Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much tired fish after not enough sleep, a very long day, and an evening filled with almost nothing but writing. Now I am listening to the marvelous music of the female composer named Vitzslava Kapralova – beautiful, wonderful music. She began composing at nine and passed away at twenty-five. What music she would have made had she lived. But it’s good to have what little is available. Again, you can hear her work on the Tube of You without spending a single centavo.
Yesterday, I got six hours of sleep, got up, shaved and showered, and then moseyed on over to the theater for our meet and greet. It’s nice to have a small cast and I must say, in terms of looks and physicality, I think we chose well. Peyton was there and is very excited to do her first straight play. I gave my usual meet-and-greet speech, and then our costume designer took the cast’s measurements.
After that, Doug and I went to the little Chinese jernt on the corner and we split some Wor Wonton soup and chicken fried rice. I mostly had the soup, which I was quite desirous of and I had some rice, although even with what we both ate of it we still left half of what was served. Then we walked back to the theater for our matinee, which was the final performance of Kay Cole as Miss Preen and Michael Gabiano’s final performance as Banjo. Next week I put in a new Miss Preen for our final three shows and Barry Pearl returns as Banjo. Kay was great for the final show. The audience was a bit weird and I felt that in the pre-show speech – kind of subdued and lifeless. I have several laugh lines built into the speech that I do at every performance and they always score – just chuckles yesterday, so I kind of knew what we were in for.
It was a good performance, and they did laugh, but it tended to be only the real hit ‘em on the head sure-fire lines. I do think they enjoyed it and we were sold out again, so that was good. I hung out for a bit after, and then I left.
I stopped at Gelson’s and got some snacks from the hot food bar, came home, ate a couple of them, and then dove back into the book, forgoing any futzing and finessing, so I’ll have a lot of that to do this morning. I took a break after two hours and watched the rest of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville – I only had about twenty minutes left. Then I checked out the English dub – I’d seen the film both ways when it came out but didn’t remember how really bad the dub was. I also dozed off for about twenty minutes.
Then it was back to the book and I worked the rest of the night on that, keeping my pace of forty-three pages a day. In five days, I’m already to page 215 in the manuscript, which is, of course, double spaced. As I’ve said, I do think this will be five or six hundred pages in manuscript, but probably only 300 to 400 in book form. Anyway, I’m having fun. Then I ate the last of the snacks and had some low-calorie chocolate chip ice cream for my sweet.
Today, I may sleep in until eleven, but once up I’ll do all the futzing and finessing from the past two days, then I’ll mush on and do as much as I can. I’ll also finish choosing the songs for the Kritzerland show (about seven or eight to go), eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write more, perhaps watch a movie (1917, I think), and write, and then relax.
Tomorrow, I think I’ll print out all the pages and get them to Muse Margaret – not sure if this is her thing, but I really need her comments right about now and I’m hoping she likes it. I’ll write, I think we may have a short rehearsal for the Elmer Bernstein concert, but I’ll write as much as I can. And then we have our first rehearsal for Doug’s play and I’m hoping to get through quite a bit, give it’s really all two and three-person scenes. The rest of the week is all of that and more, and Thursday I have to split my rehearsal time between putting in our Miss Preen and rehearsing Doug’s play. The weekend has two rehearsals for Doug’s play and I’ll probably attend at least two of the weekend performances, too.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep until eleven, futz and finesse, write, eat, hopefully pick up packages, finish choosing songs, write, watch something, write, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Who are your favorite female composers and lyricists? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as I continue to juggle all these things I’m working on – I enjoy it, though.