Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish after a fairly pleasant day of doing fairly pleasant things in a fairly pleasant way. I thought it was going to be mostly a restful day but that didn’t quite pan out as there was stuff that needed to be done so I damn well did it – pleasantly. I got up at eleven after almost eight hours of sleep. I didn’t get to bed until after three because I decided to finish watching 11.22.63. I can’t say I loved it, although it held my interest certainly. But there was too much repetition, to much of TV 101 screenwriting (ala J.J. Abrams) – you know, all about those act breaks. There was one character who I found completely irritating and both he and the central character act so stupidly at times it just almost ruins the movie. And after I read up a bit it seems the central character NEVER acts stupidly in the novel and the character who was irritating isn’t a sidekick character as he is in the movie, he’s only in one section of the book – that would be much better.
I also don’t understand the “wisdom” of having different writers for several episodes, nor different directors – I should think one writer vision and one director vision and style would be much preferable. There are some rather silly things like having a character use a Hefty bag to trash stuff in 1963 – while they existed, no one used them back then. From what I’ve read, there were characters added, situations added, lots of stuff left out, you know, typical Hollywood horse pucky, this time courtesy of Hulu of all places. The handprint of J.J. Abrams is all over this, and that’s a problem. I find him so very uninteresting, and that includes his bombastic main title “theme,” which only appears in the main titles, so leave the damn music to the composer. The cast is hit and miss. James Franco is okay but he keeps having to play the same beats over and over again. The real casting coup of the film is the actor who plays Lee Harvey Oswald – it’s some Brit (the Americans do love to use Brits in American roles, don’t they), but he has Oswald down perfectly – it’s a jaw-dropper really. He looks just like him, has the voice down – just great. The lead gal is good, the irritating character is played by an actor from that movie Sunshine on Leith or whatever it was called – didn’t like him much in that either. Chris Cooper is always excellent, and some in the large supporting cast give fine performances. The score is okay (at certain points it’s very obvious what they temp-tracked it with), it’s nicely shot and the art direction by David Cronenberg regular Carol Spier is wonderful. But having read what most of the changes are, it would have been better in other writer hands. Of course, Mr. King was the executive producer. What history has taught us, however, is that it’s best for Mr. King to be far away from any project based on one of his books. I may just give in to temptation and tackle the 800 page behemoth. I don’t write again until January and I haven’t even given a thought as to what that’s going to be. It could be another Hofstetter book or it could be something completely new. Anway, if you, like me, like time travel stories, you might get a little enjoyment out of this, but it’s a shame they didn’t remain truer to the book
I cannot tell you how calming and wonderful it is to listen to all this Vladimir Cosma music. There are a few CDs that aren’t to my liking and I just delete that stuff and leave the pretty and symphonic stuff. But I digress. Did you see I digressed? Where was I? Oh, yeah, pleasant yesterday.
Once up, I answered a lot of e-mails about the benefit, I went and had some chicken tenders (checked calories before doing so, and five tenders, which is what they serve at Jerry’s Deli, have under five hundred calories. I added two hundred calories on top of the five hundred just to be safe. Then I finished all the exits and entrances diagrams so that’s all out of the way. One problem we will have two or three times is getting the three wireless mics on stands to their downstage positions. One time I have the cast member doing it. But the tricky one is after the big tap dancing opening number. But I thought of something really cute to do, and we’re going to do it. The number will finish, in the middle of the applause the drummer will do a little drum fill and we’ll repeat the last eight bars as the cast exits save for three tappers who will bring the three mics to their most downstage marks while tapping. That should be a fun visual.
I had a few telephonic calls, did some other stuff on the computer, and decided I didn’t feel like watching anything. So, I just sort of zoned out, listened to music, and occasionally answered an e-mail and cast the role of General Mills for our staged concert of The Brain. Oh, and someone sent me this adorable photograph from our rehearsal with the kids the other day. I think even in this photo you can see I’ve lost fifteen pounds – although that should be eighteen by show day.
These kids are all super talented. At some point I made some of them little mini-tacos to get my calorie count up to 1000.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, I’ll jog, and then relax until the arrival of Hayley Mills and Richard Sherman. I’m thinking this will be a very fun afternoon. Unfortunately, Hayley is not coming to dinner at the Smoke House – she has to go see friends of hers that she can only see tonight, as they’re leaving down the next day. So, the other folks who are here and I will go to the Smoke House for a nice little meal before the crazy show day. That will be nice.
Tomorrow I’ll be up super early and I’ll do a jog of some sort, just because I feel I must. Then I’ll get ready, then be on my way to the Pasadena Playhouse for my nine o’clock call time. I will immediately begin working with my lighting/tech guy to write the light cues for the show. That should take about two hours or so. Then our band arrives at noon and we start our hours of sound checks at one. I get no real breaks until around seven, when my stuff is done, then I’ll go visit folks in the courtyard, then go backstage and hang with my cast for a bit before taking my seat. I have a few guests coming.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, do a jog, relax, and then have a brief rehearsal with Richard Sherman and Hayley Mills followed by a meal at the Smoke House. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, as I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall hopefully have fairly pleasant dreams.