Well, dear readers, I’m afraid I have eaten a rather large amount of food yesterday. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I’m afraid I’ve eaten a rather large amount of food yesterday and there is nothing to be done about it. I’m told one can have a splurge day once a week and I guess yesterday was the splurge day. I’ve been pretty good for the last couple of weeks. Of course, Thursday is Genghis Cohen so that, too, will have to be a splurge day. I’ll try to be a really good boy until then and after then. Here’s how it all happened.
I woke up at five in the morning and didn’t fall back asleep until about six-thirty, and then woke up at nine-thirty, so I probably got six hours of sleep all told. The helper was here at ten and she got all the Jane Eyre CDs shipped out. Then I answered e-mails, had telephonic conversations, and after that I went and had a Chinese chicken salad and a bagel. Had that been the end of it, I would have been fine.
After that, I moseyed on over to LACC for our rehearsal. I had a brief meeting prior to it with the head of the department, and that was very fun, actually. Then we began our run-through at three. It was not easy as they were putting in new chairs and risers while we were working due to some miscommunication. We had a few line and lyric fumfers and the act ran about a minute longer than it has due to those. Still, act one just feels really, really good to me. The end of the act is so risky but I just love it.
One of our actors, despite my warnings, got sick – it happened after the Kritzerland show – she woke up feeling bad, and of course it’s due to several of her cast mates from the other show being sick. I told everyone in the cast they had to go buy Sambucol and I’ll bring in some Airborne for them, too. We cannot have sickness running throughout this company. I felt bad for her, but she was a good egg and got through the run-through.
Act two worked better with the cut sketch gone but there were way too many forgotten lines and lyrics and we have to get over that hump right now. Still, the act came in at fifty-eight minutes, so we’ve lost seven minutes so far from last week, and most of those came from tightening the pace. We still have to get at least another three minutes out of the act. I have one more cut I can make and if I do it we’ll lose five minutes, which would be fine. I don’t want to make that cut, really, but it’s now wholly dependent on the actor, who just came into the show a few days ago, being able to master and learn a three-page monologue and make it work the way it needs to. But the order is feeling pretty good now and we just have to find the act’s internal energy and momentum – we’ve absolutely found it for act one and act two just isn’t quite there yet.
After rehearsal, I drove two of our cast members home to the Valley so they wouldn’t have to take the metro and then an Uber – these kids don’t have oodles of money so if I can be helpful in that way, I’m happy to. I was really hungry, though, so I just decided to go to The Smoke House and I knew they’d love to have a good meal so we all went. And boy was it a good meal. I had their yummilicious fish and chips and a cup of clam chowder and a couple of pieces of the garlic cheese bread. They both had fish dishes. It was fun, and I got to hear about what they’ve been doing at LACC and their adventures in the world of high school show choir. It was too much food, but it was GOOD eatin’. After, I dropped them at their homes (they live just five minutes from each other) and then I came home.
I caught up on e-mails, downloaded some videos, which I’ll get up on You Tube tomorrow night at some point.
Today, I have an eleven-thirty phone meeting about the ALS benefit, then I have a one o’clock meeting with my set designer to talk about the projections and how they’ll function. Then we have a run-through, but we won’t be in our theater, we’ll be on the main stage, which has been taped out for us. They’re loading in the rest of the risers and set and the lighting and getting everything prepared. At six the cast can go back to the theater for their final hour to work with Cheryl on the dances. I’ll be attending our band rehearsal, which I’m really excited about. I’m not sure when I’m supposed to eat or where, but I’ll figure it out.
Tomorrow is another run-through on the main stage, then we have our sitzprobe at six. Thursday is our final run-through before tech on Friday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a phone meeting, have a meeting about projections, do a run-through, and attend a band rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the most amount of food you’ve ever eaten in one day? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping the splurge day didn’t do too much damage.