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July 24, 2014:

QUE SERA SERA (WHATEVER WILL BE, WILL BE)

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I attended a lovelier than lovely opening night at the El Portal Theater to see the talented Scott Dreir in his one-person show, Doris and Me.  It’s his tribute to someone who has meant a lot to him personally, even though he has only met her briefly twice.  He grew up loving her movies and music and that’s what the show is about.  He sings a lot of Doris songs, and tells a lot of anecdotes.  The show is in two acts and moves right along.  I enjoyed it very much and if I were to quibble I would say that right now the show is straddling two separate worlds and needs to decide which it wants to live in – cabaret or theatre.  I would recommend the latter, but if that’s going to be the case then some work would have to be done on it.  It certainly has the potential to work as a theatre piece but it’s working more like a cabaret piece right now in a theatre environment and occasionally working like a theatre piece.  The band was very good.

The audience was very interesting – it was a benefit for Doris Day’s animal foundation.  Jackie Joseph, who appeared on The Doris Day Show in its final two seasons, made a nice speech at the top of the show.  In the second act, Scott called out several people who’d worked with Doris Day over the years, and that included yours truly and also truly yours.  My own tiny Doris Day story is in my book – well, two books – my first novel and also my first memoir.  In 1956 I saw The Man Who Knew Too Much and I so empathized with the little boy in it and so wanted Doris Day to be MY mother – the title of that film adorns the cover of Benjamin Kritzer.  And then a mere fifteen years later there I was at CBS Radford co-starring in my very first pilot, which was produced by her company, Arwin.  We rehearsed that pilot for a week like a play, and on the final day of rehearsal, all the CBS brass came and watched it.  Just before we began, in came Miss Day and she was just so sweet to all of us and so positive.  She didn’t stay for the run-through, but it was just a dream come true to not only be working for her company but to meet her in person.  They prepared two versions of the pilot – one standalone without Miss Day, and one version that could be aired as an episode on the show – in that one, they shot a couple of very brief scenes with Miss Day to intercut into the show.  I like that version because I feel like I’m in the show with her, even though we really aren’t.

Others called out were the ubiquitous JoAnne Worley, the amazing-looking Mr. George Chakiris, Kym Karath (little Gretl from The Sound of Music film and also played one of Miss Day’s kids in some movie) and a couple of other folks who’d appeared in movies with her but the best was Christopher Olson, the fellow who played the son in The Man Who Knew Too Much.  After the show, they had a little partay in the lobby so we hung out for a while.  Here are two actual photographs from the after partay.  First, here’s a completely out of focus photograph of me, George Chakiris and Adryan Russ.

Image 1

Isn’t that a good out of focus photograph – personally taken by the out of focus Doug Haverty.  And here’s a photograph with the in focus Doug Haverty, me and the lovelier than lovely Michael Sterling, who also appeared in an episode of The Doris Day Show.  Anyway, a fun night.

Image

Prior to all that, I’d gotten nine and a half hours of blessed sleep, then had some very long telephonic conversations again, then I did a one and a half mile jog (it was just too darn hot to go any further), did some work on the computer, then moseyed on over to the mail place to pick up one package, then ate then saw the show.

Today, I have some writing to do, we have to make just a couple of adjustments to our next release’s packaging and then that will be approved, I’ll jog, I’ll eat, and then I go to the engineer’s and we do the little fixes we need to do, which shouldn’t really take more than thirty minutes or so.  Then all that will remain is our final pick-up session date on August 9, and then we can put this puppy to bed.

Tomorrow is more of the same plus a little meeting in the afternoon, then Saturday is, I hope, completely free, and Sunday I may be seeing Bye Bye Birdie out at Cabrillo – I know at least one person in the cast so I’m sure that will be fun.  Then on Monday we begin a very busy week with Kritzerland rehearsals and lots o’ other stuff.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the thing I do, I must, for example, write, jog, eat and mix.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films and songs of Miss Doris Day?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I will lull myself to sleep by singing my favorite Doris Day song, Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).

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