Well, dear readers, it is late and I must write these here notes in a hurry due to lack of sleep from a restless night. I hate lack of sleep due to a restless night. I hate a restless night. I hate a lack of sleep. Put them all together they spell write some damn notes already. As you know, yesterday was our very first rehearsal for the LA show. That’s always a fun day, at least that’s the hope. I really like the kids in the show and having Robert Yacko and April Audia with them is icing on that. Are the students ready to open or sing at the Ahmanson? Of course not. The first few days of learning material are always going to be raw, but I have to tell you they were prepared, have been listening to the demos and their energy is just wonderful. And when they get it right, when they get the rhythm and interpretation and notes perfect, you can just see how happy they are and that’s why I love working on stuff like this. Sitting in on a music learning rehearsal, for me, is not that interesting, but I feel I should be there to give good energy and to answer any questions. We began with our opening number. Even though the first part of it is a solo, everyone learned the entire number, which is the easiest way to do it. This is the one they were most familiar with and it went very well – it’s all unison until the final note, when we have four-part harmony. We worked on it quite a bit (rhythms are tricky and it’s very wordy), but they were having fun and it sounded quite good by the end. It was the right thing to start with as it gave everyone confidence. Unfortunately, about six of our actors are being shared with another show so they’re going to have to play catch up like crazy, but we plunked out the melody and they’ll be able to work with that. The deal was we get them for an hour after their other rehearsal ends at seven. Well, our first day and that deal went right into the toilet and I wasn’t so happy about it. They were not released at seven and we didn’t have several at all. A couple with smaller roles managed to slip in and out, so at least they learned some stuff. I e-mailed the head of the department, because a deal is a deal and must be lived up to – sharing is sharing and that’s what we all agreed to and I can guarantee you if this was happening the other way around that director would be a lot more vocal about it than I’m being. So, hopefully that will be the first and last time we have to deal with it.
We moved on to the end of act one (there really aren’t that many group numbers in the show) – that one was much harder with very tricky intervals in the tune (mine), and they struggled with some of it, but our musical director was patient and we just drilled until they got it. The fact is, they really only sing the very end of it, but with everyone learning it I can call out solos easily because they’ll all know it. After that, we moved on to the only second act group number (in terms of singing). It took a while to get accustomed to the short phrases I wrote for this one – the tendency is to want to hold out final notes of phrases, but I wrote all of those notes shorter. It’s a fairly short piece as there’s a big monologue that weaves in and out of the song. They don’t sing the bridge at all – that’s a Robert Yacko solo. So, we just kept drilling it and it’s going to be very good. The first verse is only two men, the second verse they are joined by two more men and four women, and then the final verse is the full company. Our MD gave them some harmonies for the end, but I thought they were too busy, so we’ll simplify them today. At the end, we ran the finale version of the opening number – they like coming back to that because they’re already pretty secure on it.
I’d begun the rehearsal introducing our choreographer, showing a model of the set, and then telling a little history about the show and what we’ve been doing for the past four weeks in terms of our two readings and all the changes that we’ve been making. That all took the first fifteen minutes. My favorite thing was asking the men if anyone could safely do a drop kick like they do in wrestling, and one actor enthusiastically said yes, he was really good at it. We have a number about the Golden Age of Wrestling and so I know what he’ll be doing in it.
Prior to the rehearsal, I’d only gotten like five hours of sleep. Once up, I can’t even remember what I did. I know at some point I rerecorded the new Black Dahlia song, since I’d asked Adryan about adjusting two lines, which she was all for, so I wanted our sheet music guy to have a recording that matched the lyric sheet precisely. My voice was so trashed from the previous day’s singing this song relentlessly for twelve hours, but it came back a few hours later. At some point I shaved and showered, then went and had an omelet and a bagel, did some banking, got a new updated script Xeroxed for me, and came home. I had a couple of telephonic conversations, and then it was time to mosey on over to LACC for rehearsal. I got there a bit early so I could do an arrangement of the “new” Sherman Brothers song that’s gone into the show. That came out very well.
After rehearsal, I had a meeting for the ALS show, mostly discussing the talent we’re going after. We have some lofty ideas and we’re going to go after them in the next week and see who we can land. Once we have a couple of super A-listers, that will tell us where we go from there. We met at Paty’s Coffee Shop in Toluca Lake – I had a tiny dinner salad and a chicken Caesar wrap, both really good. Then I came home.
Today, I have stuff to do in the morning, then will have a brief visit with our very own Mr. Nick Redman. Our rehearsal doesn’t start till four-thirty tomorrow (that enables us to have our shared actors for a full ninety minutes), but I’ll mosey on over in that direction about one-thirty to avoid the traffic, then have a leisurely small meal and then I have to meet at LACC about the projections. Then we’ll rehearse. We have one more big group number to learn, then I’ll start figuring out who’s doing what solo numbers as we rehearse those. I’m not concerned about the teaching of those because we’ll do plunk tapes for them and they have the demos to hear and can do that work on their own. Our MD can also come early and stay later if folks want to work privately with him.
The rest of the week is more of the same. We’re trying to finish casting and get songs chosen for the May show by Thursday. Friday is a long rehearsal day, ten to four, and then I go directly to Calabasas for dinner and then to see Sami in The Addams Family. We don’t rehearse this first Saturday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do stuff, see Nick Redman, have a small meal (perhaps at House of Pies), meet about projections, and have our second music rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussions: Are there any May songs you like – do such songs even exist? I know about The Lusty Month of May, but others? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a lovelier than lovely first rehearsal.