Well, dear readers, I forgot one really good Stages story in yesterday’s notes, so here it is. When we were doing the show at City College, then-student Linden Waddell was doing her big number at the top of act two, The Girl That Men Go Mad For. Even though she was a student, she was really hitting it out of the park and would travel with the show when it went to the Matrix. One night, she was singing. We were in a black box theater, but I’d had them build a proscenium with a raised stage. Her number was blocked very close to the lip of the stage – the floor was black and the show played in black limbo and set pieces were brought on and off – for her number she was just in a black void with a spotlight. Somehow, she got too close to the end of the stage and during the bridge she stepped forward and fell off the stage and onto the floor. It wasn’t a long way, but she was up on her feet in a second and she NEVER stopped singing or missed a beat. It was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. To this day, every time I see her we talk about it.
After Stages I didn’t write for a while. My next script was, in fact, The Creature Wasn’t Nice, which I wrote mostly at the end of 1979 into 1980. I wrote it in Cindy Williams’ office on what was then the Zoetrope Studio lot in Hollywood. It was a nice office and I was there alone. It was a pleasurable place to be. They were shooting One From The Heart and I used to walk around and look at those amazing sets. I’d see Nastassia Kinski, Teri Garr, Fred Forrest, and also Michael Powell and Gene Kelly were hanging around. There was a real energy around that place – unfortunately, Zoetrope would fail and be off that lot a few years later. I’ve talked about The Creature Wasn’t Nice before – and we’ll be talking about it a lot more whenever I get around to doing the Special Edition DVD. But that was a fantastic shoot – working with Leslie Nielsen, Gerritt Graham, Patrick MacNee and Cindy was like eating cotton candy every day. It was the most positive set I’ve ever been on. Because it was just the five of us, we had our own chef doing lunches, and the food was incredible.
When I knew the film was done for and that the producers were completely recutting it rather than get depressed about it, I went to LACC and told them I wanted to do another original musical. Happily, they said yes. And as with Stages, we booked the date and then I actually had to come up with the show. And the show I came up with was Together Again, about a comedy troupe ala The Groundlings, who’d split up a year before the story begins and who all had struck out on their own – and so they’ve gotten back together and are putting together a new show. The two founders of the group had also broken up their relationship at the same time the group broke up – so, there’s lots of tension and will they or won’t they, plus I got to write sketch comedy for the show within a show scenes. Act One was the creation of the show and watching how all the personal relationships worked, and Act Two was the show itself – backstage and onstage. We put together a really strong company of pros and students. I played the lead and a gal named Udana Power played opposite me – she’d been in the musical of Gone With The Wind at the Music Center with Lesley Anne Warren. My friend Alan Abelew was in it, comic actor Rick Waln, my friend Joan Ryan (then Joan Vigman), Jeff Maxwell (who played the cook in MASH), and a wonderful and beautiful comic actress named Debbie Tilton. I wrote lots of songs and was pretty happy with the script. Rehearsals were mostly fun, but I should never have directed and acted in the show. With Stages’ first production, I only directed, and only when the show moved did I step into it. I should have done the same thing here, but I’d written the part for myself. But I just couldn’t do both jobs well enough and both jobs suffered for it. Plus, I didn’t do the rewriting that I should have been doing. Miss Power, a very good actress and singer, was, for me, difficult to work with, as she was going through one of those cult things, I think with the Bogwan Rahjneez (I’m sure I spelled that wrong, but I’m too lazy to check), and she was into eating shoots and bushes and foul-smelling things – that’s fine, unless you’re doing kissing scenes and since this was a BK show, there were a lot of kissing scenes.
I did have to rewrite one of the sketches that wasn’t playing well, and the second attempt was better. I made a few cuts to the show and then we opened. The audience reaction was much better than I could have hoped for, with lots of laughs right from the top of the show, and all the show within a show numbers and sketches were lively and the audience ate them up – and that had more to do with the actors than with my writing. Some of the songs were good, some were weak. The set was fantastic. Again, we were in the black box theater and again we had them build a proscenium, and the set designer and the costume people just did great work. During the run, someone from a network saw the show and loved it. I didn’t find out about that for a few weeks, though. And someone I’d met, an actress named Penny Peyser, saw the show. I had her see it because I knew if it was going to move ala Stages, that I wanted to make some cast changes. A local LA producer saw the show and immediately asked if he could produce it in a waiver space. I said yes just as immediately. The run of the show was great and the audiences were wonderful. As I said, it surprised me how good the reaction was. I have a DVD of the show and certain scenes really are quite funny – the kind that get those I Love Lucy kind of screaming laughs from older people – my favorite kind of laughs. There’s one bit of business with a window that’s among the best things I’ve ever staged.
We did move the show soon thereafter to a tiny theater in Burbank on the Golden Mall (I don’t think they call it that anymore). LACC allowed us to take the set and the costumes, so that was very helpful, although it was a real squeeze getting the set in there. What we couldn’t get in there were audiences. No one came. We played to half-houses. This producer couldn’t even get a decent opening night crowd. It was very dispiriting. But boy did we have fun doing it. Penny replaced Udana, and my friend Marsha Kramer replaced Joan Ryan, otherwise the cast was the same. As with the characters we played, Penny and I became involved and that would go on for some four on-and-off years – a tumultuous relationship that should have ended lots sooner than it did because of the horrible place I was in, which I wrote about in a previous notes.
The end of this story is interesting. The lady from the network called. She’d loved the show and thought it was a great idea for a series – about a comedy troupe – backstage and onstage, and each week we could have guest stars or musical acts, and we could make it more like a TV thing, like Saturday Night Live. Sound familiar? 30 Rock anyone? She pitched it and it got quite far, but in the end, like everything else I touched in the 1980s, it went nowhere.
Next up for me was something that petrified me, but that I was absolutely determined to do – to write a play, not a musical. I had an idea, based on something that I’d been doing, and I began writing it. It wrote very quickly. I called it The Good One. I wanted to write a really funny comedy, the kind like I grew up seeing on local LA stages. I’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s notes.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m a little overtired and I must get my beauty sleep.
Yesterday. I’m quite certain there was a yesterday, but it’s already fading from the windmills of my mind. I got up early but not early enough to do the long jog. However, I was ready for a day off from the long jog. I went to get a haircut with our very own Teddy, plus a little highlighting to perk up my dreary hair. He actually gave me one of my all-time favorite haircuts – he was even more masterful than usual, and the blonde bits really did perk up the dull as dishwater hair. After that, I had to hurry to Langer’s to lunch with Mr. Barry Pearl and his agent David Moss. I’d never met David before, and I really thought he was a terrific guy, with some great stories. The pastrami sandwich wasn’t quite as yummilicious as it usually is, but it was still quite yummilicious. After lunch, I came home and did some things around the home environment. In fact, it was just one thing after another. I got a call from the airline telling me that my reservation hadn’t gone through. I called them and they told me my credit card had been declined. I told them that that wasn’t possible. I really hate the little attitude one gets when they state that the card was declined – like you’re some kind of low-life. I gave her another card, which went through fine. I then called the bank to see what was what. They told me that the card had, in fact, been approved the first time the airline had entered it – but apparently there was something wrong with whatever “network” the airline was using and it didn’t show as having gone through or something, so they made four other attempts (even though it had already been approved) – on the fourth attempt, the bank shut the card down for precautionary reasons, something that’s automatic when someone is trying multiple card entries. So, I spent twenty minutes on the phone while they asked me something like ten security-related questions, after which they removed the block. I called the airline back and gave them what for and told them it was completely their fault it hadn’t gone through. After that, I listened to the new master of Illya Darling – I was thrilled with most of it, but we’re still working on about three tracks that neither my mastering engineer nor I are happy with – we’re both perfectionists, so he will continue to work on those tracks. But now that we have it in show order with the two additional tracks that weren’t on the LP, it’s a whole different listening experience than the original LP and a much better one.
I also inquired about the rights to one of my biggest film soundtrack holy grails, and it’s available – now it will be a question of whether the tapes are there and what they have. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as it will be a dream come true to issue this soundtrack by one of my favorite composers ever. And since this gentleman has also written for the theater, I’m sure it will be of interest. Stay tuned.
Last night, I finished watching the new transfer of The Robe on DVD. I’ve never cared for the film much, but this new transfer looks so splendid that the film seemed more compelling for it. There’s a lot of ham on display, none more so than in Jay Robinson’s outrageous performance as Caligula. Richard Burton does a lot of hand wringing, Jean Simmons is beyond lovely, Michael Rennie is serious, Victor Mature is Victor Mature, and we even get Torin Thatcher in a nice role as Burton’s daddy. This was the first film released in the revolutionary new process called Cinemascope (YOU SEE IT WITHOUT GLASSES). Because it was new territory for everyone, the film plays more like a staged pageant rather than an actual work of cinema. I don’t think there’s one closeup in the film, and I think there are maybe two dolly shots in the whole thing. The musical score by Alfred Newman is brilliant and keeps the film humming along for its 133 minute running time. If you only have the original fairly wretched first DVD and you like the film, you’ll definitely want to upgrade.
Today, I don’t have a lot planned, and I’m jiggy with that. I will do the long jog with the new haircut, and then I have to deliver two boxes of CDs to a local dealer. Then I have a couple of errands and whatnot to do, then I must continue writing questions for Saturday’s LACCTAA event with David Lee. Then I’ll be going over to our very own Donald Feltham’s home environment to do a radio show about Anya. I haven’t done a radio show in ages, so it will be fun.
Tomorrow, the day isn’t that busy, but I’ll then have to trek out to Orange County for The Chancies, which are the Chance Theater Awards. Naturally, I’m not up (not when they can nominate their in-house folks), but our Yoni, Emily Clark, is up, as is our costume designer, Deb Millison. I have mixed feelings about attending, but I’m doing it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, drop off CDs, write questions, and do a radio show. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your all-time favorite TV variety shows? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I go admire my new do in the mirror mirror on the wall.