Willlllbuuur...

It took a couple of phone conversations last night for something to really hit me.


"Fork, I've got news for you. This show ain't goin' to Broadway. But it still has the potential to be really fun!


Holy cats. That's it. That's what I've been trying to say this past week. The creative team--the composer, author, director...EVERYBODY--has been busy to the point of real neglect attending meetings, joining in conference calls, scheduling press interviews and last-minute podcasts, hyping up the show and talking to "important people", trying to stir up their interest.

Hellooooo. We ran the show on Saturday. I wonder if anyone watching noticed that we've only staged one and a half scenes and the blonde sounds reeeeal iffy on her ukulele.

It's because they're all so focused on trying to insure the show will have a life beyond this production (that is, a real Off-Broadway life), that it feels as though they've forgotten about making the show they're trying to sell--OUR little show--as good as it can be.

Perhaps they're not worried about it because of what the composer managed to pull off. While the Four-Stringed Guitar Bandits sound tinny and stiff, there's some incredible musical talent about to join the crew. Woody Allen's percussionist and Louis Armstrong's clarinet/sax player, to be precise. We rehearse with them today.

The folks in charge take great pleasure in hyping these guys up as "some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world". And while a quick youtube search of our clarinetist proves them to be quite right (I mean...GEEZE!), when THEY say it, it makes me annoyed.

Mainly because, hey. What about us? We're the headliners and we haven't gotten any musical assistance from anyone. So we're going to go up in front of this WORLD CLASS band and make a lot of racket. We'll be lucky if an audience member doesn't throw a shoe at us and say, "Shaddap, would youse? I wanna hear dat saxophone wailin'!"

But today I'm not going to worry about that. No, on the contrary, I'm going to have a GREAT time playing with these guys. It should be very exciting. It feels a little bit like Christmas. Or first dress rehearsal when everyone gets their costumes.

Here goes nothing. See you on the other side...