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April 4, 2010:

FIVE CLICKS FASTER

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, my recurring line yesterday was “Five clicks faster” regarding almost every song in the long musical. Every time we’d finish a number I’d look at our musical director and/or composer and say “Five clicks faster.” Once we hit those correct tempos everything was much livelier and peppier. The show is coming together slowly, but surely. Actually, there is no slowly – we haven’t had time for slowly, we’ve only had time for “Five clicks faster.” Yesterday, we continued assembling the show with act two. It didn’t go quite as smoothly as act one, but we got through it and then I blocked the final scene and curtain call, as well as putting our very own Mr. Nick Redman’s darling daughter Rebecca into the show. I then went back and drilled the three huge numbers of the show – we did each four times and they got better and better and really are fun now. We then ran one of the big scenes and a group number that’s got a lot of stuff going on. And I finally got to put on my real director’s hat and was able to get specific with some of our actors. Prior to running that scene, I’d had several private conversations with several of our leading players, because they’ve been receiving “tips” or actual direction from other quarters, even though I was promised that wasn’t happening. But when I heard from several actors that it was (they were concerned and wanted to clear what they’d been told with me), I put my foot down (no mean feet) and said this was not to happen again, ever. I was again promised it would stop. So, I had to undo some stuff that was, in fact, hurting the performances, because what was told to these actors was not helpful and actually caused problems. I was able to fix it fairly quickly because by this time I know what makes these characters tick and I know actors and what they need. And the difference, with just a few small words, was apparently immediately, because they were freed to do what they need to do. We really do have a good group – very focused, really talented, good looking, and energetic. For me, the really interesting part is that directing someone else’s material is so much easier for me for all the obvious reasons. I really have fun, and I’m right there with the actors about making things work well and playing to their strengths. One brief example of what good actors can help you understand: There’s a scene late in act two between our leading lady and her father. This father character has been a thorn in my side from the get-go, because he was written very stern and one-note. I got most of that fixed, but in this scene, which was basically a scene that should be touching, the father still had two lines that were very stern and judgmental. And the actress then delivered her final line very defiantly, which was not what I wanted at all. I wanted feeling and emotion. As I was explaining this to her and looking at the lines I realized it wasn’t her at all – she was absolutely correct in playing it the way she did. I then cut the two stern lines and suddenly the scene played like a dream and the actors found all the right beats. And that’s the thing I look for when an actor goes off in a direction that, for me, is weird – I look for the “why” of it and usually it’s something that’s not ringing true in the text. I really love this process, and when and if we ever actually mount a real production, I think we’ll get some great stuff fixed.

We did cut a song and its reprise, and it’s now very clear that another song doesn’t work at all. I’ve said this for months, and, in fact, we’d changed it for the better, but the changed song was very specific and followed a specific scene so that it commented on that. When things got shifted the song moved to a later slot and made no sense. So they went back to the original song, which for me made less sense since it doesn’t comment on anything. After this reading, that song will go and we’ll rethink where it comes and what it needs to do. Most of the songs are working really well, there’s a lot of good dialogue and scenes – still work to do, but isn’t there always? There won’t be any more revisions after today’s run-through, until the next phase of the development.

After rehearsal, a bunch of us went to Cantor’s deli, a place I really don’t care for. But surprisingly, I had a very good pastrami sandwich. It was fun hanging out, and our leading lady brought her friend Jen Cody, who was the young gal who was going to choreograph our Meltz and Ernest film way back when. She’s a ball of fun, and she recently had great success doing one of the leading voices in The Princess and the Frog. I then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched the PBS presentation of the Jerome Robbins’ ballet, New York Export: Opus Jazz, with music by Robert Prince. This is a fantastic piece that was born out of West Side Story’s style. Robbins really was a genius and his choreography is brilliant. What was unfortunately not brilliant was the “conception” of the piece by really young and not very talented filmmakers, who really hurt the piece with all their artsy direction and BS. Just like everything today, no one just trusts the material – they have to put their big, ugly footprints all over it. They consistently cut to close-ups of feet, which is the desperate act of filmmakers who don’t have a clew how to film dance. There are endless overhead shots. There are segues between the dance sequences that are completely pointless. They shoot the dancers from BEHIND, thereby completely screwing up Robbins’ brilliant staging and pictures. It was, in fact, maddening. But when they’d just shoot head on or cut between angles that actually made sense, then it was glorious. And the clips from the original as broadcast on the Ed Sullivan Show, showed exactly how it should have been filmed.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m going to post these here notes early and get my beauty sleep.

I also listened to my new sequence for the new Kritzerland release and it really works much better and that is now approved.

Today, I actually have the whole day to relax and do nothing, as our rehearsal is from seven to ten or ten-thirty. This is one of our two run-throughs – no matter how rough we will plow straight through without stopping, then we’ll use whatever remaining time we have to cleanup that which needs cleaning up.

Tomorrow we have a run at two, then a break and then our first show. I think if our four big numbers are nice and sharp, that everything else will squeak by and be fine, as long as everyone picks up their cues, makes their entrances on time, and our underscore is in place for segues. There’s no way for actors to give a finished performance, nor would we want them to, but they’re all doing wonderfully.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, relax, watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray, and then attend a rehearsal and run-through. 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 posts, shall we, and do make them five clicks faster.

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