Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle hitting an otter with a baseball bat made of fried goat cheese. What? That is surreal even by my standards, dear readers. What can I tell you about yesterday that already hasn’t been said by pundits around the world? Well, I can tell you I got eight hours of sleep, for starters.
I can tell you I answered e-mails, had telephonic calls, then went and had a breakfast burrito for my meal o’ the day. I can tell you I picked up two packages, neither of which contained a baseball bat made of fried goat cheese. Then I spent several hours working on the script of the Sherman Brothers musical, getting another fifteen pages done and smoothed out, adding a line here and there, giving clarity here and there, and removing all doubt about exactly where scenes take place and how they take place. Characters tend to appear out of nowhere, conveniently get some information, then use that information to try and bilk our hero, without even having ever seen him before. I fixed all that up and I think it will at least work for an audience. I am now in the final fifteen pages of act one, all of which takes place in one location but seemingly has about 100 cast members that I have to whittle down to about twenty-two. It’s unwieldy but getting there bit by bit.
After all that, I got ready to have our additional day of auditions for our leading character in Dial ‘M’ for Murder. It’s a really hard role to cast – a Brit who’s charming, sly, devious, and who carries the entire show. We’ve only seen one real Brit and he wasn’t right for it at all. We also had one actor come in who had a great accent – unfortunately it was a great cockney accent and I don’t think having Alfred P. Doolittle as the lead in a murder play is a good idea. So, of all the folks we saw, there’s only one real possibility. We’re seeing two more people tomorrow and then I’ll have to decide if I can make a decision. If I decide I can’t decide then we’ll try and see more folks.
After the auditions, I did a quick Rite Aid stop, then came home. It was already after eight, so I didn’t feel like watching anything so I listened to music and made some little notes on the Sherman Brothers script, so I’d have a place to start from today. This is probably the last day I can work on it for several weeks, because there’s too much to do on the shows that are coming up right now. I also have cast three of the five Kritzerland cast members, so two to go and a guest star. I’m making this an all-female show, which I think will really be fun.
Today, I’ll eat, hopefully pick up packages, do more work on the Sherman Brothers script, then see a couple more actors for Dial ‘M’ and probably watch a motion picture of some sort.
Tomorrow I begin the serious prepping of the musical I’m directing. I’ll be picking up the latest draft of the script that our general manager is printing out, so I can begin making notes and getting ideas for staging, transitions, and what not. Friday I’m meeting with Kay Cole (changed from the previously scheduled Saturday), Saturday I’m seeing a reading of the first act of a new musical and also on all those days I’ll be prepping. Then I’m also going to be prepping the Dial ‘M’ script so that’s all ready to go. And then we’re straight into rehearsals for the musical – six days a week, six hours a day.
Here are a couple more videos for your mental delectation. First, here’s Sami doing my song When You’re Waiting for Love – it’s kind of cute with someone young doing it.
Here’s Jean Louisa Kelly having a blast singing If I Can’t Take It With Me, a cut song from Goldilocks.
Finally, here’s li’l ol’ me filling in for Guy Haines, singing one of his signature songs, Evening Star, cut from 110 In the Shade. This is the song that has never worked until I asked (relentlessly) Harvey Schmidt to write me a bridge – he did, and it’s a beauty, and then we coerced Tom Jones into writing the lyric for it. The recording came out and the song finally worked – and it’s now included in every production of the show. That’s a happy ending.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, hopefully pick up packages, work on a script, audition a couple of actors, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall contemplate not only my navel, but a baseball bat made of fried goat cheese.