Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Home 110 came off rather splendidly, I thought. For various reasons, this one was hard to organize but, in the end, everyone came through beautifully and I thought the structure and pace were fine, too. It was an eclectic batch of songs, which is what I like, and the performers did a fantastic job, each and every one. The comments on both Facebook and YouTube Live were wonderful. Hartley Powers did a great job with the opening number and Karl Sonnenberg was our technical director last night and he did great, too, and he’s also responsible for Kerry O’Malley’s incredible backgrounds. My favorite moments for each performer were: Kerry O’Malley’s Someone Woke Up, Daniel Bellusci’s The Kid Inside, Robert Yacko’s Time and Again put-together, Sami’s I Don’t Know How to Love Him (one of her best performances, I thought, because she’s finally understands what I mean when I say “let the song do its job and be simple”), Jessica Rush’s beautiful rendition of So Big/So Small from Dear Evan Hansen, Jason Graae wiping away twenty-seven years doing No, Mary Ann, which he sang on Unsung Sondheim in 1993, Adrienne Stiefel’s divine The Glory of Love, and, of course, Patrick Cassidy’s specialty number. I had fun, too, with the commentary. I always enjoy posting a photograph of my set-up, so here it is.
We had a decent crowd – the Facebook number is deceptive and not accurate, so I can only go by the post-show numbers, which were pretty high, actually, in the hundreds. YouTube hovered between forty and fifty. I suspect, as always, that people will watch after the fact, which isn’t as much fun, but people will be people. I do know a lot of David Cassidy fans watched on Facebook, which is why that number was much higher. And now, I am sitting here like so much fish, taking a break from Mr. Entremont’s solo piano work – after eleven CDs, one simply cannot listen to any more solo piano without cleansing the palate. So, I’m cleansing the palate with a chamber music album of composers John Veale and Robert Crawford. I know nothing about the latter, but I’ve become a huge fan of the former, for both his film music and his classical works – right now, I’m listening to his very haunting string quartet. And don’t tell anyone but we will be issuing a CD that contains a bit of both early next year or maybe even late this year, depending on how things go.
It was funny, but in designing last night’s show, I wanted it to be entertaining and joyous so that no matter which way the wind blew last week, it would give people either a respite or add to their joy. Happily, it added to their joy, which was the best of all possible worlds.
Yesterday was a nice little day. I got up at noon after eight hours of sleep. Once up, I answered e-mails and decided I wouldn’t attend the Zoom casting session save for Hartley Powers, who was auditioning for two of the one-acts, one of which is the one I’ll be directing. Doug and I had already discussed a different way to go with one character, because I love working with Hartley, so while she was reading for a different character, after she finished, I had her read the lead. She read very well. Then I left the session. They filmed it so I’ll watch it at some point this afternoon. Then I made the third Regina pizza, which was good but not as good as the other two, which led me to believe that they don’t last all that long, even in the freezer and I think I even remember reading that. It was fine, though, and filling. Then I relaxed until I got ready for our show.
Once the show was over, I breathed a sigh of relief (no mean feat), and then, as a treat, I had a few saltwater taffy candies. These are really good, too – I got different flavors – chocolate peanut butter, peanut butter, cherry, banana, and a couple of others. I didn’t really have time to watch anything because I had a couple of telephonic conversations and did a little work at the piano so I wouldn’t totally embarrass myself when we do our project one work session today. I listened to more Entremont – a lot of Chopin in this set, then I had to take my ear break, and I am really enjoying this string quartet. And then it was time to write these here notes.
Today, I’ll be up no later than eleven, then I have a noon o’clock lunch with Richard Allen, after which we’ll come back here, and we’ll have our work session. That shouldn’t really take but an hour, as there’s only really thirty-two minutes of music to play through. After that’s done, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll have to watch those Zoom auditions, finish choosing songs for the December Kritzerland and start getting people their music. Once all that’s done, then I can watch, listen, and relax. But there’s something else about today so we may as well shout it to the skies and beyond the blue horizon, shout it loud and shout it clear: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO HAINESHISWAY.COM. This is, I believe, our 19th anniversary, having begun these here notes back on November 9, 2001, and I have never missed a single day of these here notes since. We’ve seen it all here at haineshisway.com – we’ve had a few sad deaths, we’ve had dear readers leave the site for whatever reasons they had, we’ve had a few defectors to Facebook, which is the silliest reason of all to have forsaken us, but along the way we’ve picked up marvelous new dear readers and for my money this is the happiest place on all the Internet, with sparkling discourse, wacky behavior, lots of humor, and even some venting. So, here’s to nineteen more.
The rest of the week is working on the next Kritzerland show, preparing our next two releases for announcing, and starting to plan Doug’s play for filming.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up no later than eleven, have a noon o’clock lunch followed by a work session for project one, followed by viewing auditions, hopefully picking up packages, finish choosing songs, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Cartoons. What were your favorite cartoons growing up – series, characters, lesser-known favorites, all of it. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that Kritzerland at Home 110 came off well.