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May 5, 2014:

KRITZERLAND AT STERLING’S 45

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Sterling’s 45 was a wonderful evening of sophisticated, witty and touching songs by Mr. Cole Porter.  We had a sold out crowd of nice folks.  I think for the first time in our history we actually started right on time, which I like.  The opening patter was going well when I decided to second-guess myself, which I should never ever do – I cut two lines that I feared would not land and it was a mistake I shall not make again.  The lines that preceded that had gotten their laughs and I don’t know where my head was, but what’s done is done.  It kind of screwed up my timing for the rest of that patter, but once done, I found my footing pretty quickly in the second patter.  Brennley and Jenna did a great job with Friendship, and Jenna’s mom Heather did a great job choreographing it.  Just a perfect opening number.  The entire cast did really well, with nary a hiccup in sight.  Highlights were Allen Everman’s Let’s Not Talk About Love, Lisa Livesay’s gorgeous Easy to Love/True Love and her Too Darn Hot, Jean Louisa Kelly’s terrific My Heart Belongs to Daddy, Mark Whitten’s electric Ridin’ High, Brennley’s Take Me Back to Manhattan/I Happen to Like New York, Jenna’s Blow, Gabriel, Blow (which closed the show), Sami Staitman’s Anything Goes (despite not feeling well, she did a great job) and Maude Maggart doing an incredible Love for Sale.  An unscripted quip after that song got the biggest laugh of the evening, playing on something I’d ad-libbed earlier.  Sami and I had great fun on You’re the Top – it was just a little bit too slow for my taste and in trying to think how to get it speeded up I lost concentration and fumfered one line in my first solo verse and one line toward the end – I got them spit out in time, but I would like to have not had that happen.  But I’m a person who really needs to have everything in synchronicity.  Shelly Markham did a lovely job accompanying, and our co-producer, Adryan Russ, made sure the entire process ran smoothly.  Here’s an actual photograph of our merry troupe.

porterkritz

One especially nice moment after the show: Someone came up to me and told me they’d loved Red Gold and read it in one sitting.  After, a bunch of us went to our usual after show haunt, Little Toni’s.  There we had much jokey banter and repartee, as we always do.  I do love the jokey banter and repartee.  I had my usual salad, one slice of pizza and pasta with meatballs.

Prior to all that, I’d gotten a little over ten hours of blessed sleep, which I really needed.  I got up, did a two-mile jog, and then relaxed until it was time for sound check.

Today, I have some banking to do, I’ll try to jog, I’ll write some liner notes, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then we have our designer run-through for Li’l Abner, which I’m very much looking forward to.  The cast arrives at three and I’ll have an hour to run a few things that we didn’t get to on Friday.

Tomorrow, Kay Cole is back with us for a bit – I think we’ll probably do a run-through of sorts so she can see what I’ve done with the numbers she wasn’t here for, which I hope she likes.  The rest of the week is meetings, meals, rehearsals and run-throughs and getting the singers for the June Kritzerland show their music and mp3s – it’s an evening of Dorothy Fields, one of my all-time favorite lyricists.  Happily, all songs are chosen and we’re already fully cast, save for a guest star – we have several choices for that slot.

Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or The Brain Tap, because today is the birthday of dear reader George.  So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader George. On the count of three: one, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READERS GEORGE!!!

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, write liner notes, bank, eat, hopefully pick up some packages and have a designer run-through.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Dorothy Fields songs?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a very nice Kritzerland at Sterling’s 45.

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