This post has no title, just words and a tune

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.