Had an unpleasant start to rehearsals, after which things got better. The person who was not prepared at ALL the other day was not much better today and I'm afraid I got terse about it - not in general, but she kept mispronouncing words in the Typische Deutsche song (like the two words in the title), so I said stop, and pronounced them from her, and she went off on me in a way that no one should ever go off on me, telling me it's a rehearsal and she needs her rehearsal and it's not this and it's not that. I explained to her calmly that we have a way of doing these shows that is successful, that I have had incredible people in them who show up prepared, blah, blah, blah. And then I did the smart thing and just shut up, even though my instinct was to throw her out of the room. We make the deal very clear - it's why the singers are paid. Adyran Russ even e-mailed her prior to the first rehearsal reminding her of the way we do things. She's also had this material for over two weeks. She started complaining that one of her songs was really four songs - Adryan couldn't believe it, because while I use parts of the four woman songs from Stop the World, it's all basically the same damn song - it's four minutes and is no different than any other put-together that's in this show. But it does require learning. It didn't help that on Monday she took twenty minutes of the next performer's time, throwing us hugely behind - all because she didn't know the tunes of her songs. It didn't help that she cancelled a Tuesday work session that SHE asked to have. And it didn't help that she arrived ten minutes late today and again took up fifteen minutes of the next performer's time.
I have no idea if she'll show up on Saturday and do what she did today - spread her lyric sheets all over the piano. I am not comfy with her at all, and, of course, it will be her first and last time in a Kritzerland show and she will not be working for me again. She's a very talented gal, though. But because Adryan and I were both uncomfortable with her display, we have asked a young gal to cover her - the young gal will learn the songs, work with the musical director tomorrow and be ready to come over on Saturday if I don't like what I see at the stumble-through. I hate this crap and frankly while we've had the occasional hiccup here and there, the one thing no singer has ever done with me, even the couple that I've had to be strong with, is go off like that and behave like an amateur. What she effectively did today was take away the one time I have to work with the performers on their performance - had she been prepared all would be well, but she wasn't, Blanche, she wasn't. End of rant.
