Well, dear readers, my goodness there were a lot of typos in yesterday’s notes – I write quickly and I don’t have time to proof. So, at some point I will start going back and cleaning them up, but I think the point always gets through the sometimes stupid and silly typos (sopyt, spelled backwards).
Yesterday was a wacky little day. I got seven hours of sleep, I think, and then had to have a somewhat unpleasant telephone meeting about Monday’s show. It’s very involved and sometimes complicated, but sometimes some people forget that I’m in charge of the show – I put the show together – I work in the stuff that has to be done for the charity – and on show day my word is law every step of the way. That’s the only way these shows can come off. We’ve rehearsed some but not all the numbers. I get there in the morning, write the light cues with our tech guy, and I have with me all the diagrams for the cast’s entrances and exits, which get passed out to not only the performers but the stage managers, sound people (the diagrams have what mics they go to), I make sure the stage is as it should be then at noon the band arrives and sets up and we begin our sound check at one. My job at that point is to make sure we run everything, that everyone understands there’s no time to really do things twice, make sure they know their entrances and exits and most importantly to keep the atmosphere light and free from tension. If the people handling the charity portion of things stick to their timetable as agreed and they stay out of my way then things go as smoothly as they can. But we have twenty-one acts to sound check and all of them need to get done. After the band goes on its dinner break, we run the couple of piano-only things with those performers and we have thirty minutes to run anything that happens at the podium with the teleprompter, and that includes the bit I wrote for Hayley and Richard.
That’s how the day began – I wrote the Richard and Hayley bit and we sent it to her. She really liked it, and in her first bit of patter she just added or changed a few random words so it was more in her voice, which I expected her to do. She didn’t change any of the back-and-forth patter with Richard, which is, I must say, really cute. Then we had this difficult phone meeting in which Juliana did most of the heavy lifting. There’s a portion of one of their bits that we’re all concerned about, in terms of its running long, but we’re just going to have to take the one person who will be in control of that bit at his word – and I’ll be having one more conversation with him on Monday pre-show, to go over all that one last time.
Then we pretty much finalized the script, I did a couple more exit and entrance diagrams, I did the two-and-a-half mile jog, then some friends came and we went to Hugo’s for some food. I had my usual items – small Caesar and pasta papa, all very good. After that, we came back here and they wanted to see The Manchurian Candidate, which I’d watched only a couple of weeks ago, but I could watch it every day, frankly. They’d never seen it and they were rather bowled over by it. Then one of them had, shockingly, never seen Singin’ in the Rain, so we ran that. What an absolutely brilliant film it is, especially in the direction of its musical numbers, which is all Gene Kelly. And that dancing – so perfect. And the humor is truly hilarious. I hadn’t seen it since the Blu-ray first came out and I have to say my opinion of the Blu-ray hasn’t changed – I don’t care for it at ALL. It’s too damn brown, and it doesn’t pop as that kind of Technicolor should. I had at various times four or five different IB Tech prints in 16mm and they were amazingly beautiful and saturated and absolutely not leaning towards brown and flat brown at that. I’m hoping Warners will revisit it at some point and do better.
After that, I watched another two episodes (if you call them that) of 11.22.63, which I’m still enjoying, even if it seems padded at times. Then again, the book is like 800 pages. I do love my time travel stories. I’ll finish it today.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. My plan is to get all the relaxing in that I can, but I do have to finish off the rest of the diagrams at some point during the day. I also have to choose a few more songs for the Kritzerland show. I’ll jog, I’ll eat, and I’ll watch the rest of the miniseries.
Tomorrow, I can relax until five, when Hayley Mills and Richard Sherman will arrive to rehearse their bit. Then if Hayley wants to, we’ll go to the Smoke House for a nice meal. Monday I’ll be up at six-thirty, I’ll jog, I’ll get ready, and then be on my way to the Pasadena Playhouse for a VERY long day and evening.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finish the diagrams, jog, eat, relax, and watch stuff. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite time travel stories – books, film, and TV? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we begin the official countdown to the benefit.