Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I shall write these here notes in a hurry. It is late because I just got back from seeing a musical entitled Next to Normal out in La Mirada. Going to La Mirada always makes one next to normal if not downright insane, thanks to the revolting traffic one must endure – it took Barry Pearl and me just under two hours to do what should have been a forty-five minute drive. Barry was starving, so we went to a little all you can eat Chinese or Japanese or combination of both next to the theater. Since we got there at 7:15 that gave us thirty minutes to eat and since you just get a table and dig in at the buffet, that was doable and we were done at 7:40. The food was passable, and I didn’t really eat much of anything – a couple of egg rolls, about an ounce of some beef dish, a piece of teriyaki chicken – stuff like that. Then we walked over to the theater. There wasn’t much going on in the lobby and I figured the show must not be doing well. I went to the bathroom and when I came out Barry informed me that no one had told him that curtain was at 7:30 and not 8:00. We hurried in, having missed about the first fifteen minutes. That was not a problem for me as I’d seen the show on Broadway, but Barry was kind of clueless until the reveal (those who’ve seen the show know of what I speak).
I’ve only seen Next to Normal once before, on Broadway, with my pal Alice Ripley playing the lead. It was the week before the Tony Awards. It’s not really my kind of show, but for that kind of show it wasn’t bad and Alice was so affecting that I just kind of went with it all and enjoyed myself, even though there was a point in act one where I began to want to kill the character of the son because he’s really the antagonist of the show and is really irritating after a while. That feeling continued all through act two in the Broadway version. I went backstage to see Alice after the show and I told her the Tony was hers. She laughed and said she didn’t think she would win. I told her I was never wrong and that three days before the Tonys when Marissa Jaret Winokur was nominated I’d told HER she would win and to thank me onstage if I was right. She won, but she forgot the thanking part. I told Alice the same thing – that when she won she should thank me. She won, but forgot the thanking part.
This production in La Mirada adheres pretty closely to the feel and staging of the Broadway version and it works as well as it can work given the show. The cast is strong, with Bets Malone giving a fine performance as Diana, and Robert Townsend doing a nice job with the husband. Tessa Grady, who on Monday will begin recording the new Adriana Hofstetter book as an audio book, and who will be performing in the next Kritzerland show, did a great job as the daughter – I think I liked her better than the Broadway gal. It all moved along nicely, but the score is just too much of the same over and over again. There’s one really lovely song, which I recorded on the Alice and Emily live album – I Miss the Mountains, but the rest is just all declamatory writing, with some lyrics that aren’t very sharp and music that all starts to sound the same. The band was very good, too.
After the show, we went back and said hi to Bets and to Tessa and hung around for a while. Then we headed home. Prior to all that, I’d arisen at nine, which was too damn early, but I did get eight hours of blessed sleep at least. I began answering e-mails and doing work on the computer and thinking about a jog, but I thought my body needed a day off – my legs were still really sore. So, instead I downloaded the tracks for an upcoming project (probably our next project, actually) and listened to some of them and I’m really excited about it. The score has been out twice before on CD, but was basically just the LP version with a couple of bonus tracks. But the thing about the LP version was that it was a re-recording, not the original tracks. We’ve now got the complete score from the original film tracks for the first time – it will be a two CD set like Carrie – the original LP program on one CD, but remastered directly from the two-track album masters, as I didn’t care for the sound on the two previous releases, and then the complete score from the original tracks on one CD – there’s about twenty more minutes, maybe a bit more, and it’s great music. I also watched the latest episode of Mad Men – not quite as great as the best of this season, but very good.
I then went and had some chicken tenders, did some banking, picked up no packages, and then came home. I began doing the edit road map for the project, as it’s now on the fast track. I got about a third of the way through (it’s a bit complicated because the actual tracks are just cue numbers, and I have to correlate those to the cue sheets for the titles. Then Barry came and off we went. During the drive to La Mirada I was telling Barry about the five Outside the Box ideas for the third season and how I was waffling on the sixth. And then, in one of those wonderful little light bulb moments, I thought of a brilliant idea for the sixth episode – it just made me laugh out loud instantly and Barry, too. I’ll probably try to write at least one of its songs today. And we’re beginning to approach actors for the first two episodes, which we must film by the end of July.
Today, I’ll definitely jog, I’ll eat something light but amusing, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll continue and hopefully finish the edit road map, I’ll enter all the finessing and fixing I did to the commentary whilst in DC into the Word document on my desktop, and then I’ll relax.
Tomorrow, I’m truly hoping I can just take it easy all day and night. Sunday, I have to make an appearance at a birthday bash, and then I’m seeing singer Eileen Barnett at The Federal. Next week is very busy.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, try to finish the edit road map, enter fixes to the commentary, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many to mention. Blu and Ray, Safety Last and The Game, both from Criterion. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, so happy to have had a light bulb moment.