Well, dear readers, it’s show time once again for Kritzerland at the Gardenia, tonight’s show being The Stephen Sondheim Albums. I’m told we’ll have a nice crowd, although I’m sure some people will not show and some who don’t have reservations will. The more, the merrier. Our rehearsal was quite fun yesterday. Poor Damon and Alet both have really wordy songs. Damon’s opening number of Make The Most Of Your Music is such a tongue twister and if you get off on the wrong foot you’re in trouble, which is what happened at the rehearsal. He got through it and then afterwards we ran it several more times and he was fine. Alet has two – Another Hundred People and More, the latter another hard tongue twister. Everyone sounds incredible, though – Alet also does a put-together of You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow and Not A Day Goes By. I have never been satisfied with any recording or performance of the latter song – no one seems to get the gut-wrenching emotion of it, try as they may. But Alet nails it like I’ve never heard it nailed – it made me tear up, actually. Juliana is delightful in her duet with Zach, A Moment With You, and in her two solos, The Glamorous Life (movie version) and Dawn. Zach’s two solos are great – What Can You Lose and Giants In The Sky. Kim Huber is so beautiful and she just is perfection doing Anyone Can Whistle, Truly Content, and Children Will Listen. Damon’s other solos are wonderful – a put-together of With So Little To Be Sure Of and Who Could Be Blue and Multitudes of Amys. And Millicent Martin is simply divoon doing I Never Do Anything Twice – she was the very first person to ever perform the song in its entirety in Side By Side By Sondheim – in the film The Seven Percent Solution, you only hear a few seconds of it. The Nightmare Trio (Shannon Cudd, Holly Long, and Aleah Whaley) really came together and it was very funny – I just gave them a note that there shouldn’t be any attempt at “acting” – just a glazed expression with smiles makes it very Maguire Sisters nightmarish. The pace seemed really good – the show will probably be about five to ten minutes longer than previous shows when the commentary is added, but I’ll talk fast and get through it. There are really only two longer anecdotes I tell – most of the intros are short and sweet and also sweet and short. I had to adjust a few tempos, and I have to say that John Boswell is just a fantastic musical director.
Prior to rehearsal, I’d futzed and fixed the ten or eleven pages I wrote yesterday, and then I began writing new pages. I did six, then did a couple of errands and whatnot and did a really quick assembly map for our next release and arranged for a lot of tapes to be ready for me this morning – those tapes will hopefully provide at least four more releases – if they do, I think we have enough to get us through September. I had a quick eggs and bacon at three, then came home and wrote four more pages. Then we had rehearsal, after which I moseyed on over to The Daily Grill in Hollywood to sup with my friend from New Jersey who’s really not from New Jersey but Connecticut. Don’t know how I got that wrong. We had a lovelier than lovely dinner – she had the skirt steak and I had the pants chopped salad and some popcorn shrimp, a pretty light meal. After that, I came home and wrote another page, for a total of a little over eleven. I then finessed the contextual commentary for tonight’s show. All in all, a pretty wonderful day.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got a very long day tomorrow and many things to accomplish.
Today, I hope to be up by nine. I’ll do some futzing and fixing on what I wrote yesterday, and then try to write at least three pages before I toddle off to both return and pick up tapes in Burbank. Then I’ll come right home and try to write another three pages, at which point I’ll Xerox all the pages I’ve written in the last week and get them to Muse Margaret. If things get to hectic, however, I’ll simply continue writing and do the Xeroxing tomorrow morning and get it to her then. In fact, that’s probably the best idea. Then I’ll mosey on over to the Gardenia at two for our sound check, after which I’ll come directly home and write some more, then get ready for the show. I’ll get to the club at around seven. I will, of course, have a full report.
Tomorrow, I’ll Xerox and get pages to Muse Margaret, then continue writing. I think I’ll be dining in the evening. Friday is the same kind of day, although I may take time out to go to the tape transfer place to listen to some of the tapes I’m pulling. If not, I’ll do that first thing Monday. And I’ve got to match the Sherman Brothers’ songs to the singers. We’re now fully cast except for one male – we have Alet, Juliana, and the great Kelly Sullivan, and David Burnham. I hope to settle on our other male in the next day or so. I’m still without a musical director but hope to have that rectified by the end of today or tomorrow at the latest. We’ll have to really whip this one together.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, futz and fix and write new pages, I must pick up and return tapes, I must do a sound check, I must write, I must hopefully pick up a package or three, I must dine and I must do a show. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to 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 hit the road to dreamland and get ready for the fifth Kritzerland at the Gardenia.