Well, dear readers, we had us a rather fun rehearsal for the Group Rep benefit, the second half of the cast. Everyone was pretty secure on their songs so I was able to do a little bit of detail work. One of the fun things I’ve done with act two is to have Peyton kind of be a running gag, where she’s involved in several numbers, just showing up as a kind of comic relief. It’s really very funny. So, hopefully everyone will keep drilling their material.
Prior to the rehearsal, I was up at nine and to the theater by ten so Nick, the sound guy from Vitello’s could scope out the sound situation. He figured everything out instantly, we got a mic up and running, he figured out a reverb I was happy with and what the volume had to be. He’ll now come back on Monday to get everything set up, levels done, and then all the Group Rep sound person has to do is turn everything on, we’ll do a sound check prior to each show and it should all work very smoothly.
After the sound stuff, I came right home, showered, and then at noon we began the rehearsal and we wrapped it up by three-thirty. Then Peyton, her mom, and I went to Genghis Cohen for a dining adventure. Peyton had never been to a real Chinese restaurant – just Panda Express – so she was nervous about it, but she’s really good about trying stuff and she ended up really liking the garlic chicken and the steamed sole in ginger sauce, which she ate most of. I think she also enjoyed the green beans. Mom liked it all, including, of course, our extra crispy orange chicken, which Peyton couldn’t eat because of her gluten allergy. We had lots of fun. Then I came home, answered e-mails, and then sat on my chair like so much fish and began watching the new Netflix film about the Central Park Five, entitled When They See Us. I’m pretty sure I saw the Ken Burns documentary back when it came out, but this is very well done and, as you’d expect, infuriating to watch people abuse the justice system, make stuff up, coerce, and admit it’s not about justice at all, but about politics. Linda Fairstein comes off horribly, as she should, and boy is she getting her little karma salad right about now – having to resign from several Boards and being dropped by her publisher. And to this day I believe she refuses to acknowledge there was coercion and what part she played in all of it. If you’re not screaming at this thing at the end of part two, well – I certainly was. Part three is all the personal stuff when all but one get out of prison, and that, like most of these multi-part things, goes on a little too long (the third and fourth episodes are almost ninety minutes each, whereas the first two are a little over an hour). I’ll finish it up as soon as I post these here notes.
Today, I can sleep in, I’ll go to the mail place to retrieve a couple of packages that arrived yesterday, then I’m doing nothing but relaxing, eating no more than 1000 calories (I’m thinking a cube steak and baked potato might hit the spot), and going over the Group Rep commentary one final time. Then I’ll watch something and relax.
Tomorrow, I arrive at the theater around four, Nick will come and we’ll get all the sound stuff set up and ready to go for our stumble-through. It’s not going to be smooth the way the Kritzerlands are because one person has to come in and do her stuff and leave and Peyton can’t be there at all. So, I won’t even get a good timing on the show, although I may have Richard just play through the songs so that I can get an idea. Tuesday, I have some people coming in at six to work stuff, then we do our show at eight. Wednesday we do our second show. Then I will cast the August Kritzerland show and begin the arduous task of choosing songs. A miracle or two would be nice, as well. We do love our little miracles.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, pick up packages, eat 1000 calories, go over commentary, watch something, 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 the return of Genghis Cohen – I haven’t been there in many, many months and the food was as great as ever.