Well, dear readers, we’ve done Kritzerland at Sterling’s 57 and it was a really fun show. As I’ve said many times, I can usually tell in the first minute how things will go in terms of audience reaction. In this show I had a really funny line right up front – it got a nice laugh, but really from only sort of mid-house to the back with just a smattering from the front, especially the front right. I’m sure the gentleman who was sitting there is just a stone face in life and is a very nice person, but he was just exuding the wrong kind of energy, so I had to really just tune out the front right side of the room, consciously. Once I did that, and I did it immediately, things were better, but I just sort of voraciously went after the laughs in the show, occasionally even improvising, which I rarely do. The big laughs were there and more frequent as we went on but every time I got up to do the next commentary it really was like having to grab everyone by the shirt and start from scratch. The show itself went very well, with our cast doing wonderful work throughout and our MD John Boswell perfect as always. I think we only had one lyric flub but it was really minor.
There were a lot of laughs when I set up the Gone With the Wind song we were doing – but then the history of that show is hilarious. And between verses I’d given Robert Yacko a line – as Boswell vamps, Robert said, “Frankly, John, I don’t give a damn.” After the song, I got up and improvised, “Be glad we didn’t do the “I Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Birthin’ Babies” song. It got a long and loud laugh and then I said there was, of course, no such song. When I sat back down, Richard Sherman leaned over to me and said about the Gone With the Wind song we’d just done, “That’s the worst song I’ve ever heard.” It was really funny.
We had a pretty full house with some fun folks in attendance. Barry Pearl and his ever-lovin’ Cindy, my pal Barbara Deutsch, who came with Udana Power, who just happened to play Melanie here in LA in Gone With the Wind, and who was also the original female lead in my musical Together Again. We also had my pal David Wechter, Shelley Markham, the Shermans, Marshall Harvey, actor Richard Herd and many others. In a fun bit of fun, I announced that Maddy Claire Parks is off to New York to star in The Fantasticks – it was scheduled to close but some benefactor came forth and it’s staying open and Maddy’s the new Louisa. So, we had three generations of Louisas with us – the original Louisa even before off-Broadway, Susan Watson (who also did the TV version), Maddy’s mom, Karen Culliver, and Maddy. Fun! Afterwards, a bunch of us went to Little Toni’s for our usual after show supper. I had linguini with butter and cheese, and everyone else had pizza. We had a lot of fun. Then I came home and had no time at all to relax.
Prior to that, I was up at eleven but stayed in bed till twelve-thirty just resting. Once up, I did some stuff on the computer, got ready and then went to The Federal for sound check.
Today, I have to go look at a rehearsal hall that we may use for the Welcome to My World workshop in three-and-a-half weeks. After that, I’ll eat, I suppose, even though I have a vague memory that I have some kind of dinner thing – but unless someone e-mails me, texts me or calls me, I don’t have a clew as to who it is. Hopefully I’ll pick up some packages and I’ll watch last night’s episode of Mad Men.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals. On Wednesday, I’m lunching with our very own Nick Redman and Jean Louisa Kelly, who’s signing some Blu-rays of The Fantasticks. Mostly I’ll be choosing songs for our next show and getting it cast.
The Kritzerland a GoGo campaign is now at 20% funded and a bit over $15,000 – this is very good from what I understand. We had the second $1,000 donor (we’ve also had one $2,500 donor), so hopefully this will keep growing. And speaking of benefactors, it really would be nice if one would step forth to advance the first 15K so we could actually lock up two projects right now. If you know anyone, send ‘em my way. As soon as we finish the campaign, they’d be the first to get their dough.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, visit a rehearsal studio, eat, hopefully pick up packages, choose songs and cast, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite songs of Leonard Bernstein and your favorite title songs from movies of Elmer Bernstein – the latter also has two Broadway musicals, How Now, Dow Jones and Merlin, so if you have any from those shows you like, list them, too. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun Kritzerland at Sterling’s 57.