Well, dear readers, we had a lovelier than lovely second rehearsal yesterday. In addition to the folks we’ve had, we added in Ilene Graff and hubby Ben Lanzerone, a mystery guest, and Danika Masi, who’s almost over her cold. In fact, she sounded really good. We had about forty-five minutes between slots at one point, but we just gabbed and dished, and it was fun. And now, I am sitting here listening to some Leos Janacek, a fine composer of fine music – these are orchestral suites from his operas – just wonderful music. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve heard this and it’s nice to revisit it. And now, let me say this about that or that about this: As you know, we are up for a whole slew of Broadway World awards, “nominated” as the say. There are people who, when they “win” go on their social media and say how honored they are to have won such a wonderful award. In fact, we’re up every year because here’s how these prestigious nominations work. We all get an e-mail from Broadway World saying the nominations are open and we can nominate. So, on we all go, and we all nominate our shows, ourselves, and our co-workers. And we ALL get nominated. So, it’s not based on the work at all, it’s based on someone taking the time to nominate themselves. And then comes the voting process. Once again, it’s not about the work at all, save for those voting for themselves and asking their friends who saw the show or shows to please vote. Otherwise, what the nominees do is hit the social media and ask all their friends, relatives, strangers, people who might be fans, to vote, vote, vote. I do it on the first day and then I repeat on the second day, and I usually get quite high in the ranking but never to number one. And then, I usually never post again because I don’t have the energy to treat it like I do our Indiegogo campaigns. But some get VERY competitive about this (and probably everything else in life). I have never been that person – maybe I would have had a different career had I been but it kind of makes me ill. I’ve always thought it should be about talent and work, not competitive gamesmanship.
The first time I ever experienced it back in my acting days was around 1978. I had never seen anything but normal behavior in waiting rooms before that year. The actors up for a role were there to audition and sometimes we got it and sometimes the other person got it. We didn’t try to psych them out, we weren’t angry at them – yes, disappointed not to get something we may have wanted, absolutely – but sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. Then I became aware of an actor, perhaps one of the most blatantly competitive people I’ve ever seen. And he would be in the waiting room giving everyone the evil eye and trying to, as I said, psych them out. Everyone knew what he was doing – it wasn’t just me. He was cocky and nauseating and of course he got work because of his bombast. He worked consistently up until about 2003 and from then on it’s been much more sporadic, sometimes going two or three years between jobs. I can’t imagine he’s any different now than he was then. And then, I saw other actors doing the same thing and it’s one of the reasons I finally stopped enjoying being an actor. People like that made it unpleasant, and again I’m not the only one who noticed the sea change that was happening. Today, it’s completely taken over everything, this competitive stuff. And now, I see it every single day with these awards. And I’ll just leave it at that because as Louis Jourdan so beautifully said in Gigi – “It’s a bore.” That said, if our lurkers haven’t voted yet you really must. And then you must tell 10,000 of your nearest and dearest friends to vote. Let’s show these competitive people, shall we? Here is the handy-dandy link to vote. Do NOT click on the thing that says START – that is an advertisement. Below that is a little box to put in your e-mail address. Do that and then you can vote – it takes only about five minutes, then click “submit” and you’ll receive an e-mail to confirm your vote. Do so and voila. We are up in every single category for musical awards, and that includes best ensemble. So, just go to all the musical awards and choose L.A. Now and Then. There are multiple choices for actors for our show, so just choose whoever is leading the race. I’m in the best director of a musical category, but it’s all of them. If just fifty of our many lurkers voted, we would jump quite a bit in every category, so please do take the five minutes.
Yesterday was fine. I got just under eight hours of sleep, got up, answered a lot of e-mails, did a quick Gelson’s run and picked up items I needed – just four or five things – then came home and got ready for our rehearsals.
We wrapped rehearsals at five-thirty, and then I made some faux chicken stroganoff over penne pasta. It was a very good batch, but I got very full and couldn’t finish all the pasta – so, I probably only had about five or six ounces of pasta. And I only used one chicken breast. And that was my food intake for the day and evening. Then I began watching a Flix of Net docu-series, this one entitled Trial by Media – six episodes that focus on how the media influences things they really shouldn’t influence. And you watch them and it’s just nauseating, frequently changing horses mid-stream – acting one way for a while, then changing their tune and turning on a dime. It’s important to have them, I suppose, and there are a few of the old-school newscasters left, but it’s the people who shove microphones in people’s faces, who relentlessly follow them, hound them, insert themselves into people’s lives, camp out in front of residences – and then it’s on to the next and within seconds they don’t ever remember what they were reporting on before. The cases in the first two episodes were older – it’s a hundred times worse now with the Internet.
Today, I’ll be up by ten, the helper will come by and bring me some CDs and pick up some stuff to be shipped, then I may or may not go see the first cut of episode two – haven’t heard whether that’s on or not. At five, our recovering child will come and rehearse her two songs and Danika will be back for her second rehearsal. We’ll be done by six, then I can eat, watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, we have our stumble-through at four, then on Thursday it’s a new month and we do our final Kritzerland show at Vitello’s After that, I have to deal with a lot of merde and need some little and large miracles aplenty.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten, have a helper visit, maybe see a first cut of episode two, have a short rehearsal for two people, eat, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of competitive people in the real world – not athletes, as that seems ingrained – just normal people who are like dogs with bones? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, never regretting that I wasn’t ever maniacally competitive.