Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle reciting Joyce Kilmer’s Trees. Does anyone still recite Joyce Kilmer’s Trees? I personally only recite Val Kilmer’s Trees these days, as I think Joyce Kilmer’s Trees are less interesting than Val Kilmer’s Trees. I wonder if Joyce Kilmer and Val Kilmer are related or if their trees are related? Listen, can someone please tell me what the HELL I’m talking about, and, more importantly, how the HELL November can be half over already?
Yesterday, I didn’t quite get eight hours of sleep, but I did stay in bed for nine hours. Then I got up, did my morning ablutions and then answered e-mails. I had a few telephonic conversations, including two long ones – one with Fed Ex and one with CD Baby, and both about the same thing – the inability to do the simplest of tasks on their sites. But everything got taken care of. Then I went and had a ham and Swiss on rye and a small onion rings, after which I came home and buckled down, Winsocki and finished the first of three sets of liner notes. So, one down, two to go. I sent those on their merry way, then went to the mail place and picked up a few packages, did some banking, put some gas in the motor car, and then came back home. By that time it was almost time for me to leave to go to the theater. I think I have to start getting up really early for the next few days, because I just don’t find the time to do everything that needs doing, and that includes getting the Kritzerland cast their songs and sheet music, which I’m very behind on. Before I left, I did get an e-mail and that e-mail was a good one and ends an annoyance that’s been going on for over a year now. Whew!
I took the Beverly Glen route – it was pretty horrid, actually, almost all the way, although once I hit Overland it wasn’t too bad – it took about an hour and five minutes to do the twenty-five minute drive. The intention was to do a run-through but one of our cast showed up, announced he had the flu (symptoms started a couple of hours earlier) and was going home to sleep. So, that left us with an incomplete cast, but we decided to mush on anyway, since Kay Cole was with me. The set was there – partial – but at least the main three levels were in place, so we first ran all the group numbers so people could get used to working on the risers. They adapted very quickly. And thank goodness, our Lloyd Cooper was back with us. I talked him through some arrangement adjustments and then we began our run-through – sometimes Kay walked our missing actor’s track in the group numbers and I sang his numbers from the audience. The show ran about seventy-five minutes, so that’s kind of in the ballpark of where I want it to be.
This was the first time Kay saw the show straight through and she told me she really liked it – liked the structure and the order and what I’d done with the staging, so that made me very happy. We both know there are things to clean up, but the cast did very well and they’re completely off book now, which is great. The comic stuff is working quite well and there are several very touching things in the show. I added one more little what I call “in-betweeners” where we do a little verse of another song to get us into the real song – it really is a nice device for this show and gives everything a nice flow and cohesion. As Kay and I watched, I leaned over to her during two numbers, telling her I didn’t think they were working, both in the second half of the show. So, in my notes session, I made the decision to cut one of them (the actor was fine with it, because it actually felt redundant and was interfering with his big number that came a bit later in the show), and we were going to add one song for Sami, since we’d taken her out of a duet – but she had a song early in the second half of the show and it was just not working for me – it was the I Want It Now song from Willy Wonka, and while it works okay in that film, it was just making Sami seem bratty and obnoxious because that’s what it is. And one of my main goals with Sami in this show is to NOT have her be that way ever in this show. She does love the song, but I’d already decided she was going to do Talk to the Animals and I simply put that in the I Want It Now slot and the problem was solved. We’re using as the basis of the arrangement, the feel that Lanny Meyers did for Michelle Nicastro’s version. And we have hand animal puppets for Sami to work with, so we sang through it, found its form, and I’ll stage it tonight.
So, what’s left to do is some play on and play off music and some scoring for some beginnings of songs, so that everything has a complete flow and it all feels organic and smooth. It’s hard to believe in a way that two and a half weeks ago this show didn’t exist.
After the long rehearsal, I came right home.
Today, I shall be up by ten at the latest, and then I must buckle down, Winsocki and write the second set of liner notes and maybe even begin the third set. Then I have a lot of errands and whatnot to do, more banking, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages and then I’ll get to the theater by six. I’m hearing a potential cover for Jane Noseworthy, who has to miss at least eight shows during December. I’ve heard very good things about this gal so hopefully she’ll work out. Then Sami gets there thirty minutes later and we’ll stage her new number.
The rest of the week is the same. And Friday I’ll be at the theater, most likely for most of the day, dry teching the show, and Saturday we begin our real tech.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write liner notes, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up packages and rehearse. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream of Val Kilmer’s Trees.