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September 24, 2012:

THE DAY OF REST WITH NO REST

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry because I must be up at six in the morning to announce the new Kritzerland title. They say Sunday is a day of rest, and yet there was no rest for the likes of me. Sunday was a day of work, which began with comping the last of the vocals for the East Coast Singer’s Christmas album. That took a couple of painstaking hours, but the result is that we now have completed the comping of the vocals and they sound really good. Now the engineer will smooth out his mixes, based on some general notes I gave him. Then he’ll start sending them to me as he does them, and I’ll take notes, and then in a couple of weeks we’ll spend a few hours doing my final finessing of the mixes and then we’ll be done. After doing the comps, I came home and then Juliana came over for a rehearsal. She’s finally getting used to her patter and so everything is starting to flow better. She has the songs down pat, and I gave her a few more staging things and had lots of general notes on the patter delivery. We also rewrote a few lines. We did a rough timing of the show and I’m happy to say it runs just a little over an hour, which is perfect. Then she left and I got ready to go to a nightclub show. I then moseyed on over to The Federal, where I met our very own Miss Adryan Russ. We dined, saw a few people we know, and then it was show time.

Last night, I saw a nightclub show by a singer whose first time it was doing an act. She’d won a contest and the act was one of the awards. It was supposed to have a director for it, but apparently schedules conflicted and she ended up putting it together herself. That, of course, is never a good idea, even for seasoned professionals, but with that caveat, she did very well. She has a great voice (I judged the contest and gave her my highest score and eventually she did a Kritzerland show), with a huge belt. She’s not quite as comfortable singing softly, but she’s really good at it and I would encourage her to explore that side of her. In fact, during the Kritzerland show, that is what I pushed her to do, and it took a lot of pushing and cajoling but in the end she really delivered and the audience adored her. Last night’s audience was obviously made up of family and friends and so naturally the reaction was effusive. Her song set had some good things and some things that didn’t work so well. Some of it would have worked better if rearranged in a different order. For me, the most important thing in a cabaret act is a strong structure or spine – in the end, that’s what this lacked, but for someone who’s never done it before, she was very professional and kept the show moving along. I hope she keeps at it, but this time with a director, who’d be able to help her shape the show into something cohesive and strong.

As always, the food at The Federal was excellent, and on the way home, thanks to dear reader Jose’s incessant donut postings, I stopped at Yum Yum donuts and got a mini-apple fritter. Then I came home, gave one final listen to our new master and approved it. Then I had to listen to a few other things, I answered some e-mails, and that was that.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get a good night’s beauty sleep.

Today, I shall be up at six in the morning to announce the new Kritzerland title, after which I may or may not go back to bed. Once I’m up, though, I will hopefully print out a LOT of orders, then I have a meeting with the camera people who are shooting Outside The Box. That will probably last an hour, then I’ll go eat something, hopefully pick up some packages, and then it’s a Juliana rehearsal. At some point Sharon McNight will be by to pick up her Outside The Box material, and the assistant for the shoot will be by to just go over stuff. After that, I go to the Dale of Glen to see a staged concert version of Titanic. I will, of course, have a full report.

Tomorrow is another Juliana rehearsal, and that’s basically the rest of the week, too. Thursday we shoot the two set-up scenes for the two episodes, then it’s a Juliana rehearsal, then I go to the Outside The Box ensemble rehearsal to see what they’re up to so I can figure out how to shoot their two numbers. Friday we do six musical numbers in eight hours – it will be intense, but hopefully fun. A couple of them are thankfully very short. And directly after the shoot we have a Juliana rehearsal. On Saturday we’re going to do a run-through of her show for about fifteen people, just so she can get a sense of how it will play in front of an audience. Sunday is sound check, and then show, and the following week is all Kritzerland. Whew!

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce the new Kritzerland title, hopefully print out a LOT of orders, meet with the camera people, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, have a rehearsal, meet with the production assistant, and then see Titanic. Today’s topic of discussion: If you could have dinner with any classical composer in history, who would it be and why that person? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, as I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall be up and announcing.

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