Well, dear readers, the daunting task of making a show where there is no show, and doing so in a week so that we actually have something to rehearse a week from today, has begun. I’d already made a long list of potential songs, but we’re still waiting to find out whether our cast is five or six – I’ve been saying from the start that I like five, but it may end up six for various reasons. Yesterday, I met with our choreographer, Kay Cole, over breakfast and we just began going through the song list and talking about performers and how things might fit together. Once I start talking like that, then things just come to me quickly and we did come up with some fun stuff and figured out who might sing about half the songs. I still have to find another three to six songs that will work for us, but certain things are making themselves clear to me in terms of sequences and how to build dramatically into numbers, where the comedy might come, and what the group numbers will be. I pretty much know how the first act opens and closes and I know how the second act opens and closes so that’s a big plus. So now I just have to start placing songs and finish assigning things to our singers – if we end up with six, then I’ll have to rethink a few things. But it was a good start and my head is in the right place now. Kay is a wonderful collaborator. I will spend at least four hours of each day this week working on this, and then we have to gather all the music together and I have to meet with our musical director to start talking about arrangements, although I’m thinking a good deal of that stuff will happen while I’m working with the singers the first week, while they’re learning their material. I don’t really want to stage anything until week two, and then by the end of that week we should be able to start roughly running the show. It’s a little nutty but it’s certainly energizing.
The rest of yesterday was perfectly okay. I didn’t quite get eight hours of sleep, had eggs benedict for breakfast, then came home after our ninety-minute meeting and I answered e-mails and typed up all the stuff we talked about at the meeting. Then I made a show order for the upcoming Kritzerland show, which I also found out is completely sold out. I have been trying to get a head count for a week and was a bit disturbed that it took that long to get one and now we’re completely sold out and there are reservations that we personally made DAYS ago that aren’t on the list. This, however, is not my problem – they’ll have to work out the logistics but those reservations must be honored. We’ve asked everyone to now put themselves on a waiting list and if that list gets up to twenty then we may go ahead and add a matinee as we did for the September show. I would completely miss the rehearsal for the other show, but Kay can take that one and use it for the staging she’ll be doing. That will have to also happen the day before, but that’s good for her to have that time with the cast. Being sold out this early is, of course, the best kind of problem to have.
I did a three-mile jog, had two very long telephonic conversations then went and had a ham and Swiss on rye with no fries or onion rings. Then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Stalag 17, directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden, Otto Preminger, Sig Rumen, Harvey Lembeck, Robert Strauss, Peter Graves, Gil Stratton and many others. I think it must have been one of the first prisoner of war movies and it’s a corker. The Wilder touch is in evidence everywhere, from script to direction. The dialogue is fantastic, especially Otto Preminger’s – he is quite brilliant in this film. Holden is great and so is the rest of the large cast. The pace is fantastic and it’s just a great film straight down the line. I think this transfer is probably derived from a hi-def master created for the last DVD – it doesn’t quite look as good as I thought it would and that’s probably the reason. But while it maybe could have looked better, it still looks pretty excellent, with mostly decent detail and contrast. We, of course, recently released some of the music from the film, which is by Franz Waxman. There is simply nothing like Billy Wilder from this period and I’m happy to say we have another soundtrack from a Wilder film of this period coming before the end of the year.
I then watched the first hour of a motion picture on Blu and Ray from the UK – Douglas Sirk’s film of A Time to Love and a Time to Die, from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque. This is my first time watching it and I’m finding it really quite excellent, but I’ll have more to say when I finish it, probably this evening.
After that, I finally began writing the commentary. I didn’t get hugely far into it, but starting was the important part and I’m rolling along now and should be able to finish it today.
Tomorrow, I really have to compartmentalize my day. I’ll spend four hours working on the revue, I’ll eat, I’ll jog, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll finish the commentary and also try to being the first of three sets of liner notes, and I’ll also keep trying to get our two packages approved so that I don’t have to worry about our next two releases. So, a very busy day and evening.
The rest of the week is the same – four hours on the revue, and then meetings and meals and liner notes, oh my. I think I have to see a show or two on the weekend, too.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, work on the revue, hopefully pick up packages, finish the commentary, start some liner notes and then, if possible, relax just a bit. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite WWII was films? And your favorite Newley/Bricusse songs – want to make sure I’m not forgetting something wonderful. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall compartmentalize my dreams, after which I shall wake up to my compartmentalized day.