Well, dear readers, we had a pretty wonderful thirty-first Kritzerland show. I have to say right at the beginning that I don’t like not being on our regular night – it doesn’t feel good to me. And there was some kind of weird energy in the room, too – early on I was told that something behind the bar, some electrical wire, was shorting out and sparking – they’d unplugged it and it appeared to be fine, but they told me that if it happened again, the room would be cleared and the show cancelled. Then it took until five minutes before show time to get our food at my table – everyone else in the club had been served by that point, and yet we were the first table to place an order. I don’t know what was going on in the kitchen but I finally, after several attempts to find out what was going on, raised holy hell about it. I had not time to even finish my usual artichoke – I ate half and that was that. We were totally full, which was great, and I knew lots of folks in the audience plus we had some interesting and fun folks there. But even while I was making the rounds I felt a slight weird energy and I believe I know where it was coming from, which is interesting but not worth talking about.
Then I was introduced and I got one nice, big laugh right at the start, which always gets me in the right mood. Then we showed the Taxi Driver episode of Outside the Box. I was a little worried that some of the audience was being very resistant to it, but the minute the songs began, the laughs were all there and all the numbers actually got applause, which has never happened before. Then the show proper began. There were a couple of lyric flubs in the opening number – of all the numbers where you don’t want that to happen, the opening is the most important. It wasn’t much, but I could tell it made some of the audience vaguely uncomfortable – not our regulars – they know our deal, but some of the newbies. The second song, Something Cool, went perfectly. But in the third song, there were a few flubs so a few laughs didn’t land. But after that it was smooth sailing. The patter worked fine and had some nice laughs. The weirdest flub of the evening involved one of Billy’s wonderfully wicked songs called Ambivalent. For whatever reason, the singer unconsciously substituted “Ambiguous” for “Ambivalent” and did it for the entirety of the song. So, it was a little weird because a lot of people knew what it should be and I’m sure they were sitting there going “Why did they change Billy’s word.” So, after it was over I said, “Actually, the song is called Ambivalent, but once you’ve made said Ambiguous and committed to it, you can’t be ambivalent about it.” That got a really nice laugh and everyone was at their ease again. I also told the audience early on that these poor singers had to deal with some very wordy and lyrically tricky numbers. There were lots of highlights and the show order worked well. JoAnne Worley was wild and hilarious in her number and brought down the house. Nancy Dussault was touching and beautiful with her song and she also brought down the house. The cast was great – Susanne Blakeslee, Chelsea Emma Franko, Caitlynne Medrick, Jane Noseworthy, and Robert Yacko, all accompanied beautifully by Lloyd Cooper. After the show, the Ambiguous singer couldn’t believe he’d done the wrong word – he wasn’t even aware of it.
In the audience were so many fun people – Billy alums Karen Morrow, Tom Hatten, Jackie Joseph, Dee Stratton, Kat Kramer and her mom, Billy’s long-time partner Richard Jordan, Tom Hatten’s partner, Pete Menafee (he designed the costumes for Forget-Me-Not Lane at the Taper when I did it – and he was a chimney sweep dancer in the Mary Poppins film), Susan Watson, Will Mackenzie, Michael Kerker, Beverly Sanders, Marcia Wallace, the Staitmans, Jenna Rosen and her folks, cousin Dee Dee and Alan, plus neighbors Tony Slide and Bob Gitt, plus Mickey Rapkin, who’s the son of Leonard Rapkin who’s the son of Minnie and Rube Rapkin, who were my aunt and uncle and who I wrote about in the first memoir, as well as the Kritzer books. Mickey is an author of two really popular books – Theater Geek and Pitch Perfect. Casting director Barry Moss flew in from New York to attend – he loved Billy. Former helper Amy was there with her family, Dancing Dildo Artie Shafer was there, singer Karen Geddisman and her ever-lovin’ Dan Jablons was there, our very own VinTek and Janet was there, and I’m forgetting lots of other interesting folks, but it’s late and Ye Olde Braine isn’t working. After, some of us went to Little Toni’s where I finally got to eat some actual food. The Federal did comp out my entire table’s dinner because of whatever screw-up happened in the kitchen, so that was very nice of them. So, all in all, a wonderful evening and tribute to a songwriter I was crazy about.
Prior to that, I think I’d gotten all of four hours of sleep – I just could not fall asleep and didn’t until about six-thirty in the morning. I hate when that happens. And, of course, I was confused all day because it felt like Sunday even though it was Saturday. I did manage a two-mile jog, though.
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 relax and then see Shirley Valentine at four at The Falcon Theater in Toluca Lake. I’m sure I’ll eat at some point and since it’s the closing performance I’m told there will be a little party in the lobby after.
Tomorrow I have lots to do, and a meeting. The rest of the week is meetings, meals, finally getting down to brass tacks about doing some house fixes, and beginning to plan the next Kritzerland show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, relax, then see Shirley Valentine. 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, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland happy that we had a successful thirty-first Kritzerland show.