Well, dear readers, I have just returned from the theater and it is quite late because the show was quite long and I also won an item at the silent auction and I also went backstage to visit with friends. The theater was the Alex, the show was Irma La Douce, the won item was three large boxes of Jane’s Karmels, the most yummilicous caramels in the history of Earth, homemade by the lovely Jane Lanier, and the friends in question were Mr. Barry Pearl, Mr. John Massey (who was in our staged reading of the long musical), and several others. Also backstage was Irma’s original star, Clive Revill, and in the show itself was another original veteran of Irma, Rudy Tronto. I’m very fond of Irma, especially it’s wonderfully tuneful score. But it’s not the easiest show to do, tone-wise, especially not in 29 hours or whatever they have to put these things together. I’d actually only seen the show once before, in a production here in LA at the Music Center in the late 1970s, starring Priscilla Lopez as Irma and Larry Kert as Nestor. Certainly in that production they did not get the tone right. But I’ve heard nothing but raves for the original Peter Brook staging and for that production’s leading players, so I’m sure it was something special. In any case, the cast gave it their all and it was nice to see it again.
Prior to the show I had a somewhat busy day. I did get a wonderful night’s sleep of almost nine hours, and boy did I need it. Then I got up, the CDs arrived and I packaged them up. Then the helper arrived and we got all the big orders done, save for the three or four foreign orders. We got them to the post office and the UPS Store, then had a spot of lunch. Then I had a lot of e-mails to answer, and a surprising number of preorders for the new book. I was happy to see the new book up on amazon.com, although it hasn’t hit the other book sites yet. We had to put a little hold on the project we were going to announce yesterday, and I’ve rushed another into production. I’m hoping for a happy resolution to the hiccup we had, but don’t want to miss an announcement this week. We had another project ready to go, so that was good. I also had to place the book order today and we should have them here to ship by the first week of May. Also, I put into production our little surprise gift that comes with copies purchased via Kritzerland.
I then toddled off to the Dale of Glen, got a great parking space, and went to visit my friends at Mystery and Imagination Books, only to find they’re now closed on Mondays. So, I went across the street to Brand Books. One never really finds any interesting books there, but they occasionally get interesting LPs in – and I picked up a German cast recording of Annie Get Your Gun for a couple of bucks. Then I toddled over to the Alex Theater, hung out with a bunch of folks I know, and chatted up the likes of Eileen Barnett (and her ever-lovin’ Bruce French), Kim Huber, Michelle Duffy, Kenny Morse, Adryan Russ, Michael Lavine, Rick Starr, Doug Haverty, Terri Bibb, Reece Holland, Marsha Kramer, Carol Kline, John Bowab, and scads of others.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because one does have to get these here notes posted so that Mr. Sandman can bring me a dream.
Today, I shall ship out the rest of the orders, then do a bunch of errands and whatnot, pick up packages and mail, and then relax and watch a motion picture or three.
Tomorrow I have a morning meeting in the morning, then I have to prepare the questions for the Jason Graae event on Saturday. I hope all our West Coast denizens can attend, because Jason is quite amusing and he’ll even be singing a song or two. For complete details just visit the LACCTAA page on Facebook (and become a friend of LACCTAA while you’re at it).
The rest of the week should be fairly light, but I do have to try and get this other release announced by Friday, so there’ll be liner notes to write and packaging to prepare.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, ship packages, get a couple of tapes transferred, pick up packages and mail, do errands and whatnot, eat something amusing, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: As I said, I adore the score for Irma La Douce, especially the music by Margurite Monnot. So, what are your favorite French songs and singers? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst Mr. Sandman brings me a dream.