Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Sterling’s 56 has come and gone and I must say it was a pretty magical and entertaining evening. Only a couple of lyric and melody flubs, but everyone on their A game. As I’ve said before, I can always tell how the audience is from the first joke, which is always about my being elderly and reading from the paper and what will happen if I don’t. The what will happen is a different joke in every show. So, when that laugh was huge, I knew our audience was great. Then everything in the opening patter got big laughs, especially the What If I used to demonstrate what the What If parodies are. For this show, I actually wrote a brand new one – didn’t finish it because I didn’t need to go to the end, but boy did they laugh. It was, What if Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, instead of writing West Side Story, had written The Sound of Music. And it goes something like this (to the tune of The Jets Song):
When you’re a nun
You’re a nun all the way
From your first morning prayer
To your last blessed day
When you’re a nun
You can’t be late to mass
You can’t sing on a hill
You’ll be out on your ass
Maria’s in doubt
She really can’t resolve it
The nun’s want her out
Because she is a problem and they can’t solve it
She meets the kids and the Captain Von Trapp
And the next thing you know they’re in love in a snap
What was really funny is that some in the audience started doing Jet finger snaps. That led us right into our opening number, the What If Bury Me a Little, which our very own Robert Yacko brought the house down with. Brittney Bertier, whose first Kritzerland show this was, scored big with her three songs, and she’ll definitely be back. Same with Dana Meller, especially her all-Russian I’m the Greatest Star. Yacko was also great on his April songs and hilarious with Pink Fish. Jenna Lea Rosen socked home her two numbers – normally I don’t really ever have to direct her much, but I did with these two numbers, and she was such a pro, taking everything, making it her own, and then delivering the goods. Sami did great – a couple of tiny melody flubs in her ballad, but it’s not an easy song. I will say that several people came up to me after the show and said that the song had them in tears, which means Sami did just the right thing with it. Her Prom song also went very well – we’re still in the early stages of finding this character and it will get better, but I think the audience got a kick out of it. It’s certainly one of the wordiest songs I’ve ever written, and it’s very difficult at times in terms of its music, with lots of note leaps that are a little nutty, and the manic quality of it would keep anyone on their toes. Hadley Belle Miller’s Dance Ten, Looks Three stopped the show cold – an amazing ovation afterwards. As I mentioned, I wrote a complete set of parody lyrics for it, and it just got laugh after huge laugh and she could not have done it better. I WILL have a video of it probably in tonight’s notes. And what can I say about the divoon JoAnne Worley? Hilarious, outrageous and a comedic gem. The audience devoured both her numbers. Alby Potts, our musical director (first time for him) did brilliantly. Here’s our wonderful cast. Left to right it’s Brittney Bertier, me, JoAnne Worley, Robert Yacko, Adryan Russ, Hadley Belle Miller (in front of Adryan), Sami Staitman, Jenna Lea Rosen, Alby Potts and Dana Meller.
And here’s Sami and me.
We had a wonderful crowd – not sold out, but considering it was Easter, very nice sized group of about seventy instead of our usual ninety to a hundred. We had Richard and Elizabeth Sherman with us, Kay Cole and her ever-lovin’ Michael Lamont, Barry Pearl and his ever-lovin’ Cindy, our Inside Out stage manager Victoria Chediak, Sandy Bainum, Doug Haverty and family, co-producer Adryan Russ and her ever-lovin’ Dale Cooke, singer Kevin Earley and so many others. It was just way too much fun. As a little evidence, here’s ten-year-old Hadley doing Dance Ten, Looks Three.
After the show, a bunch of us went to eat at Little Toni’s – Sami and I split some pasta with butter and we each had a piece of pizza. Others had pizza, cheesecake and ice cream. Then I came right home.
Prior to all that, I’d gotten around nine hours of blessed sleep, did a jog, and just relaxed until it was time for sound check.
Today, I’m having lunch with someone I haven’t seen in quite some time, Tammy Minoff. I’ll be choosing the songs for the next Kritzerland, which, as you might have guessed, is called Berlin to Rome – Irving Berlin and Harold Rome, who both have birthdays in May. We’re trying to cast it now and hopefully that will be complete by the end of the week. The rest of the week is ALS rehearsals, three Sami work sessions, and many meetings and meals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, have lunch, choose songs and relax a bit. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Eyetalian foods and meals? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that Kritzerland at Sterling’s 56 went so well.