Well, dear readers, here I sit as the midnight hour approacheth, writingeth these hereth noteseth. What am I, Shakespeare all of a suddeneth? I have suffered some slings and arrows of outrageous fortune yesterday, but then, rather than get irritated, I merely said, “Let me play the fool” after which I sang What Kind of Fool Am I in the key of both F# and Gb (no mean feat). And then as the evening waned I said, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.” And as you know, I’m all about the last syllable of recorded time. I recorded a lot of time in my time of recording time. And occasionally I even recorded time at a petty pace and worked with some creeps. You know, if anyone has a clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about, you can pipe right up about now, because I have no clew at all.
Well, that was very Shakespearean, wasn’t it? Yesterday had a petty pace. I got eight hours of sleep, got up, did the usual morning stuff and was happy to see we’d inched up another percent in our Indiegogo campaign. And by day’s end we’d actually gotten up to 91%, so only 9% to go to our goal, then hopefully we can cover our Indiegogo and Paypal fees and then begin our stretch goal to a cast album. We’re down to our last Richard Sherman musical quote and once that’s gone I can’t ask him to do any more. But still, there are so many incredible perks left, so hopefully as we enter our last week tomorrow people will come in and grab them.
Then I went and picked up a package and some mail, including a twenty-dollar check from some class action lawsuit I was part of years ago, when I bought some kind of wacky pills that were supposed to help weight loss – it was nonsense of course, and a complete scam – I caught on right away, had a terse conversation with the scammers and got off their list, but I was put on the lawsuit as were thousands of others and today was the payoff. Interesting, huh? Then I went to Gelson’s and got some foodstuffs for yesterday and today. Then I came home.
Once home, I had some telephonic calls, and then I rustled up some Wacky Noodles (this time with penne rather than bow tie pasta) and some sautéed chicken bits. I ate it all up over the course of the afternoon, whilst doing some work on the computer. The one gal I was waiting on for Kritzerland can’t do it so now I have to go find someone who can, and we’re STILL waiting on our guy to tell us if he can work his schedule around us. What a pain, and meanwhile everyone else doesn’t get their material. I’m just gonna choose and send and then whoever comes in will get whatever’s left. Thank goodness the January show will be a breeze to cast, since it’s our all kids show. December is usually easy to. But after January I’m going to look at the Kritzerland shows long and hard. With all the imitators who’ve come along, it’s become a real pain in the butt cheeks, and after seven years and going into show 82, I just don’t know if I need this craziness every single month. I think we’ve created a record that may or may not ever be broken – seven years of monthly shows, with only three months missed in all that time, I think. I shall ponder, oh, yes, I shall ponder. If they were easier to cast I might continue, but I just can’t abide this casting nonsense month in and month out anymore. And I got an irritating e-mail that I deposited directly into the trash.
I listened to music, including the marvelous Marc Blitzstein opera of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, Regina. I don’t think I’d ever heard the entire thing before. But recently Sony let Arkiv release the opera as a CD-R on demand thing and I bought it last year and never got around to playing it. It’s tuneful, occasionally very Broadway and musical comedy, with more spoken bits than is usual in an opera, with superb singing, wonderful orchestrations and great Columbia stereo sound. I’m wondering if I have the later recording by John Mauceri – I know I have Street Scene, which I’ll find today and play, and I think I recalled seeing Regina alongside it on one of the many CD excavations in the hall closet. Anyway, I like Mr. Blitzstein’s music very much. In fact, after Regina I listened to his piano concerto, which is interesting but not great, and then his Airborne Symphony for narrator, chorus, soloists, and orchestra, the first recording Bernstein did when he premiered it in the 1940s. It’s an overwrought bit of wackiness, but the music, the underscoring, is very good, and the tunes are good. The narration is way too bombastic, at least the narrator on THIS recording – Bernstein recorded it again in the 1960s with Orson Welles as narrator and I suspect that might be a little more down to earth.
I sat on my couch like so much fish and listened to a Mercury Living Presence SACD of two Rachmaninov piano concertos with Byron Janis and Antal Dorati conducting. The three-channel sound is mind-boggling and astonishing, like sitting in the front row of a concert hall while they’re recording it. The clarity and depth is actually breathtaking.
After that, it was back to the computer, a trip to the CD closet to find a few things, more telephonic conversations, and then relaxing.
Today will be more of the same, and hopefully we’ll find our two singers and I can get everyone their music so I don’t have to worry about that stuff this week. Today I’ll sautée the remaining chicken bits, rustle up the remaining penne pasta and put some butter on the pasta, put in the chicken bit, and that will be my meal o’ the day. I have some other stuff to do, but mostly I want to relax, maybe do a jog (I really must drop some pounds and soon), and then I’ll watch something.
Tomorrow I think I have a meeting with my set designer again, although I have to double-check that. I have lots of prep work to do with Levi, we have to get scripts printed for everyone, I’m hoping The Crucible will be ready to ship by the end of the week, and on Wednesday we begin music rehearsals for Levi. Very excited to begin our journey. And of course I will be all over the Indiegogo campaign to keep pushing us ever upward as we head towards the finish line. I think I may be seeing a show on Friday night, but that hasn’t been confirmed, and I’m hoping to have a little dinner with the Shermans on the weekend – I’d bring Genghis Cohen over – Richard really loves that food and I know it would make him happy to have it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do more of the same, hopefully find out two singers, finish choosing songs and get the singers we do have their music, eat, do stuff, and relax. 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, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall creep towards sleep in a Shakespearean way.