Well, dear readers, what, are we in the dog days of November or something? Is that why we achieved not only a new all-time low but a HUGE new all-time low posting count yesterday? You don’t make me a happy BK when you are so errant and truant that we suddenly achieve a new HUGE all-time low. As Ingmar Bergman would say, Skammen. We couldn’t even get off page three – I do understand the board was not functioning for about an hour in the morning, but that is really no excuse for dear readers deserting the site en masse. That was a mess of a masse, if you ask me. Or, as Chester A. Riley would have put it, “What a revoltin’ development this is.” I can only hope it does not happen again for a very long time.
The wonderful and wacky weather people predicted a HUGE storm yesterday – that HUGE storm turned out to be about eight drops of rain spread out through the day. And they get paid to make these predictable predictions. Perhaps that is why we achieved a new all-time HUGE low because people were girding their respective loins for the HUGE storm. In any case, I had a very good night’s sleep, but it was so ugly and gray and cold out that I could not do the four-mile jog or any jog. I did some stuff on the computer and then I left for rehearsal. We had a fun rehearsal, and all numbers except for one and a half are now blocked. There are some really cute staging things, but now people have to get off their music before I can finesse and add stuff. So, I made the announcement that by Tuesday, the night when we’ll assemble the various parts of the show into a whole, everyone must be off book. The LACC gals continue to gain confidence. And dear reader and musical director Jose is doing a great job with them. He’s also getting used to some very poorly written and hard-to-read charts. I was originally doing one number in the show, just because the story about it is so personal – that, of course, is Evening Star. But Alet came to me and asked me to do A Wonderful Life with her – she just really wanted to do it with me, and as it turned out, I was able to give the guy who was doing it something else in its place – and so we’re doing that and I love singing with her. So far, my favorite little staging things are Mama’s Talkin’ Soft, which is absolutely adorable (Melody and Lucy, Alet’s daughter), Take It In Your Stride (just old-fashioned Jack Cole hand moves), The Dog and Cat Duet (from Collette Collage), Big Fat Heart (cut from Seesaw – we do it with three gals and it’s really kind of cool), and Man and Wife/Guess We May As Well Stay Married Now, which we do with one Male/Female couple, one Female/Female couple, and one Male/Male couple. And I’ve been very careful as I stage to always look at what comes before and after each thing I’m staging, so there should never be two numbers that take place in the same area in the same way. I’ve been really careful about it.
After rehearsal, I picked up two packages and no important envelope – hopefully the latter will be here on Monday. I then came home, answered e-mails, and then went and grabbed a sandwich and onion rings. After that, it was time to join Adryan Russ at the Colony Theatre for the opening night of Travels With My Aunt. I really enjoyed Graham Greene’s novel, and I really enjoyed the MGM film directed by George Cukor – with Cindy Williams having her first significant film role. This adaptation was first done in 1989, the conceit being that four male actors play all the roles, including Aunt Augusta. Much later, The 39 Steps would do something very similar but a lot more successfully. First off, at the Colony it’s three male actors and one female. Nothing wrong with that – what’s really wrong is that I just don’t want to see this story done in this way. It’s a hat trick that grows very old very quickly, at least it did for me. The actors were all fine, the staging was okay, but the conceit just didn’t work for me at all, and several people I talked to after agreed, so it wasn’t just me. I saw some folks I know, like our very own Kevin Symons, Eileen Barnett and her ever-lovin’ Bruce French, agent Martin Gage, who, for whatever reason, I see EVERYWHERE now. He’s a terrific sort and when I told him about my memoir he got so excited, so I’m sending him a copy. I said hey to publicist David Elzer, Colony artistic director Barbara Beckley, and I saw the gal who did the sound for the LACC The Brain From Planet X – hadn’t seen her since the show.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must try and get another good night’s beauty sleep, as I have a lot of stuff to do today.
Today, I shall definitely do the four-mile jog as long as it’s not raining. I will absolutely finish assembling the LACC script, I will absolutely write liner notes, and then I have to see a Waiver production of Falsettos – I don’t really want to, but an actor wants Adryan and I to see him in regards to the Gardenia shows, so go I shall. I’ll probably grab a bite to eat afterwards, and then I’ll come home and continue to do work and maybe, just maybe, find time to watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray.
Tomorrow, I have to go to the editing room briefly, I have errands and whatnot to do, hopefully a package or three to pick up along with an important envelope, and then a long rehearsal. We have to block in the one guy who’s been in absentia since Wednesday – he’s in one of the group numbers that has staging, so he has to learn that – it’s not too hard, though. His other numbers are blocked. Unfortunately, he left his music at rehearsal so he’s probably just been working off the CD. We’ll drill all the numbers (we don’t have Alet or Damon tomorrow night), and get them as good and sharp as we can). Then on Tuesday, Damon will come in early and we’ll block the one number that remains and run his duets with Alet prior to beginning the assembling process. Once that begins, everyone is called – and will continue to be called for every rehearsal through Saturday. This is the only time we’ll have a full cast for run-throughs – the following Monday Damon leaves us until tech, although I have his track covered so that there’ll at least be someone to walk it during that week’s three run-throughs. The rest of the week is filled with rehearsals, a meeting or two, getting all the music for the Gardenia show together and to the singers, and casting the final two tracks for that show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the four-mile jog, I must finish assembling the LACC script, I must write liner notes, I must see Falsettos, I must eat something, and I must work and then watch a motion picture. 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 postings, and let us hope we stop this low posting nonsense because achieving new HUGE all-time lows does not make me happy and I think we all know by now that a happy BK is what we all want.