Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish after a long and winding day, listening to what I’m told is a test pressing of what was supposed to be a soundtrack release of The Manchurian Candidate. I’d never heard of such a thing, but there were photographs of a cover and back cover and the test pressing itself, a mix of David Amram’s score and dialogue, rather like the never released RCA soundtrack to The Caine Mutiny. It’s fascinating. It’s hard to know who would have purchased it back then, given that this kind of thing simply wasn’t done back then, at least not often. The entire thing funs about forty-five minutes. Right now, it’s just been the main title music and then dialogue. I’m interested to see how much actual score sans dialogue. Otherwise, I did watch most of another no-budget movie like the no-budget The Devil’s Hand, this one with a completely different kind of title – The Devil’s Partner. It actually has several things in common with The Devil’s Hand – it was shot three years prior to its release. Both were released in 1961. What are the odds of THAT. However, other than an interesting performance by then-newcomer Ed Nelson and a turn by character actor Edgar Buchanan, it is a completely worthless and is all basically shot in three locations in some rural area – probably the north San Fernando Valley if I had to posit a guess. It’s only seventy minutes long. It’s just bad.
The other interesting thing from last evening was seeing dear reader elmore’s post about acquiring a production script for the 1950s version of The Threepenny Opera. What was interesting to ME was the fact that the New York producer’s address was crossed out and replaced with the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles. It took only moments to find that that famous production played the Music Box, opening on October 18, 1960, with many of the New York cast, including Lotte Lenya, Tige Andrews, Jo Wilder (Mrs. Joel Grey at some point), Scott Merrill, along with Estelle Parsons, Frederic Downs, Len Lesser, Joseph Elic, Richard Verney, and Grace Lee Whitney. Samuel Matlovsky was musical director, and Carmen Capalbo directed. It only ran eight weeks before shuttering abruptly. Given the rave reviews, it was posited in a postmortem column that the producers should have found a smaller theater. I don’t remember how many seats were in that theater – I would not go there until 1964 to see Oscar Brown, Jr. three times. Apparently, ticket prices were higher than most small theater shows, the cast was expensive, and they did a lot of publicity. The grosses were okay, but apparently not enough to keep running the show. I started attending theater regularly in 1961 and I wish I’d known what The Threepenny Opera was, I might have gone to see it. Even when I was going regularly, I still managed to miss a lot of amazing smaller theater shows and even bigger theater shows. I especially wish I’d seen Little Mary Sunshine, which starred Shirley Knight, at the Le Grand Theater on Ivar, which had a bit under two hundred seats from what I’ve read, probably like the Ivar. I saw the ads, thought about it, but just never went. And thus far, it’s all dialogue and sound effects – in other words, an edited version of the actual soundtrack from the film. The quality of the sound beyond the scratchiness of the test pressing, is very crisp and sharp, so it’s clearly not some homemade thing from back then.
Yesterday was a non-stop day. I got up at eleven-thirty, shaved, answered a LOT of e-mails, had telephonic calls, then we had our long rehearsal with our full cast. It went very well, I smoothed out some arrangement things, and we were done a little after five-thirty.
Then I ordered a Cobb salad from Stanley’s. Whilst waiting for it, I began writing the commentary for the Kritzerland show. Food arrived and I ate it – not quite as good as it usually is – don’t know why or maybe I’m just tired of Stanley’s at the moment. Then I continued writing the commentary and got a little over half of it done and then I had to stop and sit on my couch like so much fish and watched the movie. After that, I did some more stuff on the computer, and then began writing these here notes. When I post them, then I’ll try to finish the commentary.
Today, I’ll try to be up by eleven, see where we are with our casting and make more decisions and hopefully hear from some of the asks, then we have our catch-up rehearsal at two – should be done with that by three-thirty. I’ll eat, I’ll have a Zoom session regarding the screenplay, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same and then we have our stumble-through at three. Always look forward to that. Wednesday is more of the same then we have our sound check and then do our show. After, some of us will go downstairs and have a proper meal. Thursday, the helper person will come and we’ll finish getting all the perk stuff done, and then the helper can come get it all. And after that, every day is spent in pre-production for the web series – Zooming with Sami, the cameraman, prop person, all of it. I’ll also figure out how to shoot a complex sequence (the only one, really) – it has to be designed and shot in a certain order for costuming reasons. More I cannot say.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to be up by eleven, work on filling the roles for the web series, have a rehearsal, eat, have a Zoom thing, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your very first live theater shows you saw – both professional shows and smaller theater shows, and which impressed you most? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, both looking forward to and feeling overwhelmed about the weeks ahead.