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[MBarnum]

Some fun movies on TCM in the early morning hours...anyone ever see JALNA? Great film! It seems like someone here once mentioned that they wanted to see it.

[JoseSPiano]

Good Evening!  ...again...

A good day of auditions.  It was Singers who Dance day today, so I got to play for a bunch of people.  Men in the morning, Women in the afternoon.  Like a lot of auditions sessions, this one was like old home week for me.  I saw a lot of old friends, new friends, people I've worked with, etc.  Lots of hugs today!



We made pretty good time in the morning, so we ended up with a two hour lunch break.  We all headed over to Teriyaki Boy for a very good and cheap lunch, and then we walked down to The Little Pie Shop for, well, Pie!

The conductor and assistant choreographer are no longer The Little Pie Shop virgins!  And we broke each of them in with their signature pie, the Sour Cream Apple Walnut.  Myself, I tried their Chocolate Cream Pie today.  Very good.  Tomorrow, I think I shall try the Peach-Raspberry.

[JoseSPiano]

As DR Jason already recounted, I met up with him and his pals, Joe and Mike, and we headed over to McHale's to grab some dinner.  Burgers all around.  Big burgers!

I had a wonderful time at dinner.  Lots of dish, lots of speculation, lots of fun!  And it turns out that both Joe and Mike had worked at places I've worked at before, so we were trading lots of names of people we've worked with.  The Good and The Bad.

And then it was off to All Shook Up...

[bk]

I'm back from a deelightful dinner with Richard Valley, his ever-lovin' Tom, and Walter Willison.  We ate at a jernt called Cafe Figaro.  I THINK I was a good boy, diet-wise.  First off, it was my only meal of the day.  I had onion soup, one half a roast chicken in a very light mushroom sauce, no French fries, and a tiny salad with vinaigrette.  I feel really full, but I don't think it was all that bad, calorie-wise.  The food was really excellent and I loved our Brazilian waitress, Deborah.

[JoseSPiano]

Before dinner, we met in front of the TKTS booth.  I still needed to buy a ticket to the show as did Mike.  Well, we decided to check in after dinner just in case some better seats may have been released for sale.

Once we got back there, the only seats they had for sale were the $100 Rear Mezzanine seats - well, down to $53.00 with the discount.  Hmmm... Well, the standard Balcony seats runs $39.00, so we just headed over to the box office across the street, and purchased two tickets in the third row of the balcony.

The seats were OK, if a little high up.  However, at intermission we moved down - there was a whole row that was practically empty.  A better view of the show for the second act.

...And as we were taking our seats, one of the ladies who was sitting on the end of aisle, sort of asked rhetorically, "And just how much did you pay for your tickets?"  -She had obviously paid the $100 for her seats.   Ah, well...

[JoseSPiano]

As for the show itself, I liked it. I didn't love it, but I had a good time.  Some fun scenic touches and effects, as well as some neat costume tricks - for lack of a better word.

Musically, there were times when I missed the songs being sung in Elvis' baritone range.  Most everything seems arranged for at the high end of the belt range - very "American Idol" vocal stylings.  However, I was really impressed with Stephen Oremus' vocal arrangements.  Truly well done, and very "tight".  And the band was pretty hot too.

Cheyenne Jackson is indeed very nice to look at, but there are a couple of other nice things to look at in the show too.  

We waited at the Stage Door afterwards for a couple of the actors I know in the show, but they "escaped" via the other exit.  Ah, well...  It was good seeing them on stage having a good time.

[JoseSPiano]

OH!

We had finished a little bit earlier than scheduled in the afternoon too.  Our conductor decided to head over to TKTS to check out what was available.  He ended up getting a ticket to The Light in the Piazza which was on his list of shows to see if he could this week.  Avenue Q and Wicked were also on his list.

I suggested that he go ahead and head over to the Box Office for each show to see if there were any single tickets available for tomorrow or Friday.  I went along with him to the Golden to check on Avenue Q.  When he got to the window, he asked what the best available single would be for tomorrow.  After a flurry of typing, the clerk, "Well, actually, I have a seventh row center seat available."  He took it!

-And after checking the seat location, it appears that it was a house seat that had been released for public sale since it was the same seat I had when I went to see it last year.



-He decided to hold off on heading up to the Gershwin to check on Wicked.  He actually wants to see The Musical of Musicals too, and since that will most likely be on TKTS, he'll just pay 1/2 price for that, and splurge on Wicked another time.

[JoseSPiano]

...And speaking of tickets...

I just got a phone call from a friend who's in town for a few days of vacation.  He waited in the Cancellation line for Spamalot today.  For hours.  He was only a few from the front when he first got there.  Some people had left, and some people before him had snagged a seat or two.  He was soon at the front of the line.  After another hour or two of waiting, he was just about to leave - since his friends had been out sight-seeing all day without him - when the box office guy told him to come to the window!

He was at best hoping for a single for himself.  Possibly a pair for him and his partner.  Well, he ended up with FOUR 11th Row, Center Orchestra seats!  FOUR OF THEM!  So, he was able to take his partner with him, as well as treat his hosts to an evening in the theatre too!

[JoseSPiano]

Other random news today...

I had a nice run in, literally, with Hugh Panaro earlier this afternoon.  I was just walking around after the auditions, and he was getting away for his between show break - he's playing the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.  It was very good seeing him again, and we chatted for a good ten minutes.  We're going to try to get together next week for dinner.

[JoseSPiano]

While walking through the lobby of the Equity building, I ran into one of my former students from VCU.  And he was coming into the Damn Yankees call.  Well...

When it came time for his turn, he walks into the room laughing...  "Jose, I know you're gonna laugh now too..."  He opens his book, and the song is "Look Around" from Golden Boy.  -Which happens to be the very FIRST audition I ever worked with him on about five or six years ago!

And, yes, I did start laughing.

-And he snagged a callback too!

[George]

Okay, here's my last story about forgotten lines in a show.  In 1990, I was in a local production of Amadeus and the producer (TCB, it was Jeff Kingsbury of Capital Playhouse, friend of Shari O'Hare) was playing Salieri.  That was the kind of show where just about everybody in the production had their scripts either hidden in their costumes (like me) or just off stage so that as soon as they got off stage, they could look and see what's coming up next.  It was not a good production.  But I digress.  The night before we opened, the director (a tiny little old lady who was anything but demure) and Jeff were arguing with the lighting designer about the lighting design...specifically that it was sh*t.  They were not pleased.  At one point Ruthie (the director) yelled at the lighting designer, "JUST LIGHT THE F*CKING STAGE!!"  Anyway, that night, Jeff and Misi (our fabulous stage manager) rehung all of the lights and totally redesigned it...over night!  The next day (opening night), we had to hold the house and not let anyone in until about five before eight, because the lights weren't done.  Finally, the show started.  It was, to say the least, stressful.

Well, Jeff (as Salieri) had a monologue that bridged one scene to a another and he flubbed up a bit and was about to get back to where he was supposed to be (or so he said later ) but before he could, the guy playing Mozart came in and continued with the new (and wrong) scene.  Jeff had no choice but to keep going.  Everyone off and back stage were quickly going through their aforementioned scripts trying to find out where the guys went...FIFTEEN PAGES LATER we all caught up and continued on as best we could.  The problem wasn't just that FIFTEEN PAGES were cut out of the opening night performance, but that there were a couple of people in the show whose only scenes were within those fifteen pages!!  They took their bows, but didn't perform that night at all!  That was in June.  For Jeff's birthday (in September), I had those 15 pages of script photocopied and put onto a nightshirt with the title "The Mis-Carriage of Figaro."  End of story.

[George]

I also have another forgetting lines story AND I got a call earlier that makes me go AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! But I have to get home and eat first before I tell them.

Be back later.

The phone call that I got earlier was someone from my credit union's debit card processing place asking if I had made a charge for $4.10 (also, he gave me more identifiying information and I didn't tell him any confidential info).  Anyway, I didn't charge anything for $4.10!!  He said that this charge was attempted but rejected by them.  He said that it could be someone testing the system, trying to get money from my account!!  I don't know what they do to confirm a purchase, but he suggested that I could either cancel the account and get a whole new number or have a temporary block put on my account so that charges that I have made already would still go through (which is what I opted to do).  I'm going to call my credit union first thing in the morning to find out what they know and what I could do from here.  I have several bills that are automatically deducted and if this doesn't get cleared up soon, I could be in a world of financial hurt! So:

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

[JoseSPiano]

Oohh... I think I can just make it...

I'll have to save some of my flubbed line stories for later..

I have auditions to play in a few hours...  And since it's the Dance Call, I'm pretty sure I'll be playing the dance break of "Shoeless Joe" at least 200 times tomorrow/today... If not more...

So... Goodnight.

...and as he clicks "Post"...

[JoseSPiano]

WHEW!  Made it!



Goodnight.