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November 25, 2018:

THE TWO-SHOW DAY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, we had us a two-show day yesterday, and by that I mean we did two shows in one day as opposed to doing two days in one show.  We began with our matinee – normally this theatre doesn’t do Saturday matinees and normally we would have had a show Friday night, but one of our actors had a trip planned that would not return them in time, so we switched it up.  We also knew that filling houses on Thanksgiving weekend was probably not going to happen.  And it didn’t.  But the result wasn’t horrible – at one point early last week we had about five reservations for the matinee and not much more for the evening.  Happily, we ended up with around thirty-five to forty people at each show.

The matinee audience was completely quiet save for the applause at the end of numbers, which was always healthy.  Considering we’d have five days off the show was in really good shape, we had no lyric fumfers at all, a first for our show, and the actors were all on top of it all the way, including our wonderful leading lady who’d gotten a cold on Friday, but had rested, taken all her preventatives, including the miracle Sambucol, and got through two performances like a trouper.  She’s literally off the stage once in the entire show, for about six minutes, and that’s in the first fifteen minutes of the show.  She never stops talking, has some pretty taxing numbers to sing.  I was mightily impressed, I must say.  Quiet audiences baffle me, frankly.  I mean, after the show every single person came up to me and told me they’d had a great time.  I wanted to say, “Gee (or GEE), when I have a great time I usally show it – you know, laugh, smile, whatever.”  But I know this is a phenomenon like no other because in my acting days I played some pretty classic comedies and we’d have silent audiences who then cheered at the end and loved it all.  Go know.

The second show was a much livelier audiences with laughs throughout and huge applause for everything and a lot of cheering at the curtain call.  That was fun for the cast, and while the show wasn’t quite as smooth as the matinee (one flubbed light cue, and a reverb issue that finally got fixed about twenty minutes in), but everyone did well again and it was actually a very pleasing two-show day.  We had critics at both shows.

Prior to the matinee I gotten almost eight hours of sleep, then I shaved and showered, answered some e-mails, and then I moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up some packages, then went to the theater.

After the matinee, I stopped at my nearby Ameci pizza, which I’ve been meaning to try. I got three slices with pepperoni, came home, and ate them all up.  They rather tasted like cardboard and the red sauce had no flavor, but it was edible. Ameci will not be giving Dino’s a run for the money, that much I can tell you, and I certainly don’t need to return. We do have other pizza places nearby, so I’ll probably give one a whirl one of these fine days.  I listened to some music – a wonderful Brit composer called Ruth Gipps, who I’ve written about before.  Chandos has started doing new recordings of her music and this one was very good.  And a composer new to me named Peter Racine Fricker – the reviews I’d read screamed ATONAL, but it was on Lyrita so I took a chance and I’m glad I did.  While it’s not traditionally tonal, it was hardly atonal, at least the atonal I can’t abide.  This was rather like movie music and very good movie music at that.  So that one was a nice surprise.

Then I moseyed on over to the theater again, and we played our evening show. Our very own Mark and Amy were in attendance, although I didn’t see them afterwards.  I do hope they enjoyed it.  After, I came right home, listened to a little music, and then found a link to the PBS site where the Harold Prince documentary was streaming for free, so I watched the first half of that, but I am looking forward to the DVD dear reader George nicely made for me.  So far I’m enjoying it, although I could live without Lonny Price’s artistic flourishes, if you get my meaning.

Today, I’ll be back at the theater to see our matinee.  The Shermans and our pal Howard Green are coming, so that will be fun and I think we’ll all sit together.  The good news is we have close to seventy people and that was as of eight o’clock last night, so that’s a very healthy crowd o’ folks.  There’s a talkback after, and then I think perhaps we’ll go have a bite to eat.

Tomorrow, it’s a noon o’clock run-through of the revue, and afterwards I’ll do clean-ups and whatever adjustments need to be made, but mostly I’ll be giving performance notes for the first time.  After that’s done, I have to grab a bite to eat, then come right home for the first Kritzerland rehearsal, which I’m looking forward to.  Then I can relax and perhaps watch a DGA screener.

Tuesday I’ll relax until it’s time to mosey on over to the club where we’re doing the revue – it’s near LACC actually.  We do our sound check at five for an hour – my hope is that we’ll actually get to run most of it.  Then we eat some food and then perform the show.  The rest of the week is meetings and meals, our second Kritzerland rehearsal, the we resume performances of A Carol Christmas, then we do our stumble-through, and then sound check and show.  I’ll probably have to miss the A Carol Christmas matinee that day, which is fine.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, see our matinee, perhaps sup with the Shermans after, 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, happy to have had such a pleasant two-show day.

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