Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much soupy fish, listening to an album I never even heard of entitled Broadway’s Best, Overtures and Dances, conducted by one Paul Gemignani with the New York City Opera Orchestra, a 1995 recording. It contains overtures from Candide, the opening Waltz from A Little Night Music, the brief introduction to Porgy and Bess, the overtures from The Music Man, Finian’s Rainbow, serenade from The Student Prince, more overtures from The New Moon, 110 in the Shade, My Fair Lady, a suite from Pacific Overtures, the overtures to Goodtime Charley, George M!, a ballet from Brigadoon, and the overture South Pacific. Some of these differ slightly from cast album overtures – for example, the Goodtime Charley cast album combined the overture and entr’acte – here we only get the overture. It was done for the MusicMasters label, produced by Thomas Z. Shepard, and certainly not is finest hour. Strings sound thin and a bit sloppy, but it’s a fun compilation, with the most interesting pieces being the Pacific Overtures three-part suite, and the 110 in the Shade and Goodtime Charley overtures. Other than that, after two blissful days of no hand or foot cramping, they were back with a vengeance yesterday afternoon, but thankfully mostly abated by about ten o’clock. Otherwise, yesterday was okay – a little weird, but okay. I only got six hours of sleep thanks to a ton of spam calls that began at eight.

I got up at ten-thirty, answered e-mails, one of which, happily, was from one of my blurbers who, it turns out, wasn’t ignoring me – he never got the e-mail I sent two weeks ago because I had two different gmail addresses and chose the wrong one. He seems to be willing to do a blurb and knows it’s a time crunch, so I’m hopeful I’ll get it. Then I had a Zoom meeting with my set designer for Applause and we’re very much on the same page, so that’s good. For food, I ordered soup from Uncle Bernie’s deli – don’t know why I chose the sweet and sour cabbage soup with pieces of meat, since I’ve had nothing but bad experiences ordering that from delis – my mother used to make that soup, and it was always a treat. All the deli versions I’d tried were heavy on the sour and non-existent on the sweet, rendering everything tasteless. But I decided to chance it and I’m glad I did because it was great. So great, in fact, that I ordered it again for my evening snack, along with a Chinese chicken salad from the Cheesecake Factory – soup not being enough of a meal – but I didn’t care for the salad and only ate less than half. Other than that and dealing with the heinous cramping, I think I only dozed off once for about thirty minutes.

I did watch some YouTube videos, and one of them was the complete opening night performance of the original production of A Little Night Music – audio only, through the sound system. I just finished act one and what a treat it is to hear that perfect cast. But the best part is the audience – a real theatre audience long before theatre devolved into the pandering thing it is today, with “in” jokes that are now so stale one wonders why they bother, screeching high notes begging for cheers and oversized reactions from the young people in the audience, who learned about audience reaction by watching America’s Got Talent or American Idol or The Voice, where all that crap was phony as can be. But that’s what we get today – mid-show standing ovations, whooping and hollering, and people who are paying so much that they feel they have to act that way. It’s why I don’t want to go to the theatre anymore. But hearing A Little Night Music, you hear an audience that’s appreciative, who clearly love the show, but no oversized out of control craziness, no oversized buttons on songs begging the audience to cheer and applaud, just clear storytelling, a very literate and funny book, a perfect cast perfectly directed – hefty mitts, no screaming, big earned laughs, a sophisticated musical being watched by sophisticated people. I’d hate to see the reaction it would get today, from the nutty Sondheads on down – if people even went to see it. I’ll finish that up today. I finished the liner notes for our upcoming CD release. That was pretty much it, I think, and here we are.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I guess I’ll call the mail place and see if the envelope arrived and if it has, I’ll go get it, I’ll eat something, perhaps some fish or some Gelson’s ribs – something like that. Other than that, I’ll get the liner notes and track titles stuff to Doug so we can start pre-orders for it and the new book by mid-next week. If I get the third blurb, then I’ll get all the book files to the publisher early next week, too. Then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.

Tomorrow, Kay Cole and I will be seeing the show Barry Pearl directed out in Long Beach but first supping nearby the theater. I’ll need to put gas in the motor car before we leave, in fact, I’ll do that today. Sunday is a ME day, then next week is hugely busy with our announcements, meetings and meals, and doing whatever needs doing.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, call the mail place, put gas in the motor car, get liner notes and stuff to Doug, eat, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – the new 4K transfer of Ben-Hur that just showed up on Amazon Prime. I’m told it’s lovely. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have heard the kind of audience we used to have rather than what we have now.