Always Crashing in the Same Car

In the past year or so (maybe back to the August, 2008 season), I've begun having a kind of recurring dream as I get to the "stress point" in the production of a show I'm directing/designing -- it's never the same, but it's the same kind of dream:

I'm driving my car, and someone else on the road is making a horrible mistake that will result in them hitting me if I don't suddenly do something defensive and correct -- they may have made a wrong-way turn onto the one-way street I'm driving down, and I'm suddenly heading into their headlights, or they're trying to merge into the lane right where I am, or whatever, but always I have a car coming at me and I have to dodge with care and precision. These aren't exactly nightmares, as I always do avoid the other car, and I'm never woken up by some horrible dream-crash, but whenever I eventually wake up, I don't feel so terribly rested. Quite the opposite, I feel quite tense and fearful. It takes a good rehearsal to pull me out of the feeling of dread that hangs over me after one of these.

As Trav S.D. said when I mentioned this to him after Kitsch rehearsal last night, these dreams don't exactly need much in the way of interpretation here, it's all pretty much on the surface (and I should mention that these dream near-misses ALWAYS occur on roads I know well and have to drive to and from rehearsal of whatever play I'm working on -- yesterday's nap-dream-accident occurred on Houston Street just West of the FDR Drive).

That said, Kitsch, which opens in less than a week, is coming together okay. We'll be fine -- I will have some serious stress in the next few days in getting the lights, sound cues and projections together, but I'll get it done (not as fast as I'd like, but in time to run them enough before opening). I'll be seeing David Brune, the set designer, and Karen Flood, the costume designer, at the space today as we all go through the stock at TNC to find what we can pull and use for our show and I learn a bit more about the lighting setup and what I have available to me that way.

Tonight we'll run the thing from top to bottom again, as we did on Wednesday. Monday we ran Part II twice, and Tuesday we did Part I twice (with some skips in each case for actors who weren't there). On those days, the two individual parts looked in good shape, but when we put them together on Wednesday, it didn't quite sing as much, but I think it was just an off-day, and people are still struggling with the lines at times, which doesn't help. Last night, I worked the staging of 7 of the song sequences with the singers of those songs (there are 9 songs in the show), and focused them and made them clear, so we're all happy with those now. Trav also cut several of the longer songs down, which was needed -- the songs were great on their own as songs, but as pieces of a larger piece of theatre (pieces which I had asked for, as Trav had cut them from the play for a bit, but I thought they would really add to the whole work overall), a couple of them stayed with us a beat or two too long.

In any case, I'm now suddenly rushed to get myself together to run errands and get to the theatre (and hoping that the earlier Yankees parade hasn't screwed up traffic TOO much in getting to TNC), so I'd better finish this up as fast as I can . . .

Here's this week's Random Ten from the 25,101 tracks in the iPod, with associated YouTube links so you can hear the song there, or something else by that artist (there are some quite good video links in here this week, I should mention, and songs that, if you don't know them, are worth getting to know):

1. "The World Spins" - Julee Cruise - Floating Into The Night
2. "Dick Tracy" - The Chants - Get Back Up Again 3
3. "Matzoh Balls" - Slim Gaillard - Laughing In Rhythm, #1 - Flat Foot Floogie
4. "Midnight Showers of Rain" - Willie Nix - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 3
5. "You Let A Love Burn Out" - We Five - You Were On My Mind & Make Someone Happy
6. "Strange Weather" - Marianne Faithfull - Strange Weather
7. "Nenen Corta Essa" - Erasmo Carlos - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 1
8. "You're My Best Friend" - Queen - A Night At The Opera
9. "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" - Shonen Knife - The Birds & The B-Sides
10. "The Director Never Yelled 'Cut'" - Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep

And as for weekly cat-blogging, here's a recent picture of Hooker "helping me" at the computer, while I'm trying to get work done:

I'm looking forward to a brief, slightly "relaxed" day tomorrow, where I'll be working a little more with one or two singers in Kitsch on the last two songs, and then doing the improv theatre performance (and screening) with David Finkelstein that I hope some friends will show up at (check the link for details, folks).

Then, back to Kitsch full-time on Sunday . . .

And now, back to work . . . I'm going to put on some Mike Nesmith now to work to . . . excellent "chill-out" music . . .