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April 30, 2016:

THE DESIGNER RUN-THROUGH

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, we had our designer run-through yesterday and it went pretty well as designer run-throughs go. Prior to it we worked for three hours and almost got through the entire show – I stopped and started and cleaned up stuff as we went. Then the cast ate some pizzas we brought in, and then we began. Act one is just really good, I have to say. I never ever think about moving anything in that act – it’s all just about performances and smoothing out now. Like clockwork, it ran exactly fifty-four minutes. Act two, which had originally run 65 minutes when we first ran it, has come down to sixty, just in tightening up the pace – but sixty is still too long. And while the majority of the act plays very well, our new actor has a huge three-page monologue that he’s obviously just getting used to and reading from the page – when that’s down and we can find the rhythms and fun of it, it will be fine. There is a two-part sketch about two writers that my pal David Wechter wrote – it’s funny, but to completely work you kind of need two middle-aged males who really have that rhythm in their bones. But because of where I had to place it in the act to work, not only do I not have those types I only had two people available at all, due to what comes before and after. They’re both really good, but one is Norwegian and one is a gal and they’re both very young, so while it’s cute, it’s just not working as it should. I’ve thought about moving it but it’s really where it has to be. So, after watching it again, I began to think seriously about cutting it, which would bring the act down to fifty-seven minutes most likely, which I can live with and which will probably tighten by another minute or two.

What really got me thinking along those lines, though, was the Bruce Vilanch sketch, which follows a long sequence about the gay experience in LA from the 60s to now – a long monologue with a song that weaves in and out of it. I followed it with the Vilanch sketch, which was then followed by my song about the Sunset Strip, which is the final number of the show. The Vilanch sketch hasn’t been working well – it worked great when we did the private reading, but the casting is crucial. I finally put Robert Yacko into it doing the part he did in the reading – that really helped in terms of the rhythm, but equally important is the other role, the straight man, and I’ve changed that twice now and am about to change it again. The problem with Robert going into it is that he’s the focus of the gay sequence – those monologues are his – so it’s completely weird to go from that to him in this sketch. But as soon as I considered cutting the two-part sketch I thought I could move the Vilanch sketch to that part of the act – and that helped in all kinds of ways, at least on paper. The unknown at this point is whether going from the long gay sequence directly into the Sunset Strip song will work. The sequence ends with a huge choral anthem and I know the reaction will be big, but it’s not an ending to the show – it’s just not how I want it to end, whereas the Sunset Strip song is, in a way, a summation of everything I wanted the show to say. The hope is that because the song part of that long sequence is fairly short – just three thirty-second verses, that it won’t seem like to much music in a row. So, we’re going to try that on Monday and see how it feels – I’m praying it will make act two as solid as act one structurally. This is the fun and occasionally exasperating part of creating something new, especially a modular revue. After we finished, I gave some notes – we’re having a lot of lyric fumfers and line fumfers and I’m just trying to get everyone past that stuff so we can really now hone the performances.

After that, I braved the freeway, which wasn’t too too terrible. I went and had a cup of soup and a sandwich, then came home. I answered e-mails, but had a headache so I sat on my couch like so much fish and began watching some horrid thing on the Flix of Net, entitled Badge of Honor from last year. It is everything that’s wrong with filmmaking today – a terrible director who wouldn’t know a good angle if it hit him in the face, a horrible script by writers who couldn’t write an original scene if they tried and whose every word and action is from other movies, and a cast of, well, a cast. Martin Sheen is the name – he has two scenes – and since one of the producers is named Esteves, I’m guessing Mr. Sheen did it as a favor. The good news is that I fell asleep for an hour.

Then needing some mindless entertainment, I watched a movie entitled Firewall – not really about a firewall at all, actually, just another bank robbery/kidnapping the family and forcing the dad to do the crook’s bidding plot. But I always enjoy Harrison Ford and it was well made, so it was not an unpleasant two hours – not pleasant, exactly, but not unpleasant exactly.

Today, I must be up at eight-thirty, she of the Evil Eye will be here and I’ll mosey on over to LACC for a two-hour music rehearsal. Then I’ll come back to the Valley, hopefully pick up some packages, then get everything ready for our stumble-through at five. After that, I’m hoping some of us can get a bite to eat, and then I have to see if I’m up for seeing a play at the Group Rep Theater.

Tomorrow, I will just relax and do nothing until it’s time for sound check at four and then our show is at seven. It looks like we’ll have at least seventy people there and I’m thinking it will probably be closer to eighty, which is pretty full. I will, of course, have a full report. And then Monday through Thursday we do a run-through and cleanup every day, and I’ll be working specificity with the cast. They’re really doing a good job – just got to get the notes in the songs solid and all the talking memorized so we can actually do the work we need to.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a music rehearsal, hopefully pick up some packages, have a stumble-through, eat, and either see a play or stay home and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Harrison Ford? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a reasonable designer run-through.

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