Well, dear readers, yesterday we began blocking our little show. That’s always a very scary thing for me – I always feel I don’t have a clew as to how to even begin such a thing. I don’t plan in advance much either. So, we began the day by having everyone return to the places I’d kind of arbitrarily put them in the day before, and then I began adding to that and got everyone placed (thankfully, we had our full company for a little over an hour, which was very helpful). The show opens with Robert Yacko doing some narration (again, giving NOTHING away to those damn prying eyes who just can’t wait to rip off yet something else – note to prying eyes – go take a long walk off a short pier, baby, and you know who you are). My original plan was to have him do the entire first verse of the song solo, then bring everyone on. But as I said, there was something very appealing to me listening to the song with that full company of voices, so I made an instant decision to have them all enter to do the first verse. It was the right decision. So, now we get the narration, which is fun and funny, and then we get this big burst of people energy entering and going to where I’d placed them and then singing the first verse. They stay put for the first verse and there’s just one movement I gave them for one section. Then the second verse gets them to a new place. Then we go to yet a new place in the song and they go to a new place for that, then do the next verse back in their original places. Then we have a slow section and that’s a new thing. Then we reverse some moves to get back to where we were earlier, and then we finish the song with another burst of movement.
I work very methodically. I give the moves, watch it a few times, finesse, then move on, the same as I do when I write. And that goes on until I’ve finished. The whole thing took slightly over an hour to do and I had everyone until the very end, and then we had some bodies with us to cover those who left. The way the stage is, which is a V-shape, it took me a little time to get used to how to always include the side sections of seats. There’s a sweet spot of about forty or fifty seats, but you always have to make sure the sides are seeing people facing them and that they don’t have side views or back views for any length of time – it’s a little daunting, but once you’ve understood that trick, it works fine. Once that was done, we ran a couple of things vocally so I could make some decisions about who’s doing what. I’m almost finished with that part. Then I did a quick block-through of a solo song with one of our gals, and then I just dove into the big number about the gay experience in LA, then and now. The majority of that is Robert playing an older Brit looking back on his time since moving to LA. It’s a wonderfully written piece by Doug Haverty, and my song weaves in and out of it. He does the first part of his monologue, then the first verse of my song is just two men. After part two of his monologue, Another four people enter and join in the singing. Then Robert finishes his story, sings the bridge, and then the full company comes on to sing the anthem-like big finish. I got the whole thing blocked and it’s really quite good, I think – very simple, and very effective. Simple, for me, is always best. I leave smoke and mirrors to others. It’s amazing how good everyone sounds at this early stage.
Then I worked a bit with the gal who’ll be singing The Black Dahlia – we tried two different keys – as written and then a step lower and we both ended up liking where it sat as written – that’s very good because the accompaniment as I play it gets muddy a step lower. The cast has such good energy and they all seemingly love being there and learning the stuff.
Prior to rehearsal, I’d gotten eleven hours of sleep and I just can’t do that anymore no matter what. It takes me too long to get up to speed. The helper came by and got everything she needs to ship CDs tomorrow. Then I got ready, and then moseyed on over the hill and had lunch at Fred’s 62, a little coffee shop not far from House of Pies. It used to be really good, but then they changed up their menu and not really for the better. I had a fried chicken po’ boy that was okay and nothing more, and not very filling. It came with no french fries or anything. I shan’t be returning. That’s two down. I’ll look for some more eateries to try. There is Palermo, but I don’t want to eat that much heavy food before rehearsal. I just need a good sandwich jernt – maybe I’ll go back to the House of Pies and try a sandwich – a BLTA – hard to mess that up.
After rehearsal I came right home and ate some caramels and some licorice. I caught up on e-mails and such, we still have three more people to cast, too, but we’re getting there.
Today, I may be up quite early to do corrections on The Black Dahlia chart, which I got last night. I never understand why it’s so hard to get things right – we made a couple of lyric adjustments, and I made a new mp3 to reflect that and a slight change in the vamp I wrote. And yet that didn’t get sent to the guy who does the actual notation, so that stuff is, of course, wrong in the chart. It’s so silly and just more work for everyone. By early, I mean like six-thirty. Oy and vey. Then we have a production meeting at two and our rehearsal tomorrow begins at three and goes to seven. I’m supposed to have our full cast for a full two-and-a-half hours tomorrow and that will be great. We’ll review the opening number and the gay sequence, then move on to a quartet with four of the guys and that should take an hour or so, then I’ll do some of the blackouts and sketches. The nice thing about this show is the solos, of which there are many, are basically either standing still or doing some crosses – very simple stuff – and a couple are just sitting. Robert isn’t with us, so I’ll do stuff that doesn’t involve him at all. I’m hoping to get five or six things out of the way.
Tomorrow is our long day – ten to four, and my plan is to mostly tackle the big act one finale – that’s the biggest staging thing I have to do, and it has to be done very carefully and safely. I suspect it will take most of the day, and our “shared” actors will be coming in and out. After that, I go have dinner in Calabasas, and then see Sami’s show. Saturday and Sunday are finalizing the Kritzerland show and getting the event page up and running. Then next week our choreographer is with us for three days, then off, then back. She has about four things to do, but unfortunately we don’t have our shared actors at all until Thursday. So they will have a huge amount to catch up on, but frankly I think the choreographer will use who we have and put in the others later and not in prominent positions – I don’t see any other way.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, hopefully do chart corrections early in the morning so I can get the corrected chart to Lanny – it’s the final thing he has to orchestrate – and to the singer, then I’ll either grab a bite to eat around noon or, more likely, just eat after rehearsal, since we’re done at seven. Perhaps a visit to Astroburger or Genghis Cohen will be in order. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of all this gender malarkey? I am quite tired of reading “now” people using things like cisgender – I mean, really? I find all this BS incredibly boring and incredibly stupid. You? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a productive day of staging.