Couldn't think of a title for this one. I'd be very impressed if anyone caught that reference without having to look it up.
BABY rehearsals are going well. I need a thesaurus and Google handy whenever I'm around the director. She's very British. I have to listen very closely when she's talking to me, because she might ask me a question and if I'm not on my toes, I won't realize she's asked me a question, because of the way people from that side of the pond tend to speak questions like a declarative sentence, and then tack "are you" at the end. Such as, "You're comfortable with Amanda, are you?" I could tell you many expressions I've gotten from her, but my favorite Sarah-ism was what is apparently the British equivalent of "what am I, chopped liver?" She was giving somebody an idea of what might be their inner thought process in a scene, and came out with "so you're over here thinking 'what am I, scotch mist?'"
I have no idea what scotch mist is - I still haven't Googled it, but I'm picturing somebody pouring Scotch into a spray bottle and misting it around.
I am off-book ish. Off book per se, for all intents and purposes. I can do the run-throughs with no script in hand, but I'm still off to the side looking things over between scenes.
PARADE closed last Sunday. It was a nice closing. There's this sentimental positive Hallmark movie feeling people get when something is ending, and they know they're about to not see as much of each other for a while. Knowing the finality of it inspires people to get eloquent and say the nicest things about each other that they hadn't said yet. This is why messages written in school yearbooks are always so nice, as well as statements people make after somebody dies. I got plenty of those, including from people I wasn't sure I'd hear nice things from. 2 days before closing, I stumbled upon my fellow music director's personal blog.
You see, when the reviews for this show came out, most of the critics were mentioning me and not her. This is likely because I was the only MD for the first half of the rehearsal process. Mid-way through, this girl (who was already in the cast) was brought on board to take some of the burden off me and help out. But by then, most if not all the press releases, flyers, and stuff for the program had been printed with my name prominently displayed. I felt bad about the lack of attention she was getting from the reviewers, so I posted a comment on our local theater reviewing site praising her. I called her the unsung hero of this production, etc. I'd wanted to do that for a while, and it felt good to get that out. A few hours later, I happen upon her blog and sure enough, she seemed to be feeling like scotch mist because of the whole thing. She had a little blurb about me and how much credit I'd been receiving. It was factually true, but I reverted back to my insecure feelings back in mid-December when I was stressing out like crazy thinking people didn't think I knew what I was doing, or didn't like me. Left me in a strange vibe for Friday's show. I posted a comment under the blog which was pretty much a shorter version of what I said on the public site. So she now knows I read it, but she didn't know until it was brought to her attention that I publicly lauded her on the theater review site. I just hope it is known that I posted that before I discovered her blog, so it wasn't just lip service.
It was a minor crisis in my head while it was happening, but I had nothing to worry about. After the closing performance, I said how I felt bad about the lopsided recognition the musical direction was getting from the critics, and she said something like don't feel bad, you did a lot of work for this show, and it sounded great. She actually said she would like the idea of working with me again, and she has RSVPed to my Facebook invite to come and see BABY. She's one of the few "confirmed guests."
The feeling is mutual. She was an absolute life-saver, and I literally couldn't have done it without her. I'm sorry she didn't get more kudos. She certainly deserved at least as much as I did.
Soon, I'll catch you up on the movies I've watched recently. If you know me, you know I always have an opinion about movies.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
stop a moment, take it in
Wow - I've already exceeded the posts I had on the Smoke and MVP blog.
PARADE is up and running. There was some drama on opening weekend when we had the Blizzard of 2010, or at least Georgia's version of a blizzard. Because of ice/snow/road conditions, the director cancelled our Friday night preview and called a last-minute mandatory rehearsal on the afternoon of the opening day. I was supposed to have the first BABY rehearsal of the new year that day, but I had to get out of it. Fortunately, the director (Sarah) was uber-understanding about it, and everybody welcomed me with open arms at the second rehearsal of the new year.
PARADE has been great. Audience response has been very very positive, and we all are glued to our local theater reviewing websites. [Well, I always am. theaterreview.com has been a guilty pleasure of mine since 2002.] Jason is incredible in this role. I think he's a little disappointed there are no MAT Awards involved in this production - as if he needs another one. Since this show is based on a real-life event, I'm not spoiling anything by saying his character gets hanged at the end. The first time we tried hanging Jason we ran into the problem of him spinning around in circles like a wound-up yo-yo. To solve this, one of the members of the lynch mob has to hold his foot to keep him in place.
In a trend I'm trying not to think is due to me, I sometimes find I'm in a show where the director announces at a rehearsal that he/she is about to blow up for the first time in a while/years/so many shows/etc. In 2004, when I did a concert version of TITANIC, the director said one night "this is the first time I'm having to become an asshole director in 20 years." Now, our PARADE director said "I am about to lose it for the first time in 4 shows" - and then proceeded to go off on the cast about how they were not looking sad enough in the funeral scene. They took the "direction" well - too well. They ran it again, and this time around it was like a Greek tragedy, with melodramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth, and some sobbing that was so loud it was drowning out dialogue/singing. To his credit, he praised them and said it was nothing short of brilliant. A few run-throughs later, he toned them down and said the emotion is great, but not so loud. He put it best when he said they went from mourning a death of a 13-year-old girl to mourning 9/11. He seems to have a sense of humor about it. He was preparing to do a radio interview, and I said I hope somebody calls in and asks how he got the cast to look so sad in the funeral scene. And in my TITANIC director's defense, I don't remember exactly what his tirade was about, but we moved on from it, had some fun, and put on a damn fine show.
Yesterday's BABY rehearsal was long and very productive. We covered so much ground. It went in phases - I felt like I had aged 20 years that afternoon and should be playing the guy in the old couple. First, we took pictures with the professional photographer. They always do individual headshots for the wall, and a cast picture. We did the headshots, then one with the 6 main characters. I wanted this well-documented, so at the risk of the cast wanting to kill me, I kept suggesting things. "Let's do some with each couple. Let's do some with just the women. Let's do some with just the men. Now let's do some with just the 6 of us doing such-and-such." Those pics will be up on the guy's website any day now (or any minute now), and rest assured I will be sharing them here, there, and everywhere. It ended with us running the scene from hell. I have 5 pages of dialogue with the Lizzie character followed by my least favorite song in the show. We did the scene and blocked the song. The last part of the song - once all the singing solos are over with - is actually pretty fun. We were taken into a big room with our choreographer, who we had never met before and didn't know from Eve (at least I didn't). She was mainly just working with the ensemble, and Lizzie and I came up with our own stuff which everyone seemed to like.
We didn't have any BABY rehearsals from December 19 until January 9th. Since my Lizzie is married to the director of PARADE, we got to meet up a few times and run lines. The other night when we did the scene from hell, we were both a little shaky on lines, but I noticed that the parts we knew the best were the lines about sex, masturbation, and whether womens' chests stay as big as they are after the baby is born. Overall, we had a lot of laughs doing the pictures and doing the song we hate.
Is it okay with you if I do the occasional mini-movie review? I know this blog is supposed to be about skits, but movies are filmed skits, right?
I bit off more than I could chew once we got our DVR. I went a bit crazy with recording movies, and now, I'm forcing myself to not record any more for a while since I just got a bunch of new DVD/Blu Rays for Christmas. So I'm finishing up the stuff that's already recorded, then I'm getting started with what I got as a present. I loved Lakeview Terrace. Samuel L. Jackson creates a character like Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, Tim Robbins in Arlington Road, or Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights. The kind of character that gets under our skin. I give the film an A- or an A. Enjoyed it so much, I bought the Blu-Ray with some of my gift money. The ending is perfect. More or less, exactly what I wanted to happen happened, and just enough was revealed that I wanted more, but was still satisfied with what I got. Broadway/national tour vet Patrick Wilson starred opposite Jackson. To think I saw him in the tour of CAROUSEL in 1997 - and now he's starring in movies opposite Samuel L. Jackson. I then saw the remake of Cape Fear with De Niro and Nick Nolte. Saw the original with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum already. Very enjoyable. Scorcese took some plot liberties with the main character and the way things end, and it's very interesting to watch. It's either a B or a B+. Tonight or tomorrow I'm hoping to finish The Good Son, or as I think of it, the R-rated Macauley Culkin movie. He did this film right after the first Home Alone. The reviews said that kids would inevitably want to see it because it had their hero Culkin, but they should not under any circumstances see it, no matter how many guardians come with them. So far, I haven't seen anything to warrant an R rating - maybe a PG-13. Roger Ebert didn't like the movie at all - he said that kids shouldn't be put into situations where they say and do the unspeakable things the characters do in this film, and never has he disliked a film's ending more.
My breath is bated.
PARADE is up and running. There was some drama on opening weekend when we had the Blizzard of 2010, or at least Georgia's version of a blizzard. Because of ice/snow/road conditions, the director cancelled our Friday night preview and called a last-minute mandatory rehearsal on the afternoon of the opening day. I was supposed to have the first BABY rehearsal of the new year that day, but I had to get out of it. Fortunately, the director (Sarah) was uber-understanding about it, and everybody welcomed me with open arms at the second rehearsal of the new year.
PARADE has been great. Audience response has been very very positive, and we all are glued to our local theater reviewing websites. [Well, I always am. theaterreview.com has been a guilty pleasure of mine since 2002.] Jason is incredible in this role. I think he's a little disappointed there are no MAT Awards involved in this production - as if he needs another one. Since this show is based on a real-life event, I'm not spoiling anything by saying his character gets hanged at the end. The first time we tried hanging Jason we ran into the problem of him spinning around in circles like a wound-up yo-yo. To solve this, one of the members of the lynch mob has to hold his foot to keep him in place.
In a trend I'm trying not to think is due to me, I sometimes find I'm in a show where the director announces at a rehearsal that he/she is about to blow up for the first time in a while/years/so many shows/etc. In 2004, when I did a concert version of TITANIC, the director said one night "this is the first time I'm having to become an asshole director in 20 years." Now, our PARADE director said "I am about to lose it for the first time in 4 shows" - and then proceeded to go off on the cast about how they were not looking sad enough in the funeral scene. They took the "direction" well - too well. They ran it again, and this time around it was like a Greek tragedy, with melodramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth, and some sobbing that was so loud it was drowning out dialogue/singing. To his credit, he praised them and said it was nothing short of brilliant. A few run-throughs later, he toned them down and said the emotion is great, but not so loud. He put it best when he said they went from mourning a death of a 13-year-old girl to mourning 9/11. He seems to have a sense of humor about it. He was preparing to do a radio interview, and I said I hope somebody calls in and asks how he got the cast to look so sad in the funeral scene. And in my TITANIC director's defense, I don't remember exactly what his tirade was about, but we moved on from it, had some fun, and put on a damn fine show.
Yesterday's BABY rehearsal was long and very productive. We covered so much ground. It went in phases - I felt like I had aged 20 years that afternoon and should be playing the guy in the old couple. First, we took pictures with the professional photographer. They always do individual headshots for the wall, and a cast picture. We did the headshots, then one with the 6 main characters. I wanted this well-documented, so at the risk of the cast wanting to kill me, I kept suggesting things. "Let's do some with each couple. Let's do some with just the women. Let's do some with just the men. Now let's do some with just the 6 of us doing such-and-such." Those pics will be up on the guy's website any day now (or any minute now), and rest assured I will be sharing them here, there, and everywhere. It ended with us running the scene from hell. I have 5 pages of dialogue with the Lizzie character followed by my least favorite song in the show. We did the scene and blocked the song. The last part of the song - once all the singing solos are over with - is actually pretty fun. We were taken into a big room with our choreographer, who we had never met before and didn't know from Eve (at least I didn't). She was mainly just working with the ensemble, and Lizzie and I came up with our own stuff which everyone seemed to like.
We didn't have any BABY rehearsals from December 19 until January 9th. Since my Lizzie is married to the director of PARADE, we got to meet up a few times and run lines. The other night when we did the scene from hell, we were both a little shaky on lines, but I noticed that the parts we knew the best were the lines about sex, masturbation, and whether womens' chests stay as big as they are after the baby is born. Overall, we had a lot of laughs doing the pictures and doing the song we hate.
Is it okay with you if I do the occasional mini-movie review? I know this blog is supposed to be about skits, but movies are filmed skits, right?
I bit off more than I could chew once we got our DVR. I went a bit crazy with recording movies, and now, I'm forcing myself to not record any more for a while since I just got a bunch of new DVD/Blu Rays for Christmas. So I'm finishing up the stuff that's already recorded, then I'm getting started with what I got as a present. I loved Lakeview Terrace. Samuel L. Jackson creates a character like Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, Tim Robbins in Arlington Road, or Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights. The kind of character that gets under our skin. I give the film an A- or an A. Enjoyed it so much, I bought the Blu-Ray with some of my gift money. The ending is perfect. More or less, exactly what I wanted to happen happened, and just enough was revealed that I wanted more, but was still satisfied with what I got. Broadway/national tour vet Patrick Wilson starred opposite Jackson. To think I saw him in the tour of CAROUSEL in 1997 - and now he's starring in movies opposite Samuel L. Jackson. I then saw the remake of Cape Fear with De Niro and Nick Nolte. Saw the original with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum already. Very enjoyable. Scorcese took some plot liberties with the main character and the way things end, and it's very interesting to watch. It's either a B or a B+. Tonight or tomorrow I'm hoping to finish The Good Son, or as I think of it, the R-rated Macauley Culkin movie. He did this film right after the first Home Alone. The reviews said that kids would inevitably want to see it because it had their hero Culkin, but they should not under any circumstances see it, no matter how many guardians come with them. So far, I haven't seen anything to warrant an R rating - maybe a PG-13. Roger Ebert didn't like the movie at all - he said that kids shouldn't be put into situations where they say and do the unspeakable things the characters do in this film, and never has he disliked a film's ending more.
My breath is bated.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
I got chills - they're multiplyin'
Haven't really thought about GREASE in a while, since I've had my plate pretty full, but just got an e-mail from the Stage Manager with a complete cast list. Most of it I already knew about, but there were a few new nice surprises. These names will probably go over the heads of the out-of-towners reading this, but we've got Andy Meeks, Bethany Irby, Tracy Moore, Eugene Russell, Jimi Kocina, Robert Egizio, and Patty Mosely, to name a few.
Should be awesome. Can't wait for the summer of love to begin.
Should be awesome. Can't wait for the summer of love to begin.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
These people make me tense.
I haven't really talked about PARADE yet.
I am music-directing. Most of the first month of rehearsals was music stuff, led by me. I can listen to make sure harmonies are right and plunk out parts 'til I'm blue in the face, but I'm not much of a sightreader when it comes to Jason Robert Brown. For most of November and December I was jumping back and forth between this and BABY rehearsals, as well as dealing with some time-and-emotion-consuming personal business, that rehearsals were a little disjointed. I heard that one night I wasn't there, there was a mini-come to Jesus meeting with the director about how shaky these music-rehearsals are going, or as it was described to me, a "bash you fest." I was assured that there were no personal resentment or hard-feelings - scrictly on a professional level. The consensus was that I know my stuff and I've got a good ear, but I have ZERO authority skills or control of the group.
Pretty much true. That's fine - I can take that. I successfully kept it from making me sad and thinking "poor me, nobody in the show likes me, I suck," and instead let it drive me to do better. Soon after that, I was leading a rehearsal and at the end of the night before sending everyone home, I made a speech to them apologizing for the disjointedness of the rehearsal and saying that if there's anything I can do to make this process better, let me know. I said that I've music-directed before, but most of those have been for kid's shows where they were singing along to a track. The lack of live accompaniment takes a HUGE burden off the MD's shoulders. I said I was not the original music-director for this show, that I was a last-minute replacement and I agreed to do it to be a nice guy and because I'd always wanted to work with [director] Rob [Hardie]. I said you all are doing great and it's an honor to work with all of you, and I think Rob thought of me for this project because I have such a good ear and can hear musical mistakes that usually slip through the cracks.
My little speech got applause and what appeared to be general appreciation. I had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown with everything going on, but giving them this little talk instantly got rid of 75% of my stress. Amazing what just being open, honest, and communicative can do. I even had a young girl in the cast come up to me the next night and say "I felt bad after what you said last night, because I think you're doing a great job."
Another good thing happened shortly after that. Rob hired an assistant MD. She's in the cast, is an experienced accompanist/MD, and whipped everyone into shape vocally while I had to be away for BABY rehearsals and whatnot. Also, we had an accompaniment CD made for rehearsals.
So now the new year is here not a moment too soon, and we're in tech week. Some wonderful things are happening in this show. So many cast members who had shaky or unmemorable auditions have really stepped up to the plate. Auditioning sucks and it's hard to encapsulate all your experience and ability into a 16-measure song clip. It's an interesting trend I've been seeing, in the recent shows where I've sat in on the auditions. People give mediocre or just-okay auditions, but once cast, they really come to life in rehearsals. I feel like I'm the opposite. I think I audition really well, and once the show opens, I perform it really well, but I always think I suck in rehearsals and I'm the worst person in the cast.
I love seeing the scenes between Jason and Michelle, who play our two leads, Leo and Lucille. Their chemistry is awesome, and their voices bend beautifully together. Jason is quite the experienced chef as well, and is one of the founders and owners of The Red Hen Cafe, where I have the pleasure of working 5 days a week. Jason and I go way back, and his wife and I go even further back, but that's a story for another post where my computer is behaving better.
So many wonderful performances are in this show - too many highlights to mention them all, but a couple more I'll mention now are Leslie who has a hypnotically beautiful voice and stage presence, and Don Goodner, who has one of the best high tenor voices I've heard recently. We open this Saturday, so I'll be talking more about it as things keep progressing.
I am music-directing. Most of the first month of rehearsals was music stuff, led by me. I can listen to make sure harmonies are right and plunk out parts 'til I'm blue in the face, but I'm not much of a sightreader when it comes to Jason Robert Brown. For most of November and December I was jumping back and forth between this and BABY rehearsals, as well as dealing with some time-and-emotion-consuming personal business, that rehearsals were a little disjointed. I heard that one night I wasn't there, there was a mini-come to Jesus meeting with the director about how shaky these music-rehearsals are going, or as it was described to me, a "bash you fest." I was assured that there were no personal resentment or hard-feelings - scrictly on a professional level. The consensus was that I know my stuff and I've got a good ear, but I have ZERO authority skills or control of the group.
Pretty much true. That's fine - I can take that. I successfully kept it from making me sad and thinking "poor me, nobody in the show likes me, I suck," and instead let it drive me to do better. Soon after that, I was leading a rehearsal and at the end of the night before sending everyone home, I made a speech to them apologizing for the disjointedness of the rehearsal and saying that if there's anything I can do to make this process better, let me know. I said that I've music-directed before, but most of those have been for kid's shows where they were singing along to a track. The lack of live accompaniment takes a HUGE burden off the MD's shoulders. I said I was not the original music-director for this show, that I was a last-minute replacement and I agreed to do it to be a nice guy and because I'd always wanted to work with [director] Rob [Hardie]. I said you all are doing great and it's an honor to work with all of you, and I think Rob thought of me for this project because I have such a good ear and can hear musical mistakes that usually slip through the cracks.
My little speech got applause and what appeared to be general appreciation. I had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown with everything going on, but giving them this little talk instantly got rid of 75% of my stress. Amazing what just being open, honest, and communicative can do. I even had a young girl in the cast come up to me the next night and say "I felt bad after what you said last night, because I think you're doing a great job."
Another good thing happened shortly after that. Rob hired an assistant MD. She's in the cast, is an experienced accompanist/MD, and whipped everyone into shape vocally while I had to be away for BABY rehearsals and whatnot. Also, we had an accompaniment CD made for rehearsals.
So now the new year is here not a moment too soon, and we're in tech week. Some wonderful things are happening in this show. So many cast members who had shaky or unmemorable auditions have really stepped up to the plate. Auditioning sucks and it's hard to encapsulate all your experience and ability into a 16-measure song clip. It's an interesting trend I've been seeing, in the recent shows where I've sat in on the auditions. People give mediocre or just-okay auditions, but once cast, they really come to life in rehearsals. I feel like I'm the opposite. I think I audition really well, and once the show opens, I perform it really well, but I always think I suck in rehearsals and I'm the worst person in the cast.
I love seeing the scenes between Jason and Michelle, who play our two leads, Leo and Lucille. Their chemistry is awesome, and their voices bend beautifully together. Jason is quite the experienced chef as well, and is one of the founders and owners of The Red Hen Cafe, where I have the pleasure of working 5 days a week. Jason and I go way back, and his wife and I go even further back, but that's a story for another post where my computer is behaving better.
So many wonderful performances are in this show - too many highlights to mention them all, but a couple more I'll mention now are Leslie who has a hypnotically beautiful voice and stage presence, and Don Goodner, who has one of the best high tenor voices I've heard recently. We open this Saturday, so I'll be talking more about it as things keep progressing.
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