Well, dear readers, I’m not usually one who loves opening nights. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, am not one who usually loves opening nights. I’m not really a worker of rooms and if I don’t know people then I just kind of stay to myself, but last night’s opening of Always, Patsy Cline was the exception. I knew, for example, I would know plenty of people and that the people I would know are fun and frolicsome. So, Doug Haverty and I had a little dinner at a very good Eyetalian jernt called Spumante, which is a block from the El Portal Theater. It’s a cozy jernt and I must say the food was most yummilicious. I started with a Caesar salad that was really good, then I had penne with sausage and red onions in a marinara sauce, also really good. Since that’s all I’d eaten all day, I also had some dessert, an incredible dark chocolate mousse in kind of a sponge cake bottom – light and airy and brilliant.
Then we moseyed on over to the theater and got our tickets. It was a really fun group of folks and it was like old home week. I ran into Nancy Dussault and her husband Val, JoAnne Worley, met Judy Tenuta, saw my old pal Michael Orland who was with his pal Peisha McPhee (Katherine’s mom – they both work on American Idol), Adryan Russ was there, as was Jason Graae and his ever-lovin’ Glen Fretwell (they’re getting married in a month), had some fun with Davis Gaines, chatted with friends Murphy Cross and Paul Kreppel, but the thing that made it really special was running into Donna Pescow, who I really haven’t seen since I did an Angie episode – she remembered me and it was great to see her after all these years. When we went to sit down I noticed sitting two seats away was actress Lee Purcell – she took one look at me and said, “Bruce!” We met doing an episode of Lucas Tanner together back in the day, and I vividly remember going to her house on New Year’s Day after that and doing a tradition called Hoppin’ John, a good luck thing. I believe I wrote about it in There’s Me, There’s Woody, and There’s You. We had a great time yakking away and she’s as beautiful as ever. I think she’s going to come to our next Kritzerland show, or maybe the anniversary show.
I’ve never seen Always, Patsy Cline before. Doug Haverty told me that the show last night was quite different from the other productions he’s seen of it – those, he said, were more like a play with music. One of those productions did star Sally Struthers, with Crista Moore as Patsy Cline. Last night’s show apparently had quite a bit more music than usual, but that was fine because the actress playing Patsy Cline was superb, really channeling that unique Cline sound – her name is Carter Calvert. Sally is an old-style performer who knows how to get her laughs and hold an audience in the palm of her hand, which she did. I think she does a fair amount of off-the-cuff stuff, but it works and the audience just adored her. The onstage band, led by John Randall (he musical directed the staged reading of The First Nudie Musical), was excellent. The show was a little long but very entertaining, and the two ladies had quite a bit of fun during the curtain call.
After the show, they had a nice spread in the lobby – I was still full from dinner so I didn’t have anything at all. I hung out with Jason and JoAnne Worley and we all just laughed and laughed and just when we thought we could laugh no more, we laughed again. Then Sally came out and said hi to Jason, JoAnne and me – I first met her almost fifty years ago, which is a little shocking in itself. I finally left about thirty minutes later. Here’s a little photograph from last night. Left to right – Val Mayer, Nancy Dussault, Michael Orland, yours truly, Dan Glosser, and Jennifer Leigh Warren.
Prior to all that, I’d had a relaxing day relaxing. I only had about six hours of sleep, I think, if that much. Once up, I answered e-mails, did some more work on the packaging for an upcoming release, picked up some packages, and watched a couple of motion pictures on the Netflix. One of them was entitled The House of the Sleeping Beauties, a German film based on a Japanese novel. It became instantly apparent that even though the writer/director of Sleeping Beauty didn’t acknowledge it in the credits of her film, that he clear inspiration was the Japanese novel. I liked this film a little better than Sleeping Beauty – that story is told from the point of view of the girl – this one is told from the point of view of one of the old men and that kind of was more interesting. The director was also the writer and the writer/director was also the star – he was very good and Maximillian Schell had a nice role, too.
I then watched a somewhat depressing documentary called After Porn Ends, about different porn stars and what they did after it all ended. It wasn’t especially well done, but it was interesting – some of it was amusing, some pathetic, and some of the postscripts were sad.
Today, I must be up early for she of the Evil Eye will be here, and I must go to the pick-up recording session. I’m really hoping everyone is prepared (I know my players will be, but everyone needs to be on their game as we only have three hours with my players). After we do those fixes, one of our cast members is coming by to fix one wrong note and two pronunciation things – shouldn’t take but ten minutes. Then our musical director will be redoing his handful of vocals, then we have three little synth fixes and some piano fixes. I’m hoping we’ll be done by four. Then I’ll come home and I have to decide if I’ll feel like going to the Gardenia to see my friend Sammy Williams, who’s doing his show there. We shall see.
Tomorrow, we’ll be attempting to finish all the mixes. Next week is all Kritzerland show stuff, Kritzerland packaging stuff, meetings, meals and several shows to see.
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 Dance of the Seven Veils, for today is the birthday of our very own Cillaliz. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own Cillaliz. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN CILLALIZ!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a pick-up session, eat, and maybe see a show. Today’s topic of discussion: I’m not big on country music – what are you favorite country singers and songs? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland happy that last night was like old home week.