Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Vitello’s 102 went splendidly and I do love hearing laughter like that – what a tonic it is. I’ve always prided myself on being able to write lyrics that actually elicit laughs – it’s not as simple as you might think – but I was blessed somehow to be able to do it and I do mean blessed because where else does that stuff come from? To get a laugh on a lyric, you have to build to it, the set-up has to be perfect, the laugh line has to actually be funny, and then on top of all that, the notes have to sit perfectly on music that doesn’t pull the ear in the wrong direction. To do it in a non-parody lyric is even harder. I began writing the What If parodies way back in October of 1997 in my One from Column A thing I did on the Stephen Sondheim Stage site. Column one launched on September 22, 1997 and the first What If, under its own section heading, appears in column five, and for the next three years I did new ones on a fairly regular basis. For whatever reasons, just like this here site, this column caught on very quickly and became hugely popular, especially with high school theater kids, but also with many adults. We had thousands of readers and in those wild and wooly days on the World Wide Web as it was known back then, 1000s of readers was pretty incredible. And then, of course, we did our What If revue in 2004 to sold out houses for three months. And in 2012, at our second anniversary show, which took place at The Federal, I began doing them in that show, and we’ve done them ever since, mostly in the April Fool’s show and the anniversary shows. I’ve written quite a few new ones in the past seven years.
This was basically the show we did at the Group Rep, but with most of the regular songs we did there swapped out for holiday songs. The cast was on fire, I must say. In alphabetical order: Daniel Bellusci absolutely killed with all his solo numbers – Count Your Blessings, the What If Stephen Sondheim, instead of writing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum had written a musical version of Psycho (one of my favorites of the newer ones), and the other off-the-beaten-path What If, what if Andrew Lloyd Webber, at the time of writing Phantom of the Opera had written Sunset Boulevard? He did that to a fare-thee-well, to the tune Music of the Night. Here’s how it goes:
Norma Desmond,
She’s a little wacky
And her mansion
It’s a little tacky
But she pays the bills
And I give her a few thrills
Then she shoots me in the back out by the pool
But I still tell the story – pretty cool
Norma Desmond
Paramount is calling
It’s her comeback
And she’ll be enthralling
And her servant Max
Who looks like he’s made of wax
Tells her she will be the greatest star of all
When Cecil B. De Mille gives her that call
With one look she is ready for her close-up now
With one look in despair she’ll slit her wrists
When she does then I must sing very high
It’s as if she never said goodbye
Grasping, clinging
Slipping down the drain here
I love Betty
Why do I remain here
There’s one thing you know
When you’re just a gigolo
Tough to make it because Hollywood is hard
When you’re dead somewhere on Sunset BOULEvard.
Brittney Bertier did a great This Christmas from A Carol Christmas, a warm and toasty The Christmas Song, and her solo What If, what if Lionel Bart, instead of writing Oliver, had written Company – that got lots o’ laughs, too. Sarah Busic did my song Simply, simply and beautifully, and my last minute idea, literally thrown at them after Thursday’s rehearsal, had Sarah and Laura Wolfe doing a same-sex version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside that worked incredibly well – the set-up to it, which I wrote an hour before we did it, also helped set the tone of it.
Peyton Kirkner sang Little Miracles, from A Carol Christmas, doing a wonderful job of it, and then brought down the house with the largest cheers of the evening, my song Annie. Laura Wolfe did the aforementioned duet with Sarah, and she sang a beautiful Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Robert Yacko did his great What If – what if Frank Loesser, instead of writing Guys and Dolls, had written Sweeney Todd. It always goes over great, but it was especially fun last night. He also sang Separate Ways from A Carol Christmas – a lovely performance. Otherwise, they were all in the group What Ifs and did a grand job of them. I only did some opening remarks and closing remarks, then brought up Kerry O’Malley to lead us in White Christmas, which, of course, she starred in on Broadway. The back half of the room had quite a few first-time attendees, who I think had no idea what Kritzerland was – they probably had dinner downstairs and wandered up – got lots of nice comments from them. In any case, it was a grand night for singing and laughing and here’s our merry troupe of players.
Afterwards, Robert, dear reader Leslie, and just in from college back East, daughter Alexa. I had a proper meal, the pizza they do that I like, and we had fun conversation.
Prior to all that, I managed to get eight-and-a-half hours of sleep, then I just did stuff on the computer until it was time to get ready. I got ready, then moseyed on over to the club for sound check and the rest you know.
Today, I think I can sleep until eleven, then I have a bunch of stuff to do – finishing the blurbs for the new releases, finishing one-and-a-third sets of liner notes – everything else is all ready, so we’ll announce on Tuesday at midnight most likely, or maybe even mid-day.
Otherwise, I begin my two weeks of ME days. I do have a couple of meetings and meals, but nothing major. I’ll do some more work on what I hope will be my new book, and I’ll be listening to a lot of music and watching a lot of movies, including all these DGA screeners. I know we have some auditions on Tuesday, but that won’t take long. I do have to do my big Costco run for the Christmas Eve Do, which is coming up quickly. And on Friday, we resume performances of The Man Who Came to Dinner. I’m told yesterday’s matinee was sold out and a great audience and performance, so that was nice to hear. Two comments from the talkback that were relayed to me made me smile: One was from someone who wanted to know how we got the pace so fast, and the other from someone wanting to know how the actors don’t ever bump into each other with all the quick staging stuff.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep until eleven, do stuff, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, write blurbs and liner notes, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What have been your favorite TV shows and movies of 2019? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun Kritzerland at Vitello’s 102.