Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Sterling’s 40 has come and gone and it was a captivating evening and only one of a handful of shows where there was not one single lyric flub. Everyone was on their game, we had a great and responsive full house and it was a festively festive feel-good show from start to finish. The commentary got some really nice laughs, too. One truly funny thing that happened was in my “number” – I set it up by saying that some songs have lyrics that are so profound and touching and filled with heart that they almost read as poetry and that I’m going to recite such a lyric. I then recite Turkey Lurkey Time. I did it at our first Christmas show at the Gardenia and it got huge laughs. But here, there was absolute silence – you could hear a pin drop. Three lines in and I realized I had to say something and I said, “You’re all sitting there taking this seriously, aren’t you?” and that got a huge laugh and then it went well from there. But how peculiar it was because there’s kind of no mistaking that the lyric of Turkey Lurkey Time is the antitheses of profound, touching and filled with heart. Our wonderful cast did a great job – Dan Callaway, Ashley Fox Linton, Lisa Livesay, Kelsey Scott and Robert Yacko, and our young people, Hadley Belle Miller (who stopped the show cold), Jenna Lea Rosen and Sarah Staitman, both of whom did beautifully. And guest star Terri White is just a textbook on how to engage and enrapture an audience with the very first line of a lyric – she’s magnificent and I love working with her. We’re going to meet after the holidays about maybe finding something to work on.
We had lots of lovely folks in attendance, including cousins Dee Dee and Alan, her mom Paula and her mom’s friend, neighbors Tony Slide and Bob Gitt, my pal Nancy Lee and former dear reader Panni. Also, Shelly Markham, Cindy Dellinger (Barry Pearl was doing the closing performance of Twelve Angry Men), Kay Cole and her ever-lovin’ Michael Lamont, Disney exec Howard Green, who, interestingly, gave me a DVD of the Johnny Mercer documentary he co-produced – yes, the very same one edited by edisaurus, Amy Linton. After that show, a bunch of us went to Jerry’s Deli, where I had a cup of chili and a ham and Swiss on rye. I’d only eaten an artichoke prior to that.
I got up around ten-thirty after nine hours of blessed sleep. I did a three-mile jog, did some work on the computer and then got ready to go to The Federal.
Today, I shall be up by nine-thirty and writing liner notes number four and hopefully even beginning liner notes five. Then we’ll prep our new release announcement, which is the biggest one-time announcement in our history – three titles. Two of them are new releases and one is an Encore Release, which has not been available for almost five years. I’m thinking we’ll announce on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on approvals and such. After that I’ll eat, hopefully pick up some packages, and then I’m going to my editor’s place to watch the first cut of the two Sandy Bainum videos we shot – very anxious to see what he’s come up with. Then I’ll come home and finish Gasoline Alley and then watch something else.
Tomorrow we have a rehearsal, the first two hours of which will be spent restaging our opening number, and creating an alternate opening number comprised of only Pure Imagination (we also do The Beautiful Land in the number as it stands now). I’m not entirely sold on doing Pure Imagination as a standalone, as I feel it is a soft opening and a song with a weak ending. However, I did come up with a pretty nice way of extending the ending and making it soar and end with some panache, so I’m willing to give that a try. I’ve been trying to address all the notes that are given to me, many of which coincide with my own, but some seem very wrong to me and while I think about and consider everything, in the end I have to make the show I believe in and not do stuff that feels completely wrong. And since we open on Saturday, we don’t really have all that much time to fool around with stuff, especially stuff that works perfectly. After the two hours, we’ll run the two-act version, just to see how it feels and to time it.
Wednesday is another rehearsal – we’ll run both the two-act and one-act version that night and then we’ll make the decision about which one we’ll go with on Thursday. Thursday and Friday are previews and Saturday is our opening. Once we open, all that happens the following week is that we put in Jane Noseworthy’s cover as Jane is missing the four shows that weekend. She’ll hopefully be back with us for our final four shows of 2013, the third week of December. Sunday, I’ll attend the matinee, but I’m hoping that I can go out with some friends to celebrate Ye Olde Birthdaye that night.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write liner notes, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, see two first cuts of the two videos we shot with Sandy Bainum, then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Our next show for Kritzerland is an all young performers show, ages nine to seventeen. We have two main boys and three main girls plus a few other kids who’ll just do one number apiece. And we’re hoping to have one wonderful guest star if we can get said guest star to say yes. I have some numbers chosen already – I’m trying to not do many “kid” songs, but songs young people can do that are just regular musical theater songs, even if the performer is really too young to do them – I like pushing kids out of their comfort zone and giving them material to stretch with. So, what songs do you think might be fun for those age ranges, especially the boy songs. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a wonderful and successful Kritzerland at Sterling’s 40.