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October 27, 2013:

THE WORLD IS A CIRCLE

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I hope that these rehearsal reports aren’t too boring, but I always find the process of creating a show where there never was a show an interesting one – these kinds of rehearsals are entirely different from working on an existing show and I find it exhilarating, terrifying, occasionally frustrating and even fun.  Yesterday’s rehearsal was all of the above, although any frustration is just mine own and really has nothing to do with what’s happening in rehearsal.  We began the day with Kay Cole staging our opening number.  She works kind of unlike any other choreographer I’ve ever worked with – she’s very organic, very lyric and music oriented and likes stage pictures and interesting movement more than dance steps, which would not really work for what we’re doing, save for one number in act two.  Like me, she thinks on her feet, with no real plan when she arrives.  So there are a lot of stops and starts and experimentation, and little by little the number kind of builds itself.  That took about two hours and by the end it was looking very good indeed.  She just kept drilling each section as she’d do it, until everyone was comfortable, then she’d move on.  We’re trying to impress upon everyone that the sooner they get the music out of their hands the easier it’s all going to be, but there’s a lot to learn and they’re getting everything at once – we never really had a proper music only rehearsal period, although this coming Monday and Wednesday night’s rehearsals will be exactly that.

After she finished, I had everyone run the second group number that I’d staged, and Kay liked it a lot, and just sharpened a couple of the movement things, making them more definite.  Then I finished blocking all of Jane’s numbers, ran Sami’s numbers, and then staged their act two duet, which came out really well and is really fun and we even get to use hats and canes in it.  As I do each number and figure out where it lives, I’m cognizant of the number before and the number that follows, and so far it seems like we’ve got a really good flow going and kind of a circular pattern is emerging, that I’m really kind of liking – Newley and Bricusse use the word “world” and we use it in our title, and it’s just kind of feeling like a world going round, stopping here, stopping there, and bringing us always into new territory.

I also enjoy that everyone in this cast works differently, which I find interesting and energizing, so that I try to develop a shorthand that’s specific to each personality.  Sami, who originally wasn’t slated to do the show, is turning out to be a really good thing – she’s finding colors and new parts of her and that’s really fun to watch.  She picks up very fast, and we’ve even kind of made her the unofficial dance captain, writing down everyone’s blocking.  Jane Noseworthy or, as I like to call her, Jane of the Worthy Nose, is one of my favorite people to work with – really creative, and she’s just one of those performers who kind of can do anything you toss their way.  If you watch her performance of Getting Married Today on You Tube you can see that at work.  She’s got a lot of fun stuff in this show in addition to her pretty ballads.  Our other female, Dana Dewes, is completely different and very smart, with excellent ideas and her numbers also have a lot of variety.  Then there are our two men – Robert Jacobs, who is strikingly handsome, but just getting his sea legs back after a long hiatus away from the stage.  He’s a commanding presence, has a lovely voice, and is also funny and I think with each day he’ll get stronger and stronger.  Shaun Baker is an African-American actor/singer with a delightful personality and he’s got some great stuff to do.  For everyone, it’s really about getting the songs in their bodies and brains so we can then do detail work and hone everything.  It will be helpful to have Lloyd Cooper back with us, but learning the numbers by the numbers has been helpful in a way, but everyone is ready to do it with music.  In fact, I had a few of the piano tracks on my iPod and we did the numbers to those and it was grand to watch that all come together.  I do believe I’ve now staged all the solos, duets and our one trio, save for Sami and Shaun’s tap number in act two – that gets done next Saturday.  It’s a little tricky because Sami is in the Kritzerland show and can only be there from 10:30 to about 2:00 and she can’t be there at all on Sunday due to our matinee – same with Jane, who’s also in the Kritzerland show.  But we’ll film what Kay does with the tap number so they can have it on their iPhones or whatever to use as a guide.  I think Kay can also come back and polish at some point that week.  So, it’s just about four more group things, maybe three, and the show is roughly blocked.  Then I have to figure out some transitional things.

I did a special Saturday route, substituting Beverly Glen for Laurel Canyon and that’s what I’ll do today, too – it was a breeze all the way.  I also had a little visit from the darling daughter, who stopped by the theater.  After the rehearsal, Sami, her mom, and I went to California Chicken Café.  I had the half-chicken (all white) and a little teeny-tiny side Caesar salad.  It was yummilicious and light – no time to jog at all this entire weekend, unless I do one after today’s rehearsal.  I was a bad boy on the way home – since I take Beverly Glen home always, I pass right by K’s Donuts – it’s never open in the evening, but they were open at five, so in I went and I got the chocolate donut with peanut butter innards and a small jelly donut – hadn’t had a jelly donut in maybe forty years – the peanut butter thing was the best one I’ve ever had, and the small jelly donut was pretty tasty, too, and I needed and deserved a treat, and the one meal I ate was really calorie-friendly – doubtful if the whole thing was over 500 calories.  Then I came home, answered e-mails and sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Side Effects, a film of Steven Soderbergh – he says it’s his final film. It’s one of those films where the enraptured teenies on the imdb blather on about mind-blowing twists and turns – you know how that goes.  They think they’re not doing spoilers when they say that crap, but of course the minute you’re told there are mind-blowing twists and turns, you’re on the lookout for them.  The twists and turns in this film are hardly mind-blowing and due to one piece of what I consider very bad casting, I knew instantly what the mind-blowing twists and turns were and I was right every step of the way.  Part of that stemmed from a couple of similarities to Love Crimes, the French film.  I didn’t mind the film and watched it to the end, but it’s just ultimately too pat and filled with too much coincidence and some truly awful dialogue.  Rooney Mara is okay in the lead – I suppose she’s playing the character they gave her, but her mumbling and low vocal level is really irritating.  Jude Law I usually enjoy and he’s fine here.  The gal who plays his wife has no chance, being saddled with one of those impossible to play characters that are writer’s devices and have no bearing on a human being or how they’d behave – in this case as Jude Law’s life spirals out of control, she won’t listen to his explanations, becomes a total bitch, and then leaves him without letting him get a word in.  Sorry, Mr. Screenwriting 101 – BAD.  STUPID.  INEPT.  And Mr. Soderbergh doesn’t help matters by giving the actress any other color to play but the obvious.  Catherine Zeta-Jones I just don’t get and I’ll just leave it at that.  It’s shot in that arty thriller mode that’s so hip these days, and, of course, the box and several imdb nitwits say Hitchcock would have approved.  I don’t think so.  I suppose if you’ve never seen a film like this, you might be taken in for a while, but I just found every second of it completely predictable.  Transfer is excellent, as is sound.  I didn’t care one or even two whits for the Thomas Newman score, which is just more tinkling and droning and not doing one thing a movie score should do.

After that, I watched a bit of The Uninvited, but I kept nodding off, and it’s a film I’m fond of so I’ll begin again this evening.  Then I took a hot shower and came up with some staging ideas for the end of act one’s number, so I have a little head start on that.

Today, I must be up at nine again, then rehearsal till about three, and then I’ll eat something fun and come home.  If it’s not too late, I may try to do a jog, but if not, I will jog every day for the next week.  Tomorrow is our first Kritzerland rehearsal and from there I go right to the theater for our show rehearsal.  The rest of the week is meetings and meals, our second Kritzerland rehearsal, prepping our new release announcement, and rehearsals every night except Halloween.  Then it’s our stumble-through, then sound check, matinee and evening show, and then Sandy’s in town and we work every day on her act and then rehearsals continue for the show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must for example, rehearse and try to finish all but one or two numbers, I must eat, maybe jog, and then relax.  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, after which we’ll continue to discover the circular world of Newley and Bricusse.

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