Well, dear readers, this week has flown by, like a gazelle having a relationship with an Easter bunny, resulting in a gaily-colored egg. Are you all painting your gaily-colored eggs for Easter? I don’t even understand Easter, frankly, in terms of when it occurs. Last year, for example, it was on April 20. That is why I had no reason to think doing our Kritzerland show on April 5 would be a problem. And yet, some idiot holiday person decides that THIS year Easter should be two-and-a-half weeks earlier than last year. Say what? So, we’re struggling to fill the room, which is really irritating – we haven’t struggled to fill the room for a Kritzerland show since we were at the Gardenia. People use Easter as the excuse, only there are also Jews who aren’t coming. Say what? Note to Jews: Get off your Easter high horse. Also, Easter is normally celebrated in the daytime with an early meal. So, do that if you must, then come to our show. But people become stubborn and willful on Easter. They just dig in their little bunny heels and won’t do it. Anyway, if we get another ten people or so, we’ll have a nice crowd – not full, but two-thirds.
Yesterday was a very long and involved day, which was also very involved and long. It began with a meeting at the Pasadena Playhouse for the ALS benefit. I discussed my needs for the stage and sound and lights, and then everyone else discussed their various and sundried things, then we all moseyed on down to the stage and talked about this and that and also that and this. Then I had a small window of time to grab a cup of soup and some chicken tenders. Then I picked up a couple of packages, including some fun stuff for people who ordered the new book through Kritzerland. Then it was time for our second Kritzerland rehearsal.
Our second Kritzerland rehearsal was pretty smooth, with everyone pretty much off-book, which is what we like. It’s such a fun show and such a good cast. And Sami really buckled down, Winsocki, did her homework and was really good. I gave a few notes to everyone and they’ll have until the stumble-through to work their material. JoAnne Worley joined us, and she did her two songs, I Got Rhythm, which is fall out of your chair funny, and a song called Vodka, which is equally fall out of your chair funny. They don’t make ‘em like JoAnne Worley anymore. And little ten-year-old Hadley Miller was socko – I’d given her lots of notes and staging things, and she came back and nailed it all – I’ll just say she’s doing Dance Ten, Looks Three from A Chorus Line, with some specially crafted parody lyrics by yours truly. She really wanted to sing the song and we even thought about letting her do it as written, just because we’re all about that, but in the end it was more fun to adjust a few things. After that, everyone left and I had to run to another meeting.
That meeting was at the Group Rep theater and may or may not result in my directing a show for them next year. I have something very specific I want to do and they do seem keen on it – it’s a question of making it work for their season, so the decision is in their hands.
Then I came home and wrote more of the monologue I’m working on – most of these monologues are a page to a page and a half, but this one’s going to be a little epic and will probably run three or four pages. I’m glad I don’t have to learn this stuff. After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled First Men In the Moon, one of those Ray Harryhausen affairs. Interestingly, I never saw it as a kid, and I don’t have a clew as to why, since I saw every other Harryhausen movie from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad on. I finally saw it on DVD and didn’t really care for it much, other than a handful of fun sequences. The Blu-ray is spectacular – a brilliant transfer, so the film is already more enjoyable on that level alone, but in the end it’s just not top-tier Harryhausen. But if you like this film you will not ever see a better transfer of it.
I then read through my commentary, made some futzes and fixes and it’s now locked. The I relaxed a bit.
Today, I’m hoping will basically be a ME day. I’m doing a Costco run in the morning, then I’ll eat, hopefully pick up packages, do a little writing, then at four-thirty I’ll have a very brief work session to do some arranging work on Juliana Hansen’s song for the ALS benefit. Then I’ll just sit like so much fish and relax.
Tomorrow, she of the Evil Eye comes, so I’ll do a little jog, do some errands and whatnot, then we have our stumble-through and then some of us will go have a bite to eat. I’ll be in relaxing for the evening. Sunday, I’ll jog, relax, then go to sound check and then it’s the show. Next week and the week after is all ALS stuff – rehearsals, meetings, writing patter and all that jazz.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a Costco run, eat, hopefully pick up packages, write, have a brief work session, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, endless things. Blu and Ray, I’ll finish The Tales of Hoffman. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall ponder why the holiday people decided that Easter needed to be two-and-a-half weeks early this year.