Well, dear readers, tonight begins what I hope will be a wonderful and successful journey for the stage version of The First Nudie Musical. While I wish the road to this staged reading had been a little less rocky (no way for anyone to have known the obstacles, but I’ve learned some valuable lessons and will never go down the wrong path again on a staged reading), we have a really terrific group of actors who have done a rather amazing job of assimilating and re-assimilating a huge amount of material – if not for them we really would have had to cancel the reading. Given that we’ve only had one actual run-through it’s hard to say how smooth things will run, but I’m hopeful we will be fine and that the material, as presented by our wonderful cast of players, will shine through. We began our rehearsal day doing a speed-through of act two. Everyone came in with good energy and we got through it quickly, fixing and adjusting a few things. We took a little break and then we began our one and only run-through. I asked for no stops no matter what happened, and we almost succeeded – I think we only paused briefly twice to clarify a couple of moves. There were the usual missed musical cues, some line flubs, all to be expected – but I have to say that about eighty percent of the show played beautifully and was really funny. It’s the first time the cast actually heard and saw the show, so there were a lot of laughs and the energy was definitely up from where it’s been. Best of all, the show runs exactly what I was hoping it would run – an hour and five minute first act, and a forty-seven minute second act. I’m sure that after our work-through on the stage today that the pacing will be sharper and then we’ll just hope for the best. I gave notes, got a little terse a couple of times, just to keep us going and working through things, but all in all I was properly astonished at how everyone pulled together. It’s actually very much like the movie – little time, and flying by the seat of our pants. I then cut the page-long scene that opened the second act – we put it in there to just re-establish the plot tension, but after seeing it, it just seemed like a stage wait and redundant – and that’s what I’ve been feeling about it for the last two months, and had already suggested to David that we take it out. Now act two opens with Perversion and it’s much stronger without the little scene, which only supplied old information we’ve heard several times. I must say that the little “fashion parade” I added to Perversion really works well. I also came up with an additional Dick Davis bit and our actor does it really well. Can you imagine what fun we could have with four or five weeks of rehearsals? Anyway, many thanks and much appreciation and kudos to our cast, to Cason, to Miss Adriana Patti, and Mr. John Randall, our musical director.
After rehearsal, I had some dinner (I was starving), then delivered a big box o’ CDs to a local dealer, then came home and finally sat on my couch like so much fish. Happily, I had time to relax and watch a motion picture on DVD entitled Dr. No. I’ve actually only seen Dr. No a couple of times, so it was fun to watch the beginning of the cinema James Bond. Even though it’s not a great movie, it’s abundantly clear why it caught the fancy of moviegoers – it was unique-looking, it had a career-making performance by Connery (who, from his first shot, is perfection), it had great sets by Ken Adam, and a colorful supporting cast. The one area in which it fails completely is the score, and I think had it had John Barry doing everything, the film would be much better. Mr. Barry was brought in to arrange the notes provided by Monty Norman, and those notes became the James Bond Theme, which is basically the only music in the film that works. The rest is clichéd and just not very good – only with the second film, From Russia, With Love would the Bond series get its signature sound. The Blu-Ray is something else again – incredibly wonderful-looking, colorful, and sharp. I really don’t understand how the first three Bonds can looks so fantastic and how the fourth Bond, Thunderball, can look so dreary, with brown color and nowhere near as sharp.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because tomorrow will be a long day and I must get some semblance of my beauty sleep.
Today, I shall get up as early as possible and do the long jog. After that, I’ll get ready to go to the theater, where everyone but the cast will convene at noon. We’ll get the keyboard set up and all the mics set up and get our sound levels. I’ll see what the lighting is like, and we’ll set our sixteen chairs on the stage. The cast comes at one, and our intention was originally to try and run the show – I may still do that, but if it looks like it will be a crunch to do so, then we’ll just work all the big sequences and all the transitions, which is probably the better way to go, so that we really drill those. Anyone who wants to stay after three and run music can do so, and then the cast call is seven and show time is seven-thirty. I will, of course, have a full report. And please, send your most excellent and strongest vibes and xylophones for a successful and fun and funny first performance – we’ll take ALL we can get.
We’re oversold for each night, but I was told that the theater can put in up to ten more seats so we should be fine.
Tomorrow, I’ll be announcing our new title for you dear readers, and then the official announcement will probably follow on Thursday or Friday. Wednesday is a total and complete day off for me – no work, nothing but zoning out and relaxing and catching up on e-mails and telephonic calls, but not too many.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, I must tech our show, I must either do a run-through or a scene to scene work-through, and then I must attend the first of our two performances. Today’s topic of discussion: I leave today’s topic to you – someone come up with something fun. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, and do send us all your excellent vibes and xylophones, for we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants. And in the immortal words of Nudie Musical – “Your stunt c**k is here.”