Well, dear readers, we’re in the final week of November and our final two rehearsals before we open Lost and Unsung. I’m thinking tonight’s rehearsal will tell the tale – if everyone comes in, as I asked them to, at performance level, knowing their stuff, I think we’ll squeak by. If not, then I’m not sure how things will go, since there’s only our cue-to-cue, our run-through, and then an hour for clean-up tomorrow, and our dress/tech with audience. Obviously, I’m hoping for the best, but please send all your most excellent vibes and xylophones for things to go smoothly and well and for my voice to hold out for this entire week. I’ve done nothing but rest this long weekend and yet I still feel my voice is not as strong as it should be – some of that is due to my insanity, as I always do this as things get closer to the show opening. I swore I would not do it this time, and I’ve been pretty good about it, but I just have to say STOP THE INSANITY and it will be what it will be.
Yesterday, the last day of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, was a perfectly okay day. I got nine hours of sleep, I got up, answered e-mails and did the four-mile jog. The weather has been amazingly amazing the last few days. After the jog, I wrote the little introductory commentary for Richard M. Sherman’s song that we’re doing opening night only. Then people arrived for our first Gardenia rehearsal – two people weren’t there and they’re rehearsing on their own with our MD on Wednesday. We had Melody, Dan Callaway, Kim Huber, and Alet and Lucy Taylor – we ran through everything and then I went to Gelson’s and got some small containers of various and sundried foodstuffs – a little mac and cheese, a little stuffing with a little gravy, a little chicken pasta, two little vegetable egg rolls, and I also bought some apples. I then came home and ate all of it up save for some of the chicken pasta, which wasn’t as good as it usually is. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched another Maigret movie, this one, Maigret Sees Double, one of the best of the ones I’ve seen, again with superb performances, nice direction, great music, and good writing. Only two more to go in this volume, so I’m thinking it’s time to order up volume two. Then I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Absence Of Malice. It’s a very good motion picture – I saw it back in the day and enjoyed, and have seen it a few times since, and enjoyed it each time. The script is well written, Sydney Pollack’s direction is very good, and you can’t do better than Paul Newman in this kind of role. Sally Field is excellent, and the supporting performances area all stellar, especially the late in the movie appearance of Wilford Brimley, who just about walks away with the film. The only performance that rings completely false for me and has every time I’ve seen the film, is the overly fussy, actorish (and not in a good way) performance by Bob Balaban, full of actor business that’s completely unnecessary – his endless “business” with rubber bands is one of the most irritating things I’ve ever seen – it’s what I call a “busy” actor in my memoir, where I call someone out on that very thing. It’s distracting and every time he does it I just go right out of the film and want to hurl a shoe through the TV. Mr. Balaban has been very good in other things and he should have just played the damn part instead of putting all the unnecessary sauce on top of it. The transfer was excellent – it looks exactly as it should.
After that, I wrote the blurb for our new release, and I sent all the audio samples to the web guy, so that will probably go up tomorrow at midnight. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, because I must finish these here notes and get another good night’s beauty sleep. Hopefully, if I can STOP THE INSANITY I shall wake up with a voice in fine condition.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I’ll do the four-mile jog early, then grab a small bite to eat. Then I have to prep the eBlast for our new release and test the item page to make sure everything’s working. Hopefully I’ll pick up some packages and an important envelope, then I’ll head over to LACC to meet with lighting and sound folks to make sure we’re all good to go, then we’ll do our cue-to-cue, which we’ll hopefully get done in less than ninety minutes. We’ll take a break, and then we do our run-through, which will hopefully go very smoothly. After that, if anything needs to be run again, we will.
Tomorrow, I’m going to try and see Teddy if he has a slot for me – if not, Wednesday for that. We have our final dress/tech at seven-fifteen with an audience. Wednesday, of course, is opening night, we have two shows on Thursday, a Gardenia rehearsal on Friday, followed by our fourth performance, then two shows on Saturday, our closing night. I’m beginning to get the idea that none of our hainsies/kimlets are coming in to see this, which is a real shame.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the four-mile jog, grab a bite to eat, prep an eBlast, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, do a cue-to-cue, and then a run-through. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Paul Newman movies? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall endeavor to finally STOP THE INSANITY.