Trapped in a World I'm Trying to Make

Last night's rehearsal went great. {phew}

I wound up with only four actors plus myself, but we set up the basic set, played the music, I described what ideas I had at that point, and immediately new, good ones began appearing, as the piece began to come clear.

Good discussions with the actors as well, and I'll have to be on my toes and keep up with them. I had planned one scene that took place out of the office setting where the rest of the show takes place, but had always been disturbed by leaving the setting for just the one scene - I figured it would work anyway, as the sequence is kind of a big, exciting, flashy one. I got called on that by an actor last night, who noted the structure and feel of the piece seems to demand the unity of staying in the office the whole time. And, yeah, he's right. So I have to rethink that scene. Dammit. The assembled came up with several good suggestions for that, but just starts in the right direction, no solutions.

My nerves have pretty much abated on this show - it opens way off on July 30, and in a few hours last night, I solved maybe half of the confusion in myself about what was going to happen in the "blank spaces." I also discovered I need to find two more songs to put in to make transitions work, and one other song I have in there may not work.

Now I'll see if I still have all the actors I thought I had for this show. I could do it with the ones I know I have now, but it's a bit heavy on the female side onstage right now, and that doesn't work right for this show.

25,597 tracks in the iPod - here's a Random Ten for this morning:

1. "Blue Velvet #1" - WFMU - station promos
2. "Fotomodelle" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
3. "I'm Gonna Dance All Night" - The Equals - First Among Equals - The Greatest Hits
4. "Walking Down Madison" - Kirsty MacColl - Galore
5. "Fiabla Bolero" - Franco Ferrara - Music Scene: Musica Per Radio - Televisione - Films
6. "Satellite of Love" - Lou Reed - Transformer
7. "Let's Go Away for a Mashup" - Totom - Bastard Pet Sounds
8. "Code Monkey" - Jonathan Coulton - Thing a Week Three
9. "Sequenza Psichedelica" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
10. "Crazy Sally-Ann" - Sit N' Spin - Enjoy The Ride

What th-? Real random, iPod. Two tracks from the same 60s Italian movie soundtrack? (which I think is some kind of softcore "study" of Sweden) Well, I guess that will happen on random.

And in the land of cat photos, here's Hooker and Moni curled up together last week . . .

And here's one from the last half-hour - Hooker has been sweetly curled up against and around my feet since I got up and got on the couch and computer, purring and making happy grunty noises and mushing his forehead into my toes. So I grabbed the camera to try and get a record of how adorable he was and can be. He stopped being adorable the moment after I took this and took a big chomp into my foot. Ow. I think you may be able to see the transition happening here from sweetness to BAD KITTY . . .

Tonight, we show The Magnificent Ambersons (final 88-minute version, of course) on the big big screen at The Brick for cast members and friends who want to come by (if you're in the latter group and I neglected to email you, let me know). Tomorrow, more making stuff up on Everything Must Go. Looking good.