Well, dear readers, it is late and I must therefore write these here notes in a hurry whilst my tummy full of Casa Vega foodstuffs tries to digest. You may be wondering why I, BK, would eat a big meal this late so I’ll just tell you why since I don’t like to leave any dear readers in the dark, why-wise. I ate a big meal this late because a) I’d only had a small sandwich at noon, and b) because the show I saw, with intermission, ran a whopping three hours and ten minutes. As denizens of this here site know, I feel that rare is the show that can sustain itself for that long and certainly the show I saw isn’t one of them. On Broadway, if memory serves, this same show ran about two hours and forty minutes with intermission. That’s still too long for most shows but it didn’t kill the experience for me. I don’t do shows that run longer than two hours – I just won’t do it. Li’l Abner in its original form runs over two-and-a-half hours because its original director was also its choreographer and there were a lot of long dance sequences in a show that’s a comedy. In my production, the show ran exactly two hours because I insisted on that kind of pace and because I knew what to do with the show to get it down to that length, which is more along the lines of what the film runs. But this is especially true for a show that caters to kids. It was fun to see our very own Juliana A. Hansen playing Mary Poppins and she did a fine job. But the fact is, I just don’t love the show itself. For me, it comes alive whenever there’s a Sherman Brothers song and it dies when it’s the other songwriters. Plus the book scenes go on forever. Another pet peeve of mine happened during the curtain calls. It seems that every Broadway show or any musical anywhere has bows where the audience, instead of actually giving the performers normal applause has audiences clapping in rhythm, which is totally unfair to the actors and really quite stupid. Much of that is based on the music they choose to score the bows, which encourages that stupidity. Normally it changes to real applause when the leads come out. And then comes the icing where they all, after getting their bows, must repeat ad nauseum an entire musical number to gild that lily even more. It’s shameless and obnoxious, in my opinion. I devise curtain calls and the music used so that it is absolutely impossible for the audience to clap in rhythm – I take some delight in doing it, actually, and I’m pretty good at it. I want my actors to get the real applause they deserve. For The Brain from Planet X, which had choreographed bows set to music, the music changed each time a new person came out, thereby making it impossible to clap in rhythm. For What If, there was only perfunctory music in the bows. For Pure Imagination it was that song, which is not conducive to clapping in rhythm. In Li’l Abner I’m not sure I had music at all, but if I did it was some piece where it wasn’t possible to clap in rhythm and for Inside Out, it was the same. But Broadway has become cheap and gaudy like Vegas. Alas and alack. End of rant.
Yesterday, I only slept about seven hours, I answered e-mails and then it was time for the work session for the Kritzerland show. With John Boswell, that part of the process goes very quickly and we did everything we needed to do in about forty minutes. I then went and had a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich and no fries or onion rings. After that, I had a few telephonic calls, then did some writing, some finessing of the commentary and I finished watching Blood and Black Lace. As I said, it was a very influential film and I enjoy its pleasures and its styles, but it’s simply not, for me anyway, a classic. The transfer is excellent – there’s a lot of the usual stuff and nonsense based on screen caps, but I think we know where we can file those comments. Then I was on my way to see the show.
There was almost no traffic, which was nice. I saw the show’s choreographer and my pal Cheryl Baxter-Ratliff, musical director and frequent Kritzerlander Lloyd Cooper and his lovely wife Barbara, and Barry Pearl and his ever-lovin’ Cindy. After, I saw Juliana, of course, and said hey to a few of the ensemble, all of whom had done the ALS benefit earlier in the week. A nicer group of kids you won’t meet. Then it was on to Casa Vega and a beef taco and a cheese enchilada.
Today, I’d love to sleep in but we have an earlier than usual Sami work session at eleven. That will last a couple of hours and then I’ll go eat something, hopefully pick up some packages, set up the book signing for the second week of May, and then relax.
Tomorrow we have our Sami rehearsal, which will go as long as it needs to, then I’ll eat and watch the latest Mad Men. Monday we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal and after that we have the private reading of the one-girl musical. That’s an informal thing and whatever happens will happen, but it’s basically for me to hear it all together in front of a group of friendly folks, just to see if there’s anything I feel isn’t working in terms of structure and if there’s anything that feels awkward. I’m really not doing it for comments, and I will let everyone know that. I won’t mind private comments after the workshop but not before. The rest of the week is Kritzerland rehearsals and meetings and meals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a rehearsal, eat, hopefully pick up packages, set up a signing and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What in musical theater today irritates you the absolute most? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall take curtain calls with no clapping in rhythm.