Well, dear readers, I shall try to be brief as yesterday’s notes were anything but. As we’ve said many times, brevity is the filet of sole of wit and if that sounds fishy it’s only because I bastardized the quote. Shakespeare wrote it in Hamlet, spoken by Polonius, himself a notorious fan of filet of sole. Anyway, brief. Brevity. Short and sweet. Sweet and sour. Sour grapes. The Grapes of Roth. So, last night we came back from our week off for rehearsal. Nobody had clearly done what I’d asked, which was to review everything while we were off. Therefore, we had lots of forgotten blocking and that which had been sharp wasn’t. I warned everyone that that if that happened during the Christmas break, that we are doomed, so everyone I think heard me and will do the right thing. I also said off book in one week. Once again, I had no assistant and I have reached the tipping point on that and have written a strong e-mail about it – three MONTHS they’ve had to find me someone, and I’d been told that someone had been found. If this continues one more night then I will simply hire someone and they’ll have to pay for it, because I cannot do my job properly without someone there to write things down, notate blocking properly so we don’t have happen what happened last night (people forgetting what we did, not writing it down carefully, etc.), and most importantly, operating the laptop, playing the tracks. I need to be on my feet, working with the actors, fixing any staging forgetfulness, not stuck behind a laptop. Anyway, a frustrating evening, but I got act one roughly assembled, and all the scene shifts blocked and I think we fixed all the forgotten blocking, and we blocked in one of our missing actors into everything he hadn’t been blocked into. Prior to that, I did a dumb thing – I was so tired from yet another night of maybe five and a half hours of sleep, that I sat in the living room armchair. Let me tell you about this chair – it is so comfy for me that I can go out like a light five seconds after sitting down, which is exactly what happened, and I KNEW it would happen. I sat down about 4:40, knowing I had until six to leave. I thought if I dozed off it would just be for a few minutes. And it was – about ten minutes, until I dozed off again. And again. When I finally realized that was happening, I got up and it was six-twenty. Luckily, groggy as I was, I’d already gotten ready to leave so I was out the door and in the motor car five minutes later. I got there about ten minutes before we were to start, but then I had to personally get everything set up – not my job – but I had to do it.
Prior to all THAT, I was up about seven-thirty, did stuff on the computer, ordered food that I knew would take forty minutes to get to me, went and did banking, came back, searched for something in the garage that I didn’t find, then realized it had been well over forty minutes with no food delivered. I went to the website only to find out the order hadn’t gone through – odd, as it said it did, and once I’d clicked to process it I was taken, as always, to the map that shows the progress. So, I had to order it again. Deliver time was forty minutes as the earliest, one hour as the latest. Every time I’ve ordered from Daughter’s Deli it’s been roughly forty-five minutes, despite its distance of about eight miles. Well, that time went by, and hour went by, and it finally arrived ninety-five minutes after I’d ordered it. Why? Because they sent him on three OTHER deliveries first. Hot pastrami on rye with coleslaw and 1,000 Island dressing – cold as can be with soggy top bread due to the coleslaw. Still, the sandwich was good, and filling and pills were taken. Then I did more organizing and stuff, then the unexpected long nap happened and the rest you know. When I got home after rehearsal, I had a muffin top for a snack and took pill three.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll pre-order food for 11:45 so I can eat before the Kritzerland rehearsal, rather than before the evening play rehearsal, I’ll eat, then we have the same folks from Monday so that rehearsal should go quickly and we’ll be done by three. Then I can rest, then I’ll go to the mail place to ship the package I didn’t get to ship yesterday, then we have our evening rehearsal with, I hope, an assistant director at long last. Then I’ll come home.
Tomorrow, I have a brief visit with someone who’s picking up something, otherwise I’ll relax until rehearsal. Friday, I’m picking up something over in Woodland Hills and may be having lunch with David Wechter, too. Saturday is our morning rehearsal, Sunday is a short Kritzerland rehearsal, Monday is my birthday, Tuesday is our stumble-through and, in the evening, a stumble-through of our entire show, and then Wednesday is sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, pre-order food, eat, have a short Kritzerland rehearsal, rest, ship a package, have our play rehearsal, and come home. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you likek and we get to give any old answer we like. So, lets’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream of brevity and the filet of sole, even though neither were really in evidence in these here notes.