Well, dear readers, I’m happy to say that the reaction so far to the premiere episode of Outside the Box, season two has been wonderful. I’ve received wonderful e-mails about it and best of all, the last minute change we made to one shot turns out to absolutely have been the right thing and several people have specifically mentioned that sequence as being one of their favorites, and its due to having delayed the reveal in a shot by one verse. So, it’s a good thing I’m a notorious nitpicker and perfectionist and I really do have some internal thing in me that lets me know when something doesn’t feel right. It may take a while to figure out the why of it, but when the feeling is there I know I have to take it seriously. I’m not sure Sunday is the best day to release You Tube videos, and especially on a holiday Sunday, so I’ll keep getting the word out – and if you dear readers would do the same that would be great. If you can tell your friends and share the link on Facebook and Twitter it’s very helpful.
So, it was very nice to wake up to all that. It was also very nice to see dear reader Laura for a pancake breakfast at Du-Par’s. We had a lovelier than lovely meal, caught up, and we laughed and laughed and just when we thought we could laugh no more, we laughed again. I then walked home briskly, relaxed, did some work on the computer, had some telephonic calls, and the our very own Mr. Barry Pearl came over and we moseyed on over to the Pasadena Playhouse. We’d decided that we’d sup after the show rather than before. Parking is always daunting, but we had unbelievable luck and a car was pulling out of a parking space right next to the theater. I pulled right in, so free parking for us. We picked up our tickets, saw some folks we knew, and schmoozed. Barry is a great schmoozer and could schmooze till the cows come home – I’m ill at ease schmoozing, however so I basically just stand there like so much fish and occasionally throw in a sentence here or there.
Then we went inside. Instead of the play starting right at five, they had a presentation that lasted about twenty minutes. The presentation part was very specific to a friend of the theater, but this talking before shows in LA has reached epic proportions. Wherever you go these days, from bigger theaters to Waiver spaces, someone gets up and does a spiel of some sort. I find it very off-putting and it never happened back when I was first going to theater. We’d enter a theater respectfully, find our seats, read our programs, there would be a curtain, and the lights would go down, the curtain would rise and magic would begin. The Playhouse doesn’t do it so I’m not ragging on them, but the other theaters, it’s just hucksterism and I don’t like it.
Now, I’d only seen this play once before, at LACC I believe the same year we did the Brain. In fact, as one of the characters was playing and singing a naughty ditty in the show, I remembered that the director of the LACC production had asked me to write the music for the ditty, which I did – I threw something together and it worked out fine. I had really not liked the play at all and at LACC it was VERY long. The show started out slowly and I was kind of dreading it, but Sheldon Epps’ lovely production won me over quickly. His staging was very fluid, and his actors were all terrific, especially Vanessa Williams (not that one) as the lead. I don’t have the program in front of me, but the fellow who played the Jewish fabric seller was also wonderful. My friend Angel Reda, who did the Kritzerland Marvin Hamlisch show, and who’s about to do an Outside the Box episode this week, did a really good job. I do think the play could use some cutting – it’s repetitious at times and really hammers stuff a little too hard, but it’s very well written and very affecting, at least in this production. The sets and lighting are also excellent and it’s one of the best productions I’ve ever seen at the Playhouse.
After that, Barry schmoozed some more and I stood like a lox some more, then we went backstage to say hi to Angel, who really is spectacularly beautiful. Then Barry schmoozed with an actor named Blair Underwood, who was visiting backstage. After that, we finally went over to El Portal and had some Mexican food. It’s not my favorite restaurant, but it has decent food and I ate way too much of it and felt like a complete and utter pig. Today it’s back to the Cobb salad diet, which really does work, especially if I forego the bagel part. The Bagel Part – that’s the title of my next novel. Then I came home, answered e-mails, saw that we had about thirty new subscribers to the Outside the Box You Tube channel and that was my day and that was my night.
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 do a Costco run, write liner notes, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, pay a rather large number of Kritzerland bills, and finish choosing and assigning songs for the Kritzerland holiday show. Then I’ll gather the music and get it to everyone.
Tomorrow the East Coast Singer will be here and I will hastily assemble her Christmas show. That will continue on Wednesday. Wednesday night I’ll attend the Outside the Box ensemble rehearsal so I can see what our choreographer has come up with and figure out how I want to shoot the numbers. Thursday we shoot the two set-up scenes, Thursday night we have one last Singer rehearsal, and then Friday we shoot six musical numbers. The weekend will hopefully stay free so I can relax after a long week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a Costco run, write, eat, pay bills, choose and assign songs and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: I’m still choosing songs and am trying to make this year’s holiday show different from the last two we’ve done, which was basically distillations of A Broadway Christmas and A Hollywood Christmas. I will be doing stuff from those two albums, but I also want some holiday songs that aren’t necessarily Christmas specific, so please tell me your favorite holiday season songs as well as your favorite Christmas songs. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall begin formulating my new novel, The Bagel Part, a story of a Jewish wig salesman who becomes obsessed with water bagels and their meaning.