Well, dear readers, the weekend is over, the New Year, 2026, is barreling right along, and I am sitting here like so much fish writing these here notes whilst listening to the Quincy Jones soundtrack for The Deadly Affair, a movie which I’ve never seen. But it’s from the period where Quincy, for me, was at his best. Yesterday’s five-hour rehearsal was fun – first a run-through – shaved five minutes from act two just in pacing, too many line calls, but this was the final day they could do that. Lighting designer seemed to enjoy it, and he taped the show and will now hang the lights. After that, my plan was to continue doing detail work, but our sound designer came and wanted to get everyone in mics, so that happened. While he was doing that, I worked on the opening scene and some business with a skeleton that I think will get a few nice laughs. And I worked on a couple of other little things and gave some acting notes. When everyone was in mics, we then set a mic level for the dialogue scenes. I want a very natural sound for that, almost as if they weren’t mic, but it’s helpful to have them because several scenes take place far upstage. Then we ran all the musical numbers and set levels for those, where I want the tracks to be very present but not so loud that we have to make people’s ears bleed with the vocal levels. And that took up the rest of the day. I then came right home. I was very gray out but not raining – until, that is, I walked in the house. The second I closed the door it began raining really hard. It didn’t last long, though. I ordered some pasta in pink sauce and garlic bread from a new jernt I didn’t know in Toluca Lake. It arrived and was very good – similar to Maria’s Kitchen. Prior to all that, I got eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, followed an art auction where in 90% of the bids started at ten bucks. I’ll let you guess how many paintings sold for ten bucks – zero. Why? Because I’m pretty sure there were a bunch of jerks from eBay – art dealers – who wanted stuff cheap and kept upping the bids until people dropped out – lots of stuff was cheap – forty, fifty, seventy, a hundred – and that’s why no one had a chance. I guarantee you in the next two months we’ll be seeing lots of these on eBay for five times the price. At eleven-fifteen, I moseyed on over to the theater. I rehearsed the scene that involved moving the location and that worked much better. We then did our run-through and sound stuff and you know all that already.
After I ate, I buckled down, Winsocki, and futzed and finessed, then over the course of a couple of hours wrote six or seven new pages. I really should be nine pages ahead of where I am, but I’ll be able to write another page or two after posting these here notes, and then I can try to write more than ten pages over the day and evening tomorrow.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll futz and finesse and write new pages, I’ll eat, and then it will just be writing for most of the day, after which I might even try watching a movie.
Tomorrow, we’re back rehearsing and that continues on Wednesday and Thursday – we start with a run-through and then work on detail and acting for the hour that follows. The more they run the show, the more secure they get and the more that frees them from worrying about lines and more about acting the roles. Friday, I arrive at noon to dry tech with the lighting guy and we’ll have three people there to stand in for lighting the specials. Then when the cast arrives it’s a full run with a lightover. We’ll take notes about lighting adjustments – we may also have sound that night, too. Saturday is a longer day – a cue to cue and then a full-out run-through followed by working scenes and numbers that need it and attending to any technical issues. I think we go ten to seven. Most shows there do a ten out of ten, but I have never once done that for any show I’ve directed. I find it hard on the actors and everyone else to go that long and have to return the next morning. Sunday, we do two full run-throughs.
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, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, write more pages, and then perhaps watch a motion picture. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite scores and albums of one Quincy Jones? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have added mics and sound levels to the mix.