Well, dear readers, our second Kritzerland rehearsal was quite good and everyone is doing well, save for Guy Haines’ continually forgetting about three lines of lyrics in one song. I’m sure he’ll get them, but I had to bitch-slap him really hard. And we had Grant Geissman with us, and Guy is hugely lucky that Grant is also playing on Guy’s two solo songs. Grant also played his solo and that’s pretty damn great. The musical director is doing fine and I do love our cast – such great voices and each person unique unto themselves. So that was really fun.
Prior to that I’d gotten up early and arrived at the Magic Castle by 9:45 to see a table reading of a musical. This isn’t exactly a “new” musical – it’s been around for over thirty years, but it’s a new version. It’s by my dear Richard M. Sherman and Milt Larsen. It’s a strange concept and while some of the songs are fun, the plot and characters need a lot of fixing, but that’s the way it goes in a musical – it’s one of the hardest of all theatrical forms to get right because there are so many parts to the motor and each has to be in synch with the other. It has occasionally eluded the most talented of writers. I’ll be lunching with Richard and Milt next week as they’re interested to hear my thoughts. I knew a few people in the reading, including Juliana Hansen, Oliviana Marie (daughter of Tom Griep and Evelyn Halus – Evelyn was also in it), JoAnn Worley, and a few others. I didn’t really know anyone else other than Cathy Rigby who was also viewing it. We had a nice chat. I had to come right home from the rehearsal.
And then I had to leave as soon as rehearsal was done to go to LACC for our pick-up horn session. John, my engineer, was already there and so were the musicians – in fact, everything was ready to go by about six-fifteen. I thought it could take up to four hours since we had to record every song (well, they don’t play on EVERY song), but we did it all in a little over two-and-a-half hours. Not only that, but a lot of stuff we took out of Lanny’s orchestrations because we didn’t have enough control over the band in our small theater and it was just getting in the way of the singers, we were able to restore – about 80% of that stuff, so Lanny should be very happy about that, and the stuff sounds great because we have control of the levels now. Anyway, it was a fun session during which we had fun. Richard Allen, our MD, was there to conduct and that, too, was very helpful and helped move things along.
After that, I stopped at Gelson’s and got a tiny thing of mac-and-cheese, a could of drumettes, a really small salad with red wine vinegar for the dressing – earlier I’d only had two bagels to tide me over. I had a lot of catching up to do, lots of e-mails to respond to, and then I relaxed a bit.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, and then I’m just relaxing, taking care of my voice, and taking the usual precautions so I won’t get sick. Keep sending excellent vibes and xylophones that I will remain healthy. I’ll eat, hopefully pick up packages, then the helper is coming over and we’re going to start the insane but necessary task of going through the sixty or seventy boxes in the garage – it’s my intention to do what we did with the storage facility – just throw out anything and everything I don’t need. I’ve got four or five boxes of VHS tapes – honestly, goodbye Charlie. But anything that can go will go, and I’m hopeful to find a couple of things I need to find. After that, I will watch a motion picture or two.
Tomorrow is our stumble-through – up until we begin that I’ll relax and maybe even jog, which I really need to do. After the stumble-through I’m sure some of us will get something to eat. Sunday is sound check and show and I will, of course, have a full report for you.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, relax, eat, hopefully pick up packages, go through boxes, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, have no idea. Blu-ray, The World According to Garp. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a successful pick-up session.