Haines His Way

I fought the mundane-stay-at-home un-inspired urge and went for a 4 mile power walk.  I'm not at the office eating cold fried chicken from Safeway and it's very yummy.  

DR Elmore - a local theatre company- 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco who specializes in semi-staged rare or lost musicals has "Golden Apple" as part of their season this year.  I'll be sure and check it out when it plays in early 2006.

DR Jason - can one still rent the 1970's orchestrations for "Company" when licensing the show?  I know the standard set is the revival.  Any clew?

Welcome back, DR Rodzinski!  How was your visit to the midwest?

The Midwest was great. I mean, good people out there. I hate  that every time I go, more of what I remember as farmland or woods has been built on by lousy McMansion subdivisions, but I guess that's the way of the world these days.

I attended the Lake County Fair, the Fair of my youth, and enjoyed, yes, delightful corn on the cob, and an elephant ear.

Rummaging through my mom's garage, I found her old Playbills for NO STRINGS and CAMELOT from a visit she made out here as a young lady.

Also, I am deaf.

Okay, that is HYPERBOLE, but tell me if this happens to anyone else... You may remember I was a little sick when I left. I was a little congested on the trip. The flight to Chicago gave me no problems, but my return flight caused pounding pain in my ears. And now, they are plugged up. My hearing is muffled by 50%. This has happened to me before. Sometimes it clears up on its own. Sometimes I gotta seek medical help.

Pogue, you should post pix of your PSYCHO III sign.

Also, I am deaf.

Okay, that is HYPERBOLE, but tell me if this happens to anyone else... You may remember I was a little sick when I left. I was a little congested on the trip. The flight to Chicago gave me no problems, but my return flight caused pounding pain in my ears. And now, they are plugged up. My hearing is muffled by 50%. This has happened to me before. Sometimes it clears up on its own. Sometimes I gotta seek medical help.

You need to buy "Ear-planes" before your next air trip.  The Vixter & I both suffer terribly from the change in cabin pressure and this wonderful invention usually prevents  the pain, discomfort and followup  deafnesss..

Available in CVS and other local drugstores

http://www.earplanes.com/earplanes.htm

Yes we need to see the Pogue sign.

Until DR CP mentioned it, I hadn't really studied the art work on the Gary Cooper Collection....and he is indeed correct, it includes stills from the Ronald Colman version of BEAU GESTE.....strange!

Yes as DR RODZINSKI discovered there is more than corn in Indiana.

Topic of the Day -- I can't say that any film, play or book changed my life but some were very influential. First of all, I grew up on Astaire/Rogers films and on all those MGM musicals. The films definitely influenced my choreography, as I used a lot of props as the jumping off point for many of my dances. I don't remember which film it was that I saw this in but, when a boy in my grammar school kissed me on the cheek, I hauled off and slapped him across the face--BECAUSE I SAW IT IN A MOVIE! It's no doubt that children learn by imitation, and I'm convinced that there would be less violence in the real world if the reel world wasn't so graphic in their depictions (fat chance of turning this around, especially since the impressionable can now watch films over and over again on video).

JRand54 -- Regarding your Allison Hayes [Cheesecake] Picture of the Month: When Teresa Wright passed on, I did some research on the net and found this excerpt from her Hollywood contract:

The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow...

MattH -- I, too, agree that those earlier Tony Award shows were classier. Credit has to be given to Alexander Cohen and Hildy Parks, the husband and wife team who produced and wrote them.

Re: Kevin Spiritas -- Kevin will be the featured performer at the 2005-2006 Cabaret Series at the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts at Whittier College on February 25, 2006. Cabaret West is a co-sponsor of the series. I don't know if BK mentioned this or not, but Kevin was Hugh Jackman's standby in "The Boy From Oz." He played Dr. Craig Wesley on "Days of Our Lives" for 7-1/2 years and made his Broadway debut in "A Chorus Line." His got his film break in "Friday the 13th VII."

Club Cabaret at The Shannon Center has three more performances left if any of you are in the area  With table seating on the stage, the ticket includes a free beverage and cheese plate. The remaining shows are: Scott Dreier on August 12 in "It's Standard Time." Scott has tons of musical theatre experience in California in lead roles. Besides standards and Broadway, he will also do a special tribute to Stephen Sondheim in honor of his 75th birthday. On August 13, Karen Benjamin & Alan Chapman will do two shows: At 7:30, it's "Movie Music Madness" which will feature movie songs from the '30s, '40s and '50s. It'll be part cabaret, part sing-along and part game show as the audience will get a chance to compete for prizes answering questions about the music, writers and films. At the 10:30 show, they will do "Obscene and Not Heard," a collection of racy and politically in-correct songs by Alan and others. If you're easily offended, skip the show! Here's where it'll be http://www.shannoncenter.org OR, for more, see the CabWest website at http://www.cabaretwest.org.

DR Jed, isn't tonight's BOSTON LEGAL a repeat?

Hi all, welcome back DR Rodzinski

OK, here goes.  I think I've cropped this photo so it won't send us into widescreen:

 

Wow!  That's pretty darned snazzy!

Apparently, Donna has not been reading this site, or she would know that all those things were mentioned, and that I, in fact, put together Mr. Spirtas' show and directed it.  So, she will be getting both of us in Feb.

Now, opinions needed section:

In Japan, they do these wonderfully cool things called mini LP packaging.  They are slightly bigger than jewel case packages (instead of 4x4 they are basically 5 1/4 x 5 1/4).  These releases look exactly like what their name implies - miniature LP albums.  I really love them, and I'm thinking of trying to bring this style of packaging to Kritzerland.  I think if I were to do this, we would, as always, see a host of other specialty labels suddenly imitating us as if they'd thought of it themselves.  For cast albums, for example, we would do a gatefold mini LP - just like the cast albums of Subways, or  Sound of Music or Hello, Dolly! on LP.  The interior two pages of the gatefold would have lots of photos.  The back of the jacket would have track listing and maybe credits.  Then, inside the sleeve would be a single double-sided page which fold open and is, in essence, eight panels of text, even though it's just like a folded piece of paper, so in essence you'd get eight pages of text.

What do you all think of this idea?

I visited our pressing plant today and showed them the packaging and our gal there was completely blown away by it and will be talking to her printers tomorrow to see how much they think it will cost them to do it.  If it's the same price (she actually thinks it may be LESS expensive, but we shall see) or even a few pennies more, I may just try to do it.  But, I'd like some opinions.  They'd be much easier to ship, no broken jewel cases or hubs ever, and I could conceivably lower the shipping costs by seventy-five cents.

Well, the afternoon is a wash.

Another day, another dollar....

Time to go home, crank up the PC and live BB6 feeds...and veg out.