Well, dear readers, tonight’s the night for Tonight’s the Night’s final performance on the Tube of You. What a wild ride it was and how gratifying the reaction has been from those who’ve seen it. But I find something terribly wrong when the hardest part of a project is actually getting people to watch it. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, I have friends who have never seen a Kritzerland show, and I’m talking about people who live in L.A. and environs. That’s ten YEARS of shows, once a month. Should I even think of these people as friends? Facebook is its own nightmare, of course, thanks to their sickening algorithms, which should be outlawed, frankly. They make sure that if you’re hawking something that as few people as possible see those posts. I use the recent example of my post wherein I said I’d finished the book. I wasn’t hawking the book; it was just a simple “I finished the book” post. 399 “likes” for that one. I post about Tonight’s the Night – we’re lucky to get forty likes, which means Facebook is literally keeping it hidden from a lot of folks. If I post on the Kritzerland Upstairs at Vitello’s page, they make sure on one sees it unless I spend ten bucks to boost it. That’s not what Facebook started out to be, but it has devolved to the point where I think multitudes of people will bail as soon as there’s an alternative they can get behind, so someone send me a link to some millionaires who want to gamble, and I will show them the way, just as I showed people the way with my old label, which so many people copied it was unbelievable, and even with this here site. I has spoken. Where was I? Oh, yeah, tonight’s the night for Tonight’s the Night’s final performance, and here is your very own handy-dandy direct link to the YouTube page where it will commence at 5:00 PST/8:00 EST and it will be followed by a Q&A, which a few people have asked me to do.
And here is the link to the Q&A.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88607498170?pwd=MVdLNnZJRXo3MnU2TnF4cVVHTnJEdz09
Otherwise, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the music of Gustav Holst, one of my favorite composers. Prior to that, I’d listened to a CD of music by the eclectic Gunther Schuller, what they call third stream jazz. I don’t usually care for that kind of thing, but I’ve always been fond of Schuller, ever since my late teens. I listened to an opera of The House Without a Christmas Tree by Ricky Ian Gordon. I’ve never cared for his music or lyrics, but he was a real flavor of the week with the then newer crop of singers in the 2000s. They all bow at the feet of Mr. Sondheim, of course, and you can hear that all over this opera, especially in the Michael Starobin-like orchestrations. Most of it meanders along and there’s no grace to a lot of it – occasionally you’ll get a nice moment or two. He’s written several other operas and I found some selections from The Grapes of Wrath and it was just more of the same. Just not interesting enough for the likes of me, especially after hearing that Saint Joan opera by Dello Joio – now THAT is music I can get with. I also heard another very enjoyable Saint-Saens opera called Prosperine. That was the day and evening’s music in a nutshell, although what it was doing in a nutshell is anyone’s guess. Oh, and I suppose we should wish all of you romantics out there in the dark a very happy Valentine’s Day, especially those of you lucky enough to have a Valentine. For those of us who don’t – oh, well.
Yesterday was an okay day, I suppose. I was up at eight-thirty and out of the house at nine. I should have gone to Jinky’s for eggs Benedict, but it was quite chilly, and they have no heaters outside, so instead I went to Hugo’s where the patio seating is covered, and they do have heaters. I didn’t order the pasta papa because my mind was set on eggs Benedict. They’re much better at Jinky’s, I must say. First of all, there’s nothing more disgusting than slightly underdone poached eggs, where the whites are clear and gelatinous. Such was the case – it wasn’t quite bad enough to send back but it was a little bit gross. The Hollandaise was okay, but the best part were their potatoes – those were excellent. I killed quite a bit of time there, then picked up some packages, killed some more time, then came home.
I did a few things on the computer having to do with project two, and then we had our Zoom casting session. Four people. Pretty amazing that that’s all who wanted to audition. We did have quite a few self-tapes, though, and I know I can cast it well, so I’m not concerned save for one role. So, now we move on to callbacks, which will be towards the end of the week on Zoom.
After that, I had quite a long telephonic conversation with Crista Moore and it was really fun to catch up with her. We may get her to do a Kritzerland show in the near future. Then I went to Gelson’s and got a small half-rack of ribs – actually only four, so that was very calorie-friendly. I came home and ate them, and then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, since I was in a Gypsy mood, having watched the Tyne Daly production on YouTube, I watched a good deal of the film, which was fascinating coming right from the play. I’ve always loved the film, even Rosalind Russell, who I think acts the role really well. And Natalie Wood is terrific. But coming directly from the play, you can really see how awful screenwriter Leonard Spigelgass’s “additions” to the masterful Arthur Laurents book are. From Russell’s narration to the little changes, some of which were to appease the censor board, and which are truly stupid at that late date. The original book didn’t need Mr. Spigelgass’s help, but I suspect that Mervyn Le Roy and Russell’s husband brought him on board, since he’d written A Majority of One, the film of which Le Roy had directed, and Russell had starred in. The Warner Bros. orchestra sounds incredible, but some of the orchestrations lose the luster of the brilliant originals. But thankfully, Paul Wallace got to preserve his Tulsa on film – no one will ever do All I Need Is the Girl better than he did. And best of all, we get Betty Bruce, who played Tessie Tura in the national tour with Merman and Faith Dane recreating Mazeppa. Miss Dane was one of a kind and as with Paul Wallace, no one will ever be better than she was. Unfortunately, it’s many of her lines that have been dumbed down for the screen. Anyway, it was fun to see it again and the transfer really is lovely.
After that, it was listening to music and that was my day and that was my evening, not necessarily in that order.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll choose the sides for callbacks, and then I’ll relax until it’s time to get ready for our final performance of project one aka Tonight’s the Night, followed by a Q&A. I do hope some of you who only saw the premiere will come back for another look. Pass the word around – we’d really love to have a full house. After the Q&A I’ll have something fun to eat and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, begins a week filled with the next Kritzerland show and project two aka I can’t tell you yet. I may have a lunch meeting, and there’s just lots to do, including getting Grant started on designing the new book.
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, choose sides for callbacks, relax, get ready, have our final showing of Tonight’s the Night followed by a Q&A, eat, and 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, hoping we have lots o’ people for the final performance of Tonight’s the Night.