Well, dear readers, I do believe we had us our first private reading of the musical version of Nothing in Common and I must say it went very well, as first private readings go. You cannot imagine how far this has come from the reading of act one that I saw four years ago. I’m not sure there are more than a handful of lines left from that reading and certainly there are no songs left from it. I had the authors completely restructure act one from top to bottom, figured out what that structure would be, what songs we’d need, and once that was all done, we moved onto act two and did the same. I had a lot of meetings where I’d just talk until something made sense and gave clarity to what we were trying to do. My mantra was always it didn’t matter what the movie was, we had to do our own thing. One of the major changes was adding a young character, a fourteen-year-old neighbor to the mom character when she moves into her new building. This brought in a lot of comedy, gave the mom a foil, and gave us a great comedy song. The girl disappeared after her solo song in scene three of act two, but a week ago I said we had to bring her back at the end, and that turned out to be just the right thing and helped explain a story beat we didn’t have. I’m happy to say that the basic structure is VERY strong, and the lead characters are, as well. It helped that we had a superb group of actors – could not have asked for better than Noah Weisberg in the Tom Hanks role – totally charming, very funny, and quirky and loveable. If this goes anywhere and he’s free, he’s going with it. Kerry O’Malley was wonderful as the mom – so subtle and got laughs the authors didn’t even know were there. Robert Yacko did great in the Jackie Gleason role, Lisa Livesay could not have been more perfect as the long-suffering ex-girlfriend of the leading man, Michael Shepperd did great as a potential big client and Lisagaye Tomlinson was wonderful as his daughter and romantic entanglement for the leading man, Peyton Kirkner was perfect as Aimee, the next-door neighbor, and everyone else just did wonderfully. So, were there problems? Of course, but nothing that can’t be fixed. One scene in act one can go in its entirety, so that’s easy. Other scenes simply need to be tightened – there’s no room for an ounce of fat in a book musical. One song in act one is not working and Adryan and I pretty much know why, so we’ll rethink and then rewrite that, and one song in act two has the same issues, so ditto on that one. Interestingly, the act one problem song is the mom and act two’s problem song is the dad. I still don’t think the ending quite works in the way it should – it’s the line that ends the film, but we’re not the film and I’ve said all along I think there needs to be a little coda. So, we’ll give that a try and see if it works – but something has to be done to make the ending really land. The songs all seemed to go over really well – some nice laughs along the way, too – and the book has many good laughs and even some tears. So, I’ll be either sending out notes or just having a lunch meeting so we can proceed apace. Once we’ve done the changes we’re going to do, then we’ll figure out the next step, which will either be a staged reading or a workshop. And I cannot tell you how much fun it was to be with a group of people, no masks, having a great time.
My voice gave me trouble throughout, but I got through it. I cannot tell you how exhausting it is to sing to twenty-one tracks of music when allergies are wreaking havoc with one’s voice. But wherever we go from here, the actors will learn their songs so they can sing them. All in all, it was a wonderful evening and very helpful.
After the reading, Robert Yacko and I went to Mel’s Diner and we both had omelets – I had cottage cheese with mine. Very good. Then it was back home and having to dive right into these here notes.
Yesterday was a restful day, especially for my voice, but there was really no fighting the damage done by allergies plus dry heat plus having the air conditioning on. I only got seven hours of sleep, answered e-mails, did a few things on the computer, went to Gelson’s and got about two ounces of seafood salad to tide me over until a proper meal, came home and ate that, and then I shaved and showered and got ready for our reading. The rest you know because I just went on at some length about it.
Today, I am sleeping in, baby, and I don’t care who knows it. Then I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, most especially choosing songs, locking down our final cast members, and returning some telephonic calls. I’ll eat (I may make this day a splurge day because I am quite ready to do that – I’ve only done it once so far since starting this damn diet and I wasn’t really all that bad that one splurge meal. I can’t even remember what it was, frankly. I’m thinking a sandwich or maybe some pasta or maybe even three slices of pepperoni pizza. We shall see. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, then I’m seeing the alternate evening of short playlets on Friday night and our evening of playlets on Saturday night. And I will try to have a ME day on Sunday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, baby, catch up on stuff like choosing songs, setting our final cast members, returning telephonic calls, hopefully picking up packages, maybe having a splurge meal, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy the private reading went better than I ever could have imagined.