Well, dear readers, we had our second rehearsal for the second play, but missing our leading actress and then one of the leading actors had to leave at four. Since the four principles are in almost every scene, that becomes very difficult. We had someone reading those lines, but it made some folks forget the little bit of blocking – and then with two people missing, everything was just very confusing. But we stopped and started and I cleaned up a few things and even with the missing folks, the actors began to understand the shape and pace of the show, which, with this show, is absolutely necessary. While I didn’t always have a full cast for Doug’s play, that’s written so you can run a lot of scenes that don’t feature the missing people. We also added our pianist, so I had to figure out the ins and outs of each song, and the actors had to get used to singing with the piano and holding tempo. We did manage to get through everything, despite all that, and hopefully everyone will come in today knowing the bits of blocking and we’ll be able to run from start to finish and then do some clean-up work. I have one actor with a very heavy accent, and so we’re trying to make sure he’s enunciating everything and also pronouncing things correctly. The author watched a bit of it and seemed happy and he told me he enjoyed watching me work with the actors. And now, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Arthur Rodzinski conduct Manuel De Falla’s wonderful ballet, El Amor Brujo in unbelievable early stereo. This is one of my favorite performances of this piece. Prior to that, I watched a horrible little “thriller” called The Resident, starring Hillary Swank, from 2011. Ridiculous in every way, horribly directed by some Finnish music video person, who also co-wrote it. The actors are fine but have nothing really to play. There are certainly no surprises at any point, and the ending is more ridiculous than all that came before, which is no mean feat or even no mean feet. It’s short, so that was a plus. Highly not recommended by the likes of me.
Yesterday was a bit crazy. I tried to fall asleep at three but couldn’t – I maybe slept about forty minutes, I guess, but was up at four and then back to bed at six. I’d set the alarm for noon, so at least I’d get six hours of sleep. And yet, the doorbell rang at ten-thirty and it was the singer, the kid who’s doing the show in Palm Springs and the kid’s mother, and our pianist. I couldn’t believe it. I hurried and dressed, brushed the teeth things, and tried to get coherent as quickly as possible. I was, at least, amusing about it all. The new kid (our other kid couldn’t do the Palm Springs show) is cute as a button and very good, so that will work fine. We did the whole show, I gave a few notes after, and that was that. Then I had to answer a bunch of e-mails and then it was already time to mosey on over to the theater.
Then we had our three-hour rehearsal, which you know about. Then I stopped at the Studio City Gelson’s and got more onion bagels, some of their rigatoni Bolognese (small amount) and a half-rack of ribs – their ribs don’t really have all that much meat on them, which is good as I didn’t want to overeat. I came home, at the pasta, then the ribs, after which I sat on my couch like so much fish and dosed off for about thirty minutes. Then I watched the awful movie.
After that, I listened to some music and thankfully realized that we Fall Back due to the ending of Daylight Savings Time, so at two o’clock this morning it will be one o’clock this morning and we gain an hour, which is a good thing. So, don’t forget to set you clocks back or confusion will run rampant and reign supreme, not necessarily in that order.
Today, I’ll be up by noon o’clock, which formerly would have been one o’clock, and then we have our three-hour rehearsal, where we’ll run the entire show without stopping and then work any problem things. Then I’ll eat, watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I have a lot of stuff to do during the day, and then the cast and I will meet at five-thirty and we’ll run as much of the really important stuff as we can. Then we do the reading at seven-thirty. Perhaps we’ll go out to eat afterwards. Tuesday, I have to finish choosing songs for the holiday show and get everyone their music, and then the rest of the week is preparing our next two releases, hoping for some miracles, which we really need, doing some writing on the project with David Wechter, some meetings and meals, looking for the thing in the garage, and then doing whatever else needs doing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by noon o’clock, have a three-hour rehearsal, eat, then watch, listen, 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, as we happily gain back an hour thanks to resetting our various and sundried clocks.