already replied saying they’d be sending Ran via expedited shipping and telling me to keep The Cat And The Canary as a gift. That’s good customer service.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I need my beauty sleep, and I shall fall into bed in a heap, where you won’t hear a peep until morning, when the garbage truck will beep, and out of bed I’ll creep. I tell you, I am a rhyming fool.
Today, I shall do the long jog, and then I must type up a synopsis, and then I must write liner notes for the soundtrack release, and then I must address a lot of packages and get them stamped, for I’m told I’ll have our new release either today or tomorrow. Then in the evening, I’ll be seeing Mr. David Wechter, and we’ll address the notes he sent and try to get everything done so I can begin casting our March reading.
Tomorrow, I think I’m lunching with Brent Barrett, and I can’t remember if I’m seeing Kevin Spirtas directly after, but I think so. Then I’ll have the rest of the day free, but I’m seeing some comedy play at the Falcon Theater in the evening. Friday, I have a very early and very important meeting. I believe that’s all I have scheduled for that day, and boy will I enjoy having the rest of the day off. I think my weekend is pretty free at the moment and I’m damn well going to keep it that way.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, do some writing, and address a LOT of packages and get them stamped. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I rest my weary head in bed, yes that’s what I said. I tell you, I am a rhyming fool. And that’s cool.