Bumps ... and Financial Goosebumps

Well, six weeks to go before we start rehearsals and I've already lost my first cast member -- even before I've completed the original casting!

Not completely surprised, though. I figured I might lose one or two, but for other reasons. My ex-cast member had something serious and personal to deal with and respected me enough to confide in me. And I agreed that leaving the show would be the best thing for him/her at this time.

I had thought since my show is rehearsing and playing through much of the "holiday season", that a few of my actors would leave because they got "better offers" or decided they'd rather go skiing. I'm pleased to say that's not case -- as of this writing.

And I'm also very pleased that when my existing cast members heard the news, they sprang into action and spread the word about openings in our cast to their much younger grapevine. I feel I'm so much older than they are that I'm more a raisin than a grape these days.

So I'm hearing a few more people on Sunday night. Back in the comfort of the theater where I essentially started my directing "career". And one of my cast members volunteered to play piano for these Poptimist wannabes.

In addition, I'm now at the point where my decisions will be costing money.

While I have the generous assurance that everything will be covered, I still hate spending other people's money, especially when that money belongs to people I know personally. And I'm also facing the embarrassment of having to ask for money up front since I'm in no position to front the money myself, even for a few days.

I'm committed now (or should have been long ago). I'm torn between doing what's best for the show, and being frugal for the sake of my backers.

As usual, the answer will lie somewhere between. (Man, I hate it when Eastern philosophy f*cks with my art.)

So off I go to cost a set and the costumes (both mercifully are quite simple and easy to procure). And I need to set up photo shoots, schedule publicity which doesn't overlap the publicity that my partner company may or may not be planning.

I directed once for the American Musical Theatre of San Jose (then known as San Jose Civic Light Opera). They were once the largest subscription musical theater in the country -- and went bankrupt late last year, just months short of their 75th anniversary.

They were such an "organization" that all I had to do as the Director was direct and spearhead creative meetings. That was it. I didn't have to design, create, shop for or build anything.

It was Heaven.

But I'm willing to work harder for a show I've created from scratch. New everything, no pre-conceptions of how the show should be done, no idiots singing along in the audience because the score is being debuted, no weird "non-traditional casting" to cover the fact that a director can't come up with a new enough concept within the framework of the script to keep it fresh and entertaining as originally intended. (That was the playwright and composer in me getting in a little jab.)

So ... spend I will. Build I will. Stage I will. Vocally direct I will.

Man ... I have a lot of will!

The-The-The-uh, That's All (For Now) Folks!

Well, I gave this a shot and the way things are going now, I'm just not up for this whole online journal thing (I still refuse to use the B-word).

So I'd like to thank my two or three readers.

[insert crickets chirping]

I'll be deleting this entire bl -- oops -- "thing" some time this week.

And now ... on with the show.

--Ted

AFTERWORD: Okay, one of my two readers asked me not to delete this, so here it stays for now. I just won't be adding to it as much until Life returns to something not resembling a 70's After-School Special about "What's Wrong with Uncle Ted?"

Casting: It's Hard in Fishing AND Theater

Almost a week later now, and I'm still looking for three more actors to complete the cast of The Poptimists. Real life got in the way for a few days and to be honest, I haven't done much about the casting. But the little hurdles are gone and I have no excuse not to complete the cast.

I have two very good possibilities for two of the roles and absolutely none for the third.

You need to know, that I have been completely spoiled when casting shows and revues that I've written. I have a circle of a dozen or so amazingly talented friends who, for some reason, always say yes when I ask them to be in one of my shows. And they're SO talented, that their great performances are a given.

I don't have to worry about them being able to learn the music or how to really perform it. In short, when working with them I really don't have to worry about directing, vocally directing or the musical accompaniment.

Well, that's all gone now.

I'm working with some very talented people this time around, too, but I'm working with most of them for the very first time. They're young, enthusiastic and make this old jaded writer/composer smile.

So what's my problem?

Well, I'm going to actually have to work on this one. I'm going to have to get off my complacent ass and get back on my feet. Since our budget is almost nothing, I can't afford to hire a vocal director or choreographer. So I'll probably be doing both. I might actually have to train to keep up with this cast.

Which brings me back to casting.

I think until the auditions for this show, I knew about four or five performers 18-25 years of age. I had just done Zeigfeld in The Will Rogers Follies a few months earlier, so I had been around some of them, but I really hadn't worked with any in a few years.

So I had no network to get the word out to these wonderful young actors. It's kind of embarrassing to admit that out of three days of auditions, I only had fifteen performers show up. Luckily, almost all of them were very good ... or even better than very good.

I have no qualms about leaving my creative comfort zone of working with my contemporaries (well, they're all a few years younger than I am), it's just the timing of this show will be very interesting.

Real life will be forcing some major changes in my private life, really shaking up a lot of things which I had hoped would be settled by now. So now my creative world will be rocked as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly excited about doing this show. I fully expect to laugh my ass of while producing it and enjoying becoming really good friends with this cast of ten (which still stands at seven at this point). I just wish it could have been produced six months ago when I wrote it ... and for the reasons I wrote it.

The Poptimists is not only a funny little show which will be really entertaining, but it's an investment. This inaugural production will "set the show" and make it one that, if reasonably successful, could be easily produced by other groups, colleges and high schools.

See where I'm going with this?

But back to casting. (I seem to drift a lot when writing on a lazy, finally cool Sunday afternoon.)

I fully expect to have nine cast members by the end of this week. Finding the tenth is going to be a big, big challenge. But I keep reminding myself: I didn't know over half the existing cast before auditions, so someone will come along. Someone I probably don't know today.

But hopefully will know very, very soon!

For now, it's back to producing the rehearsal CD for the cast that I do have. (And they're so good that I'm expecting my tenure as vocal director will be a lot easier than I originally thought before I got my cast.)

And I also plan on enjoying this gorgeous end-of-summer, preview-of-autumn afternoon, before my very personally tenuous autumn begins!

Maturity can be so overrated.

Now, where's the butler with my Nestle's Quik?

It's Limbo Time! How Low Can You Go?

Okay, lots of little pre-production things going on for The Poptimists lately.

I'm still trying to fill the last three slots. I might have two of them, but I need to hear at least two more people before I decide. Finding Kevin (not to be confused with Finding Nemo) is proving to be an impossible task. (Kevin is the young black male who has to sing close to James Brown in style, and look 18-25 in an intimate theater.)

No one is available. The guy I had in mind for the part (and who was really interested in it) will be out of town on business our opening weekend.

So I'm wondering if a rewrite is the way to go. Very tough decision. A lot of the social satire requires that I have a black couple in the show. I could make Kevin Mexican-American, but it would alter a lot of the meatier material.

I still have seven weeks before rehearsals start so I'm only slightly nervous at this point. But that will change by the end of next week.

Also, I'm delivering the last two piano arrangements to my musical arranger, and I'm debating if I really should be the vocal director for the show. The numbers have very specific ways they must be sung, and I feel if I get someone to come in and do the vocals direction I might, as the composer, become a real pest. ("Um, no ... you see if they sing it that way, it isn't funny.")

Satire is very specific. It's not like we're doing The Music Man and having to find some new way of interpreting the music. I figure for the original production, doing it as written just might be the way to go. Call me wild, call me mad ... I just know I might end up with a vocal director who doesn't "get it." Not a put-down, it's just that this is a very specific kind of spoof.

On the other hand, I'm directing and staging the entire production, designing the set (good thing it's minimal), kind of designing the costumes (again, good that each woman and each guy wears the same thing, so it's essentially just two costumes) and designing some of the printed collateral.

And on top of that I'd better be working at a new full-time job by then.

So, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and we haven't even started rehearsals yet.

In the words of Gene Wilder's Willa Wonka, "Oh, deary dear ..."

So, while I have a gazillion things to attend to, I still feel like I'm in limbo. I think once the ten parts are cast, I'll feel a lot better about everything.

I noticed at least two of my cast members have listed The Poptimists on their profiles at artsopolis. com

Yep ... looks like this is really happening.

Better get back to it.

Oh, look! A rerun of Two and a Half Men is on right now!