Well, dear readers, October is flying by, like a gazelle making an appearance in a new web series shooting in NYC. In other news, we had a fun seventh day of shooting, this time in a rehearsal studio that I’d never been in before, and I’ve been in most of ‘em. For example, Wednesday’s shoot was at Ripley-Grier studios on Eight Avenue. Well, I spent so much time there during the days when I was in NY making nineteen albums a year and that studio was known as Shetler Studios. It was like a flood of memories coming back as I stepped off the elevator I’d been on a zillion times and alighted on the fourth floor. We were in a very big room that I’d never been in, but there were our usual two smaller rooms toward the end of the hallway. In the eight episodes taking place in NYC, there are four scenes where our heroine auditions for shows, and that’s what we were shooting. Two of those scenes involve songs from the musicals she’s auditioning for – those were yesterday’s two scenes. Lots of fun people were with us – Lee Roy Reams, Walter Willison, Jennifer Piech, Liz Larsen, Sal Viviano, and my old pal Doug Cohen, who wrote the musical version of No Way to Treat a Lady. I had an idea how to shoot these expeditiously and it worked really well. In fact, we wrapped an hour ahead of schedule. We didn’t get many photos, unfortunately, but here’s a nice group photo of the sequence with Walter Willison and Liz Larsen.
They brought in sandwiches for lunch – some kind of chicken chipotle thing – a little heavy on the chipotle but it was pretty good. After the shoot, Sami’s mom and I went to some Eyetalian jernt on 51st Street, I think. We both had minestrone soup (very good), and I had some kind of something that was simply too heavy and I should not have had that. I should have stopped at the soup. It was good, though. Then I stopped at the CVS on Eighth Avenue and got more Sambucol and Claritin-D – I hadn’t used my ten dollar coupon from September and one for October had just kicked in so I got double coupons and the items were half price. Then I walked the rest of the way to where I’m staying. I was so full I could barely make it, plus it was drizzling. We really need the rain to completely stop until we’re on our way home, so send lots of excellent vibes and xylophones for nice weather until Wednesday.
Once here, I did what has become my routine – I plopped myself on the bed and fell asleep for two hours (I’d only gotten around four or five hours the previous night). Once back up, I began writing these here notes and the cream sauce, which was very garlicky, is not being compatible with my stomach, I’m afraid. I keep popping them Pepcids. I’m out of all liquid refreshment, having just had the last of my bottled water. After I schedule these here notes, I’ll go back to bed and hopefully sleep through the night. I don’t have to get up until eight-thirty, so that’s nice.
Today, I’ll be up at eight-thirty, I’ll shave and shower, and then we meet at ten back at the rehearsal studio to shoot the two audition sequences that don’t involve songs. These are actually a little more difficult than the ones with the songs – longer and a lot of tongue-twisting dialogue. But we’ll shoot them exactly the same way in terms of order of shots, and hopefully that will help. We wrap at five and then at six I’ll be at Joe Allen for our little haineshisway.com gathering, which I’m very much looking forward to.
Tomorrow, we’re at another club and it’s a busy day in that we don’t have a huge amount of time – we have to clear out at three, I think and there are two songs to shoot – they’re not hard to shoot but it all takes time. But there are also a couple of scenes in the audience that we need to shoot. I’m hoping we’re ready to shoot by ten-thirty but even then it will be daunting to get it all done. Then, after we finish, we’ll go have a celebratory dinner somewhere fun. Then Tuesday, Karen will grab a cab and pick me up at noon and we’ll be on our way to the airport and then on our way home to LA.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up at eight-thirty, shave and shower, have our penultimate day of shooting, followed by our little gathering. 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, having a lot of fun shooting the audition sequences.