Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Sterling’s 48 has immediately entered my pantheon of great Kritzerland shows. I do think people love the shows where we do a lot of rarer material and last night’s show was certainly one of those. But I can always instantly tell how good and vocal an audience will be within the first minute of my patter, and this audience was REALLY vocal right off the bat. All the patter humor worked fantastically well, which always makes me very happy. In fact, I did the get the loudest laugh I have ever gotten in a Kritzerland show, and it was from a line whose humor I didn’t quite realize had two laughs built into the same line. That just made me deliriously happy. As to the show, it was just one highlight after another – loads of laughs, some tears for some of the ballads, and all the singers just doing a bang-up job with their material. Dan Callaway and Shannon Warne were delightfully delightful with They’re Playing Our Song, and Dan’s two solos brought the house down. Shannon killed with The Alto’s Lament and I’m in love and obsessed with her other solo, Take It From the Top, a classic Coleman and Leigh song. Newcomer Jennifer Kranz did a great job on her three songs. Lisa Livesay who, along with Dan, is moving East in a few weeks (and boy will we miss them – happily both will be doing some of the New York shows), did her customary beautiful job – adorable on Bouncing Back for More/Hey, Look Me Over, and heartbreaking on The Ballad of the Sad Young Men and simple and heartfelt on Old Friend. Heather Lee – well, she just stopped the show cold on her three numbers. No one has ever seen or will ever see again I’ve Gotta Crow done as Heather did it. She had a stuffed crow with her and sang it as I Got a Crow and it was just brilliant. Her second number, which I did with her, was My Favorite Year’s Funny/The Duck Joke and it could not have gone better. We were like George and Gracie. And she was raunchy and hilarious with Twenty-Four Hours of Lovin’. Kay Cole was pure magic doing Witchcraft and The Best Is Yet to Come. And I had grand fun doing Firefly. Tom Griep did a great job at the piano, and, of course, we couldn’t do these shows without our mighty co-producer Adryan Russ. And I always must commend Michael Sterling and The Federal itself, for being the best club in town. Here are some photographs. First is a group photograph – left to right are Adryan Russ, me, Heather Lee, Jennifer Kranz, Dan Callaway, Lisa Livesay, Tom Griep and Shannon Warne, and our guest star Kay Cole.
Next we have the group again, this time after I’ve brought them all back at the end of the show and just before we did our sing-a-long to Young at Heart. Left to right are Heather Lee, Kay Cole, Jennifer Kranz, Dan Callaway, Shannon Warne, Lisa Livesay and little ol’ me.
Finally, just to tantalize you, here is Heather Lee and her feathred friend.
Prior to the show, I’d happily and miraculously gotten ten hours of blessed sleep. I did a two-mile jog, and then just relaxed and listened to some music, until it was time to leave for the sound check. I had my usual artichoke before the show, and then after the show some of us went ot our usual haunt, Little Toni’s, where I had a salami sub and a salad and no pizza. Then I came home.
Today, I shall be up at six in the morning to announce our latest title, and it’s a classic and I would not wait too too long to order. It’s a world premiere release of two scores on one CD – two John Ford films starring John Wayne – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Donovan’s Reef, two late Ford films that I happen to love. The music is by Cyril J. Mockridge and is terrific. Here are the covers for both scores.
Hopefully I’ll print out a LOT of orders, and my other chore for the day is to finish choosing songs for the September fourth anniversary show and gathering the music. We’ll be doing some of our What If songs because hard to believe that revue is celebrating its tenth anniversary this very month. The rest of the week is meetings and meals and seeing shows.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce our new title, maybe go back to sleep, hopefully print out a lot of orders, jog, eat, and choose songs. Today’s topic of discussion: Frozen dinners. I know we all have probably eaten our share of them – my parents use to buy them and I was always intrigued with them until I actually had to eat the food, which, in those days was pretty wretched – the Swanson TV dinners. But over the years I’ve actually had a few good ones, so what are your least favorites and the ones you actually liked? And what was the very first frozen dinner you ever ate? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall arise and announce our new CD.