Catching up

Friday was a late night and so is tonight.

Friday, lots of work at work, lunch at Togo's which was a special treat because there were two redheads working, one old enough to be the other's mom. Who knows? But the older one was very freckled, with bright red hair, the younger had that alabaster complexion with closer to auburn hair.

After work I had sometime to kill so I went to the Starbucks of the usually full parking lot, but there were parking places and places inside to sit, because most of the customers were taking their orders to go, which provided a steady stream of Friends of Spandex candidates. I studied my lines over an iced mocha, but looked up often. :-0

7:30 it was over to Santa Clara Players were three friends were in Arsenic and Old Lace. And another friend runs the box office and was producer. My friends did well, but it was horribly directed, and makeup sucked, and the leading man was dropping lines all over the place. He's supposed to be in his early 30s, but his hair was gray and he carried himself like a 50-year-old. The villain was horribly miscast, much shorter than the leading man (the part was written specifically for, and mentions Boris Karloff several times). And he wwsn't scary enough. But he knew his part well. Teddy was excellent except for on HUGE detail. He couldn't play the bugle. Hardly got a blat out. The whole show revolves around him waking the neighbors with his bugle.  Director should have gotten him lessons. I thought about trying out, because I play bugle, but I'm done with stage plays, too many lines to learn..

Dr Einstein is a friend I had not seen onstage before, and he was excellent. The two police officers had much bigger parts than I remembered (I directed this in college in 1969).

And I never thought I would say this, but the woman playing Elaine was way too sexy. Actually it was the costume. She's supposed to be a preacher's daughter going to the theater with the leading man, but they had her in a diaphanous pink gown with way shiny earrings. Should have been something much more conservative.

There was no pre-show or intermission music, but they played snippets of songs as the lights came up on the two acts, and during the curtain call. The lights-up music was vaguely wrong, I can't remember what it was, the curtain call was to the Adams Family theme, which was disgustingly WRONG. A&OL is not about fun-loving freaky but harmless creatures, it's about criminally insane cold blooded murderers. Another horrible call by the director.

More Catching Up

Saturday was a nutshell kind of day. Slept till 10, stayed in bed till 11, on the computer till noon, got dressed, did some chores and spent most of the afternoon on the porch studying lines. I pretty much have Act 1, though the songs are still iffy. Act 2 will need more work, but it's only 2 scenes, and one is very short.

Dinner was just some leftover fried chicken, but I put the corned beef in the crock pot with some spices and celery and mushrooms and half an onion. Plan is to have some for late lunch tomorrow.

Then to the gas station, and to the toga party. I didn't wear one, too clumsy, and besides my orange sheets are in the wash.

Good party, met some new people, chatted with of friends, got to be a serial consoler for a friend whose mom passed away last week. There were some parallels with my mom's passing, but he had by far the worst experience.

Lots of food, much chocolate, a fun time was had by all. I bailed at around midnight.

Plans for tomorrow:
Photo shoot at 11, this time the model is not a candidate for Shape magazine, but she has incredible eyes.
Choreography rehearsal at 6, they will completely re-do my Big Number. It is scoped out for 40 minutes, but if it takes less than an hour I will be very surprised. We had done this number before, but it was way too soon, before I knew the song, and before we had any idea what the set would look like or where we would be on it. There has been a lot of that kind of stupidity in this production. For instance, Tuesday we're supposed to be off book, but we've only just blocked Act II.

Late Ent

The plan was to get up at 10 after a late party night, be at the photo studio at 11, the rehearsals at 6.

What actually happened was the model missed her train, so the shoot was at noon; the choreographer didn't get to the theater until 6:20. I should have gone home 5 minutes earlier.

The shoot was mostly a bust. Model is a redhead with gorgeous face & stunning eyes, but an out of shape body. The host did not do as promised, and set up lights which let us focus on her eyes, instead he put together three artsy fartsy lighting setups which ignored her eyes and made her body look worse than it is. I only came out with 47 usable photos, and half of those after heavily photoshopping for contrast and color. Usually I get 200+.

Rehearsal was a PIA. Choreographer did a crappy job, it took her an hour to put together the routine, and then the director said it wouldn't do, and he took us out to the lobby for another 45 minutes and invented something mostly better, but by then I was so tired and confused that I really don't know. After he was done with us he said he wanted the choreographer to see it, but when I was called back into the theater a few minutes before 9 (end of rehearsal time) it wasn't to run the dance, it was to check out the huge plant puppet and see if I could make it through the opening when I get eaten. The answer is yes, probably, if the puppeteer gets out of the way, and someone helps pull me from backstage.

9:15 Director was still jabbering with the quartet and didn't hear me when I called to him, so I left.

We have another rehearsal tomorrow. I plan to be late.