Well, dear readers, for those who aren’t aware, it’s the weekend. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it’s the weekend and I don’t care who knows it. I know it, for example, and I don’t care that I know it. Now, I must write these here notes in a hurry because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and I will have to go do things until our noon o’clock rehearsal. So, I suppose that this is where one dives in, dives and Lazarus, because the two go hand in hand – oh, a Vaughan Williams reference.
Yesterday was certainly a day, I think we can give yesterday that. I got almost eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, did some work on the computer, and then at two Grant Geissman and I went to Barone’s for a nice meal. I decided to be a good boy – small salad with their amazing house dressing, and penne with one meatball and marina. It was really quite a medium-size portion – maybe four ounces of pasta, a small meatball and not very much sauce, so pretty calorie friendly. It was nice to sit and eat good food.
After that, I came home, did a few things, listened to a bit of music on Lyrita, and then moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up packages and mail, then put gas in the motor car – rather hideously gas prices are now over 4.00 a gallon and much as I know some don’t want to hear it, I think we know who we can thank for that. It is disgusting. Then I was on my way to the theatre for our six o’clock rehearsal. We were sans leading man so there was no way to really run anything, so I ran the opening number, we’ve had one kid out for three days due to illness, so we got him blocked into all the stuff he’d missed, and then I began at the top of the show and just ran some of the musical numbers along with smoothing out all of the scene changes – I think I finally understand how they all function now and I can always finesse when we have the actual moving panels. So, we just worked quite a few things and it was quite a nice rehearsal and I let everyone go thirty minutes early.
Then, in a moment of weakness, the devil made me stop at K’s Donuts, where I got the chocolate peanut butter thing. I came home, first had a bagel, as I hadn’t eaten one other thing since lunch, and then had the chocolate peanut butter thing, which was, as always, yummilicious. Then I relaxed and listened to more Lyrita music, the most interesting of which was the second symphony of Humphrey Searle, the man who wrote the film score to The Haunting, which I love. I have a box set of all the Searle symphonies conducted by Alun Francis, a conductor I don’t care for – I found none of them to my liking, and believe me I tried. Well, what a difference a great band and great conductor make. The version on Lyrita is the London Symphony Orchestra and the conductor is Joseph Krips. And it’s like hearing a whole different work and I quite liked it – it’s a weird symphony, nothing tonal about it ever, but just the sound world of it is very film music-like and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The companion symphonies are by Robert Still, a composer I’ve never heard of, and those two are short and sweet and quite wonderful, I thought.
Today, I’ll be up early, have a light breakfast, hopefully have a telephonic conversation with a potential gal for our show, and then we rehearse at noon o’clock. We’re supposed to go until five, but since we’re missing a couple of folks, I can’t see that happening, really. So, maybe until four – the other thing is we’re in the upstairs space so it’s much smaller and we won’t have our rolling chairs up there. I do think we’ll run stuff musically – that we can do and we can do the stuff with simple staging, too. But we haven’t had a music rehearsal in over two weeks, so that will be good to run that stuff. As soon as we wrap, I’ll head downtown to pick up something, and then I’ll immediately head home. Hoping traffic won’t be crazy. Then I can have the entire evening to myself, which will be wonderful.
Tomorrow is a day off, but I have to see a matinee – I wish I could stay home and rest, but alas. We’ll lunch near the theater and then I’ll come right home after so I can at least have the entire evening to myself. Monday we have a music rehearsal for the revue I’m directing, followed by our rehearsal at the theatre. Since this is the first night I will have a full cast, especially if I can lock down our new gal, we can do a rough full run-through of the show. Tuesday is another music rehearsal for the revue, then we’re off for our show. Wednesday we’re back and we’re going to either do a designer run that night or Friday night. Thursday, Kay Cole has an hour or ninety minutes to do clean-up for her two numbers, plus I’ll show her what I’ve done for the opening number, in case she wants to clean any of it up – same for the finale.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up early, have a light breakfast, have a rehearsal, pick up something downtown, come home, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Of all the shows you’ve seen, both plays and musicals, which of them had the best sets you’ve ever seen – ones that made your jaw drop, either because of sheer beauty, cleverness, or even simplicity? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that it’s the weekend and I don’t care who knows it.