Good morning, all! I slept late. After turning off the tv, I read a bit more of Norman Lloyd's biography, It's quite good so far, although I think his comments on THE GOLDEN APPLE (he drected the 1954 Phoenix Theatre production) may prove he was the wrong man for the job. His early chapters on working with Eva LeGallienne, John Houseman, the Mercury Thesatre, etc. are qite wonderful.
Now to be controversial: I really hate Easter, which I know is the Big Day in my religion's calendar. I find it a theological nightmare whose logic makrs no sense, and one more example of the human race's ability to invent grisly and horrible deaths for its enemies. I can appreciate a good miracle like rising from the dead, but by the time it happens to Jesus, Lazarus got there first, and I cannot understand logically how this is supposed to help me in the long run. I, of course, blame the Catholic Church for imposing a lot of hocus pocus on the situation around 800 years ago.
In my family, Easter was also a day of hypocricy: it was the One Day a year everyone in my family - that is, my entire Mother's family, all seven siblings, spouses, and their children - went to church, whether they needed to confront organized religion or not. My brothers and I all got a new yearly suit, and there was a huge family dinner, the best part of the day. The second best part of the holiday was coloring Easter eggs, several dozen hardboiled eggs, the night before. This meant a week of too many eggs at breakfast, lunch and dinner followed by sulphurous gas attacks. Today, I will have dinner with one of my nuclear family, my good friend Bruce Pomahac. I do miss the family gatherings. I miss many of my dead uncles, aunts, and cousins, not to mention my maternal grandmother.
My biggest disappointment of THE FANTASTICKS is that we did not get a good soundtrack recording of the score with Jonathan's beautiful orchestrations. I was up for the job, and I remember submitting a demo cassette of bits of the 110 IN THE SHADE songs and, I think, some of COLETTE COLLAGE.. While I would have loved to have done the movie, I must admit that I had a hard time hearing any sounds but the wonderful Off-Broadway piano and harp, and I know they got the right person for the job.
More coffee.