Well, dear readers, we had us part one of our first rehearsal for next Sunday’s all young people show. We only had four people, so it all went pretty quickly. We began with very young Aaron Chao, who arrived in a top hat with cane. Well, what a personality. We ran his put-together and I gave him a few staging bits and he’ll be delightfully delightful. Next up was Ava Madison Gray, whose fourth show this is, I think. She’s opening the show with a great up-tempo number and then she has a beautiful ballad a bit later in the show. This girl comes completely prepared, is easy to give suggestions to, and she’s a total pro. Then came talented Rae Martinez, who was in last year’s show. I gave her one gorgeous ballad and one semi-comic song and she’s already got them down and I only gave her a couple of tiny suggestions. In the amusing department, we had to get her done quickly because she’s in a show this week and had to get to tech, all the way in Tustin. The show? Grease. The director? Barry Pearl. Funny stuff. I told her to go up to him and say, “Guess where I’m coming from” and when he said, “Where,” to say, “What is it, fish?” Don’t know if that happened or not. Finally, we had Marissa Margolis, who’s been in several of our shows. We ran her first number, a driving up-tempo from an animated film, and then she’s closing the show with a great song, ironically both with first recordings by someone named Liz Callaway. Hadn’t realized that until just this minute. Prior to the rehearsal, I was up at eleven after nine hours of sleep, I answered e-mails, I had two nice things happen, then I moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up a small package and came right back home. We had our rehearsal, and then I ordered an enchilada and taco from Don Cuco and that arrived thirty minutes later and was really good. Then I did a few things on the computer and then sat on my couch like so much fish and watched a really odd movie on YouTube entitled Panic in the City – not the classic Elia Kazan film, but a 1968 thing with Howard Duff, Dennis Hopper, Stephen McNally, Steve Franken, and some other good character actors like John Hoyt and Nehemiah Persoff. It’s about a fanatic who builds an atomic bomb and the efforts to find him and disable it before anything can be done. It’s pretty bad, directed by a TV guy named Eddie Davis – mostly TV, anyway, and not much of it – he has a total of thirty-five credits including four films. As it turns out, I’ve seen one of his other films, also quite bad, back when I was living in New York in 1969, said film called Color Me Dead, starring Tom Tryon, a very bad remake of D.O.A. It was shot at Producer’s Studio, the studio where we shot The First Nudie Musical. The most interesting credit is the editing – Terry O. Morse, the man who gave us the clever American version of Godzilla with Raymond Burr. Goodness, if your finger is one letter off on the keyboard you get Raymond Butt. Then I began looking for something else to watch but was instantly out like a light for about forty minutes. And here we are.
Today, she of the Evil Eye will be coming so I’ll be up by eight, I’ll do a quick shower, and out the door by nine-thirty. Normally, it would be nine and I’d go eat a light breakfast somewhere, but since I have a lunch thing at noon-thirty I’m obviously not eating breakfast. So, I think I’ll go kill a couple of hours at the nearby mall – easy to do and I enjoy walking around. Then at noon-fifteen I’ll mosey on over to the lunch thing and that should be fun. I have to be back home by two-thirty to get ready for part two of our first rehearsal, which involves about ten people. That won’t be over until seven-thirty, then I’ll catch up on stuff, and then watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be a catch-up day during which I’ll catch up and we’ll continue to hope for some modern major miracles. Thursday is our second rehearsal and a long day, from two to seven-thirty. Friday will be a day of rest, Saturday is our stumble-through, and then it’s sound check and show on Sunday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight, wander around a mall, have a lunch thing, come home, have part two of our first rehearsal, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the all-time worst fashion trend you absolutely hated and did you actually wear that clothing? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun part one of our first rehearsal.