Well, dear readers, I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again – writing musicals is HARD. Not easy. HARD. And yet, everyone thinks they can write one. And everyone who writes one thinks theirs works wonderfully. They go through a development process these days that musicals never went through prior to A Chorus Line. Back in the day, writers wrote their musical. There were backers’ auditions to raise money. There were no workshops. There were no developmental readings, no labs. No inviting all your chums to see it so they could pat you on the back and say don’t change a thing. There were no labs. There were no rules. And back in the day – you’d have a gypsy run-through before leaving town for your tryout. If there were problems out-of-town, which there inevitably were, you fixed them or you tried to fix them as best as possible. Sometimes the problems were huge. It was a pressure cooker. Sometimes shows completely changed by the time they opened on Broadway. There was no Internet, no way for other than a few wags, to hold your show under a microscope. Critics, whether you believed them or not, tried to be helpful. The professionals involved worked around the clock to fix their shows. You knew going in that not every show was going to be the second coming, not every show was going to be a hit. Sometimes changing one single number changed the show from not working to being a smash – A Funny Thing Happened on the Forum being the classic example. There are so many things at play – getting the tone right immediately, so the audience knows what it’s in for, having the songs flow in and out of the scenes effortlessly, having the whole thing be a whole. Writing the book of a musical is REALLY hard. It has to do so much yet not be redundant with the songs. It has to be as compact and concise as possible. The art of writing musical theater, for me, hasn’t gotten better the past two decades – with few exceptions, it’s gotten worse, with cookie-cutter productions, every book doing the same thing, every score sounding the same, every show being a relentless machine. It’s all about getting the audience to whoop and holler and scream at every relentless moment. All that is to say that last night I attended the reading of a new musical. And I’ll just reiterate what I said at the start of this paragraph: Writing musicals is HARD.
Yesterday was okay, I suppose. I only got five-and-a-half hours of sleep, got up, got ready, got out after she of the Evil Eye arrived. I moseyed on over to Uncle Bernie’s – haven’t been there in about six weeks now – had some eggs Benedict, which were excellently prepared, along with their home fries, which were also good. Then I moseyed on over to the nearby used CD store, used some credit and got four items. On the way home, I stopped at the inexpensive gas station – even though I got gas just last week, sixty bucks hadn’t filled the tank – so I filled the tank, which cost thirty bucks as I’d already used up a week’s worth of gas. Then I came home.
Once home, I did some stuff on the computer and tried to figure out how best to transfer new CDs to iTunes, since the CD drive isn’t going to work on this computer, that much has been painfully clear. So, I put in a thumb drive and tried that but the big boy computer isn’t recognizing other devices, data-wise – it will provide power and that’s it. It was recognizing thumb drives every now and then, but it’s just too inconsistent for a consistent type like me. I tried Air Drop, but the laptop and desktop are not recognizing each other and I could find no online solution for it. Finally, the obvious occurred to me, the obvious being Hightail – that’s how I send bigger files. So, I tried that and voila. I send myself the files, then drag them into Music and that’s that. It’s an extra two steps, but at least it works and I can hear new CDs without having to actually use the laptop. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish and fell asleep for about twenty minutes.
I then watched the first three episodes of a documentary on Amazon Prime via the Firestick thing entitled Lorena, about the infamous snip job done by Lorena Bobbitt to hubby John Wayne Bobbitt. I remember the case very well, but when it was all happening, I was in the midst of producing a bunch of my early albums, so other than the bare bones (as it were) of the story, I never really knew what happened at the trial. I always thought Lorena was some middle-aged housewife when, in fact, she was a very pretty YOUNG housewife. The documentary is very well done – they do have some actors illustrating things (not the big moment), but you never really see them, just that back of heads, and they’re not speaking or acting. Four episodes is at least one episode too long, but that seems to be what they do these days. Anyway, it’s really fascinating and I’m enjoying it – I’ll watch the final episode as soon as I post these here notes.
Then I did a quick Gelson’s run and got some turkey and rolls and tomato so I could make a couple of sandwiches for the rest of my food intake. I came home and had one, since it had been six hours or more since breakfast. Then it was time to mosey on over to see the reading of a new musical, which you already know about.
Once back home, I had the other sandwich and figured out the Hightail thing and have been doing that for the four things I got yesterday. And whilst doing it, I’ve been listening to the very engaging music of Lars-Erik Larsson. Delightfully delightful, all of it.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do a Zoom thing for the singer’s sound check and make sure that’s all working as it should be, I’ll eat, I’ll see if anything’s arrived at the mail place, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I have a Zoom thing with David Wechter for our little project, I’ll finish choosing the songs for the Kritzerland holiday show, and then do whatever needs doing. The rest of the week is more of the same. I’m hoping and praying that if a few more orders come in I may just be able to effect a miracle – we shall see. We didn’t have a single order come in yesterday, so I’ll need ten to twenty to have this miracle work.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do a Zoom thing for the singer’s sound check, check to see if any mail has arrived, eat, and 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 postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, reiterating one more time – writing musicals is HARD.