I kept this mum while things were in the works, but now I can
reveal that my music composition administrators contacted me about
a month back that Dave Grohl was made aware of my music through
YouTube and will be doing a cover of
"Burning Bridge"
for his next music project.
Dave actually emailed me, getting my email address from this site,
and gave me great compliments about all the songs on
Virtually Approximate Subterfuge.
There's some possibility he'll release "Burning Bridge"
as a single.
In 1902, Albert and Mileva Einstein had a daughter. After 1904, the
child was never seen or spoken of again. It is now 1942, and a
reporter has come to interview Einstein about his mysterious family
history, only to discover far more secrets under the surface. As the
reporter questions Einstein about his theory of relativity and
personal past, she develops a new, more pressing query: To be a
great man, does one first need to be a good man?
So, when I originally posted my blog post from this past Saturday
‐‐ you know, the
April First one? ‐‐ I used an
animated gif from an April 1, a few years back. The gif stays
invisible for more than a minute before the words, "Might I
remind you that it is April 1?" appear, along with a photo
of Salvador Dalí. My cheeky way of saying
"April Fools!!"
The problem turned out to be that it took the animated graphic too
long to show up this time around. I posted a link to the post on
both my personal facebook page and my
facebook artist's page.
What I started seeing in the comments for those facebook posts were
a slew of congratulatory messages: "MAZEL EFFING TOV!!!"
"Holy sh!t that is AWESOME! CONGRATULATIONS!"
"OMG OMG!!! That's amazing!!! Congratulations! Well-deserved,"
to quote just three. Clearly, my fb friends were clicking on the link,
reading the April Fools hoax news that
Dave Grohl
was going to do a cover of
"Burning Bridge,"
but then left before the animated gif appeared on the page to clue
them in to my duplicity.
The April Fools joke should have never gotten to the point that people
were sincerely offering me congratulations for what would have indeed
been awesome news, were it true. In the middle of the night I saw
all the people who'd been duped too far. It wasn't an enormous amount,
but still it was enough that I had to be sure to set the record straight.
It was supposed to be an immediate gotcha! not a delayed one.
So, in the middle of the night, I created a new animated png with
that same "Might I remind you that it is April 1?"
message, and this time the goofy photo of me holding my
Viola bass.
This one activates after only 25 seconds, just enough time for the
average reader to finish the bogus text: an immediate gotcha!
I also edited the fb posts to coaxed folk to go back to the blog post
to see the new png graphic.
When I was devising the joke, I first was going to use
Paul McCartney, but
that was going to be a bit outside the realm of reasonable probability.
Grohl, as big as his career is, seemed somehow far more plausible,
and the responses bore that out. One of my friends, who was taken
in, said that based on Grohl's music and the song by me that I picked,
that she totally bought it. Others clearly did, too. And, honestly,
I actually could hear Grohl doing a cover of "Burning Bridge."
It would be a different interpretation, to be sure, but the song is
close enough to his, and/or Foo Fighters',
musical turf that it's not an unthinkable notion that he'd cover it.
I guess I should also take it as a compliment that those people who
I unfortunately tricked for longer than I'd planned found it
feasible that my music was good enough to attract the likes of a Dave
Grohl. I should find it gratifying that they also found it believable
that Grohl "emailed me, getting my email address from this site,
and gave me great compliments about all the songs on
Virtually Approximate Subterfuge."
But, alas, it was all just an April Fools joke that got a little
out of hand, not too badly out of hand, but, a bit more than I
intended. And we go back to part of this entry's headline: Dave
Grohl? I wish!
SORDID SOUND:
Yesterday I dropped into
Beavercreek Community Theatre
to get a little orientation on the sound system and hardware there.
Now I start giving the show a bit more attention. The show opens in
about two-and-a-half weeks. It doesn't demand a complex sound design,
so I have no worries. I'll probably get the show mostly designed
this week.
I may even be able to actually get the bulk of the programming
done remotely, which makes things much more convenient for me.
I've been home sick all day, and spent much of it asleep
in bed. But now I'm up and have done a few house chores and
now I'll delve into a couple projects. Plus, I'll note an
impending "To Do" item.
ONCE AGAIN, ALMOST THE ELEVENTH HOUR....:
To be a broken record, once again I am almost down to the wire doing
my income tax for last year, like millions of others, of course.
So, as soon as this blog post is up, that is my next item for the,
after I eat my dinner, which is cooking now ‐‐
oven-roasted chicken breasts and vegetables with home-made mashed
potatoes (for the one or two of you who are wondering)
It shouldn't take me very long as I am going the standard deduction
route; I earned no money last year as an actor nor in any other
capacity besides my paycheck from the
rent-payer.
There's a reasonable chance that I will get a majority of my work
on this project off the books tonight, or at least a significant
amount; there's not a really long list of tasks.
23/24 HRTC GENERALS AROUND THE CORNER:
I, along with the rest of the local, and maybe national, acting
community received the email yesterday about the
General Auditions
for the Human Race Theatre Company's
2023/2024 season. They are the weekend of April 22 & 23, with
the straight play
auditions being Saturday (Apr 22). Appointments for in-person
auditions can be made starting this coming Tuesday.
Looking at the season there only is one role for which I am remotely
typed,
and that is a
leading role.
I live in the real world of theatre. My chances of landing the one
lead role I am typed for at a
regional theatre,
with my status as an EMC
actor who has a pretty short list of professional stage gigs, are
not gigantic. Even getting the
callback
is, at least to some extent, a long-shot. However, the odds plumet
to zero if I don't do the generals. And I have seen my odds as very
poor in the past and won the role, both on the pro and non-pro stage,
as well as at least one
industrial film
I did about a decade ago. There is no role in the
musical
where I meet type.
I have procured a copy of the script and will be reading it shortly,
probably in the next couple days. Were I cast in this show, it would
not conflict with my
director's
gig at DTG
(Wednesday's Child,
by Mark St. Germain),
nor would it get in the way of the one
non-professional theatre
show I have every intention of auditioning for.
Then there is the "familiarity factor": the more you
audition for a particular entity, be it a
theatre company,
a particular casting director,
or specific director, the more range you can show and the more
familiar they become with you. Down the line, they may think of
you for a role before auditions even happen. That last point won't
guarantee you the role, but it sure can help. I have experience
with this; I know it's true. Much of the regiem at HRTC has changed,
so I am not as known as I was. I am to some but not as it was a
couple years ago. So, I need to re-do that particular networking.
Bottom line: small odds of winning that one role or not, I am
going to at least give it a shot and pout my face in front of the
powers that be.
Though the "NOPE" icon is not 100% correct, it's virtually
so. My plan had been to "get a majority of my work on this project
off the books" last evening for the
sound designwork
for Sordid Lives,
by Del Shores. I did not.
I got a little done, but not much. The revised plan is to achieve
tonight what I did not achieve last night.
Tech Sunday
is a week from this coming, Easter Sunday, but, despite the little
progress made last night on the sound work, I still would not
categorize the Tech Sunday as looming in the future. As I've stated
before, there's not a major amount of work to do for this one, so
there's no rising stress level affecting my blood pressure.
Will this be my new 2023 Lamborghini Countach
LPI 800-4? I know the suspense is bone-numbing.
I did get my taxes done last night. Based on what
I'm getting back I guess I may want to look at something
besides a
2023 Bugatti Mistral Roadster.
Maybe I'll look at a
2023 Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4
instead. At only $2.6 million, the Countach LPI 800
is only a little more than half the $5 million sticker
price of the 2023 Bugatti Mistral Roadster.
So, maybe the Lamborghini is relatively closer to reasonable
reality than the Bugatti.
Despite, as I wrote in the Apr 6 blog entry above, that I see slim
odds that I'll land the one role I am
typed
for in the 23/24 season, I have made an appointment for the 23/24
General Auditions
at the Human Race Theatre Company.
I'm even skeptical that I'll get a
callback.
But I've been wrong on both these accounts before, and I am, naturally,
more than willing to be wrong on both counts this time. My mind has
already created a not-unrealistic list of local
Equity actors
who are definitely also typed for the role, with, I believe, all of
them being resident artists
at HRTC. My advantage in winning the role falls behind all of theirs,
as well as behind out-of-town Equity actors who will be doing the
generals or directly submitting for the specific show.
Still, we have to go back to: you absolutely will not hit the
target of you don't take the shot. And I remind myself that the
audition is putting my face in front of the right people so they
are more familiar of me even when the project may not be a go for
me. There may just be a future project I'll come to mind for, but
only if I am in their minds to begin with. Again, as I wrote on Apr
6, I have had this happen in the past, so I know it's a valid theory.
And did I say that I am more than willing to find I have short-changed
my chances? Send me that Equity contract; I await with open arms.
I had thought that in between the other projects occupying my current
time and energy, I'd need to hunt down a couple contrasting
monologues
that are tailored toward the role I seek; I wasn't sure I had any
in my current arsenal. But it occurred to me that there were some
good sections of Jack monologues from
Broadway Bound,
my last stage appearance, plus a monologue I had chosen quite a
few years ago but have never used in an audition; and that second
one ticks off the targeted needs to show performance skills specific
to the role I am shooting for. Meanwhile, both, together, make a
strong pair of the requisite "contrasting d=monologues."
So, now, the job is to get both monologues memorized and well-rehearsed
before Saturday, the 22nd.
It's also about time to revamp my actor's résumé in
terms of appearance and format.
Tuesday night I curated the recorded
production music
for the show. there will be live music in the show, too, performed
by Jenna Gomes De Gruy, singing and playing her acoustic guitar as
Bitsy Mae Harling.
I've also done a bit of processing of some of the few
sound effects
files the show needs, and I've begun remotely programing the
Show Cue Systems
cue file on the SCS app on my laptop. My plan is to
transfer all the necessary files and folders to the
tech booth
laptop at BCT this Saturday, when I go in to set everything up for
Tech Sunday,
the next day.
It's a fun show, presented with an interesting concept, and it does
not end up where one might expect it to. In a sense that I will not
explain here, each character is played by two actors, one
African-American and one white, to find out why, you'll have to go
see it.
I've been doing the prep for my
Human Race Theatre Companygeneral audition
this coming Saturday. As you may know, I've picked my
monologues.
Well, technically, I've picked one specific monologue, that piece
I had chosen for my monologue library a few years back but have
never used as of yet. I Also know that I want to use one of my
Jack monologues from
Broadway Bound;
I just haven't chosen which one.
But I have begun the memorization of the first monologue. The
Broadway Bound should be fairly easy; the show wasn't that
long ago, so it should come back to me quickly.
Again, whether there is a
callback
resulting from this Saturday's audition remains to be seen. It seems
like a long shot to me but we'll see.
On my patio, making those flashcards for the
monologue I've pulled from my library.
Still on the patio, starting to memorize said monologue,
but with the 8x11 printout.
With the exception of the obligatory tweaks, I'd finished the
sound design
Friday evening. I'd already curated all the
production music,
the pre-show
& intermission
music, as well as all the
sound effects
earlier in the week. Friday night I programmed the show cues file
in the copy of Show Cue Systems
on my laptop. My SCS application is installed in
VMware Fusion,
the virtual Windows® environment on my
MacBook Pro.
I was quite happy when I was in the BCT
tech booth
a few weeks back and discovered that SCS was on their
sound tech
laptop. So, I was able to program the cue file for the show remotely
on my Mac. When I migrated the file onto their Windows® laptop
I discovered that what BCT has is the demo version of SCS, and there
was a notice that there was one hour of operation left on the demo.
Now, I had not bothered to learn the sound cue software that BCT
usually uses, and the day before Tech Sunday is an inopportune time
to start working with a new software, even if it's easy to program
and use. The next best thing was to purchase a short-term license
for SCS, which is what I did. I mean, I had already programmed the
whole damned show. It certainly is not the most complex show I have
ever designed and programmed, not even close to such, but still,
rebuilding the whole show was not an attractive choice to me, so I
went with the short-term license for SCS.
On Saturday, I also had a relatively sizable
DOH!
moment. I had attempted a couple different ways to run sound cable
for a backstage speaker that's being used for all the show's sound
effects. I ran into a couple different male-female sound-cord end
problems. Without getting into precise detail, the style of cable I
realized I had to use is called a
speakon sound cable;
that, because of the monitor out-put box I needed to connect the
speak to. I might add, it's a type of sound cable I have never
worked with before; I didn't even recognized the style. The
DOH!
moment came after I had grabbed two speakon cables to make the length
from where the speaker needs to sit backstage to where the audio
out-put box is. The speakons have the same sort of out-put/in-put
on each end of the cable, at least the ones available to me did, and
they do not fit together. Thus I could not patch the two cables together
to get a longer length. So, BCT's resident sound guy, Drew, came in
to see if he could help me out of my hole. And you know what?:
One of the two speakon cables is
actually long enough by itself to make the damned distance!!
‐‐ DOH!!!Yeah, 'cause I didn't already check, so my basic ineptitude
wasted someone else's time.
Yesterday's Tech Sunday went pretty damned well. No interference
from any gremlins,
and only a small handful of tweaks to the sound work were made.
Let's see how the next four tech rehearsals go....
My Human Race Theatre Companygeneral audition
for the 2023/2024 season is tomorrow. I have my two
monologues,
as I've stated before. First is my
cutting
from Broadway Bound;
second is the more character-actor
leaning monologue that had been sitting around collecting dust in
my library; the latter monologue is the one tailored toward the one
role in HRTC's 23/24 season for which I am, in any reasonable way,
typed.
Yesterday I took a half-day
vacation
from the rent-payer,
and I'm taking another today. All this to work on nailing down
both monologues. Yesterday I spent time at
Pearl's Fen
concentrating on the character-actor one. I'll spend this afternoon
and this evening working on both and, by the end of the day, I hope
my workshopping has arrived at polishing the presentation. My hope
is to again spend some time working the monologues in some forestry
this afternoon, but the weather people are threatening rain. If
it's pacing back and forth in the apartment, then it's pacing back
and forth in the apartment.
I'm still a bit skeptical that I will get a
callback,
but I also still know that there is no callback if there is no
initial audition.
Yesterday, at Pearl's Fen drilling myself on the
character monologue.
Last night was
Final Dress
and in terms of sound, it went well with the exception of just one
little sound op
snafu; but, that's what rehearsal is for.
The show opens tonight and runs this weekend and next.
The BCT
mixing board,
which is a bit bigger and more elaborate
than the one at
The Guild,
mostly because DTG doesn't do big
musical productions
where wireless body mics are needed.
And because of BCT's musical production
needs, they have a far more complex and
powerful amplification system.
I have signed on to design sound for the production of
Bright Star,
by Steve Martin
and Edie Brickell,
that is being directed by Jeff Sams. Jeff teaches at Franklin
High School and he directs theatre there. I made the
assumption that Bight Star was going up at FHS.
Turns out it is the 23/24 season opener at BCT. So, I
guess I'm back in the BCT tech booth at the end of the
summer.
SHOULD I BREAK A LEG?.......... YES, I THINK I SHOULD:
My appointment for the
Human Race Theatre CompanyGenerals
for the 2023/2024 season is this afternoon. Am I prepared? I feel
90-ish% prepared which is probably not a bad thing. Feeling 100%
prepared would certainly throw me into a cockiness that would
ultimately sabotage my audition, of that I am 100%
certain. When I awoke this morning, the first thing I did was run
through both
monologues
in my head, and I got them right, so that's good.
I did dedicate most of yesterday to the final stretch of getting
both monologues down, as was the plan. I spent a couple hours at
George Rogers Clark Park
working on them, despite that the weather reports predicted rain.
I finally encountered it, but was in an a-frame shelter when the
light rain started. I stayed there until the volume of the thunder
started to run toward threatening. I went home and spent the rest
of day and evening
rehearsing
there. I both on my feet rehearsed,
doing the small amount of
blocking
I've created for them monologues and giving the full characterizations,
as well simply running lines while I did other household tasks. I
learned a long time a go that it's smart to divorce your lines form
any blocking you do with the character because you don't want to be
solely dependent on your body memory to spark your memory
acquisition of your lines. You need to be able to get them regardless
of what you're physically doing.
It's still morning as I write this, heading toward mid-morning. I
will take care of a few things here in the abode then head toward
Downtown Dayton. I'll go to The Guild,
to hang out and do my final rehearsals, then when the appointment
is close I'll make the short drive over to The Race.
So: GAME ON!!
My rehearsal excursions, yesterday:
Walking the trails and pausing by the lake at
George Rogers Clark Park.
Study and rehearsal by the George Rogers Clark Park
waterfall.
Working it in the a-frame shelter at George Rogers
Clark Park.
Running the lines while prepping fruit for the
freezer and eventual use in my morning fruit
smoothies.
Full blocking and acting rehearsal in my
"living room."
Well, I did the
Human Race Theatre CompanyGenerals
yesterday afternoon, in front of Artistic Director
Emily N. Wells. How'd I
do? Always a difficult question to answer. As I am sure I have
written in other blog posts over the years, and likely in other
posts about other HRTC Generals, the best answer I can give is
about how I felt about the audition. And I felt pretty good about
it. If I were to give it a grade, based on how it felt, I'd say it
was a solid B, maybe a B+, but certainly a B.
The specs were to present two contrasting
monologues,
each of no longer than 90 seconds. My program was a total of about
1:15-1:30, so I can easily claim to have met the time goal. I met
the contrasting goal, too. My first monologue, the shorter of the
two, coming in at about 45 seconds to a minute, was a
cutting
from Neil Simon'sBroadway Bound,
which I did on stage earlier this 22/23 season, at The Guild.
Of course, I was Jack in the audition, as I was in the production.
I did a cutting from Jack's last scene in the play, talking to his
father-in-law, Ben (Played last fall by Mr.
Saul Caplan).
That was the dramatic monologue.
The comedic one, and the one specifically tailored toward the 23/24
HRTC role I put down as my interest, was actually a cutting taken
from the 19th-century novel,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,
by Mark Twain.
It had the element of a character giving narrative to the audience,
breaking the fourth wall,
plus the element of playing another character during the narration.
It also was rife with opportunities to be animated and physically
demonstrative. I'm not too sure I took great advantage of the
latter opportunity, but, I did give it a shot.
It's over now and all I can say is that however I did, I at least
can say I didn't tank it.
When I was done, I dropped by The Guild, changed into hiking clothes
then, after a late lunch, trekked to
Sycamore State Park,
to check out a place I've never been. Not knowing the park, I ended
up on a horse trail, which is rarely an interesting hike for a
person on foot, but I did get a good workout in, if a
less-than-interesting one.
My final rehearsals, at
The Guild,
for my audition program for the HRTC Generals.
The after-party for my audition: a good, yet boring,
hike on what turned out to be a horse trail at
Sycamore State Park.
A SUMMER READING LIST:
It's now time to turn serious attention to reading a couple plays
and delving into a couple levels of
script study.
The big priority and the deepest script analysis is for
Wednesday's Child,
by Mark St. Germain,
that which I am directing at DTG
next season. Granted, auditions are not until September 5 and 6,
but I need to come into to those with an intimate knowledge of the
text and a strong idea of my vision for the show. I actually need
such sooner, as I will be getting with both the
scenic designer
and the lighting designer
earlier. This is especially true for the scenic designer, whom I hope
to meet with much sooner since the layout of the set is paramount
for my blocking
and other staging
decisions.
Now is the time to start my multiple-upon-multiple readings of the
script so I have a strong sense of the feeling, mood, and energy
I decide I want for the show ‐‐ what picture I decide
should be painted, visually and otherwise.
Besides Wednesday's Child, for which you'd better believe I
will be designing sound
(I got ideas as I was reading the script for the very first time,
as I likely wrote in the blog before), I will also be doing sound
for Bright Star,
by Steve Martin
and Edie Brickell,
which goes up in September at
Beavercreek Community Theatre,
the weekend leading into my Wednesday's Child auditions.
I'm also doing the soundwork for the Guild show after mine,
True West,
by Sam Shepard,
but I have a bit of time to get to that one, which doesn't open until
January of next year.
But, the big priority for me, the script that gets the most immediate,
dedicated, and intense attention is Wednesday's Child.
Getting back to my play manuscript is also on the immediate agenda.
This past week I've done some minor
revision,
rewriting or adding to a sentence here and there, all for the
purposes of clarifications.
But more profound revisions need to be made, and I'm still on the
continuing mission to
murder my little darlings.
I still need to get to the job of pushing some conflict between two
of the characters, late in the play, as I have written of in recent
blog entries. I also have decided that I can get the momentum
moving a little sooner at the start of the play. But I want to
achieve that last bit without changing the structure and material
at the start too much, so, how I achieve the change of pace will
be a challenge.
A "PRACTICING" MUSICIAN?:
Just the occasional observational and purposefully self-nagging
statement that I only seem to pull out any of my basses or keyboards
when I have a specific project to work on.
Despite declaring that I would, I have yet to move myself into the
habit of practicing on the bass or the piano on a regular basis,
such as, oh, EVERY DAY!
This is why whenever anyone introduces me or otherwise refers to me
as a musician, I pretty much feel blanketed in imposter syndrome.
So, here I am again, publicly admitting that I rarely practice on
any instrument. Will this sad little public self-shaming work....?
Technically, the facebook post above is a little incorrect. The
"recently done...previous significant cuts" were a few
weeks back, so not an immediate "recently," but still
qualifying as recently. Still, though there hasn't been any heavy
killing of my little darlings
these past few days that I've been back doing new passes through
the play, I have been making some cuts, as the facebook post
says. But, with this last pass, as the one before it, I have added
things.
I pumped up the conflict slightly at the start of the play, as planned,
I hope injecting just a little more energy, and also, I hope
arousing a little more interest. Likewise, I added that conflict
between two of the characters toward the end of the play as I planned.
None of these additions were a substantial amount of words or dialogue,
but I believe they make a difference.
I punched up some conflict in a few other spots, too. Plus, I
reworded some more dialogue for the purpose of better clarification,
as I did a few days back. In a few other places I changed some dialogue
just to better fit the characters speaking, that which I have done
before, too.
Last spring I wrote a
tagline
for the manuscript, as I was about to submit it to a new play
festival. A tagline is a teaser sentence or two that is really meant
to target the general public, such as in a promotional advertisement.
What I really should have written for the submission was a
logline,
which is more an uber-brief synopsis of the story. The tagline is more
vague, inducing interest. The logline is concisely detailed, also to
induce interest, but without the vagueness. I need to write a
logline for the play. I'll probably revisit the tagline, too, for
possible revision.
WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER
VACATION........2 YEARS AGO:
In late June and early July of 2021, you know, almost two years ago,
I went on a GREAT
VACATION.
I finally have put together the recounting of that particular
adventure.
At some point in the "near" future ‐‐
(I.E.: my relative definition of "near")
‐‐ all my
vacations,
hikes, camping trips, etc. will be separated out from the
blog postings as their own pages, as the
Summer
Vacation
Get Away 2021 above is.
There are a few from after that which still need to be
recounted, and will be recounted on their own pages. I'll
also gradually go backward and remove such past entries from
the direct blog pages to their own pages. That last project
will be low priority, so it won't be a quick transition, but
a piecemeal one, probably without any fanfare. It'll just
be changes that happen without me pointing them out.
It'll all fall under the premise of "Food for the Artist's
Soul."
THE NEW VERSION OF A STAND-UP COMIC:
Yesterday, John Mulaney's
latest Netflix special,
Baby J,
released. The show, shot in Boston, was from the same tour I saw
when he came to Dayton last August. The tour was titled
"From Scratch."
I am a big fan of Mulaney's stand-up and I have loved all his specials.
I greatly enjoyed the show last summer and I greatly enjoyed reliving
it last night as I watched the streaming special. The special was
shot this past February and the show evolved a little from what I
saw live, with some new material; but, overall it was the same show
with a big focus on John's new-found recovery from substance abuse
and the intervention by a host of his fellow comedian friends, that
took place in December of 2020 and got him started in his recovery.
I highly recommend the special.
PLAYWRIGHT WORK ‐‐
FINAL DRAFT 12 AND THE LOGLINE & TAGLINE:
First off, the eagle-eyed reader may notice the slight change in
the Final Draft icon. This is because I upgraded from v.11 to
Final Draft 12,
last night and decided to use the revised artwork for a new version
of the icon, from this post, forward.
Once installed, I did open the FD doc of the manuscript and do a
little bit of work, only in the first scene, which is the first
twenty pages. Again, as much of the work the last few days, it was
only minor cleanup, changing a word or slightly rewriting a sentence
here or there, and not much of either.
I also gave writing a
logline
a shot, but I am not satisfied with what I wrote. So, I'll be back
on that soon. I did not write a
tagline,
but did make a spot for one, just after the logline, on page iii,
before the script pages begin.
One new feature of Final Draft 12 that will, at some point, be most
helpful to me, is the ability to directly import a pdf of a formatted
script into Final Draft and the app will convert it to a working
Final Draft fdx document that will then be editable as if it had
been started in the software from scratch. It will convert all the
script format elements to be correct, with, according to reports,
a high level of accuracy. Then you can do a scan command to find
any trouble spots and then make them the correct format type
‐‐ such as correctly making dialogue, dialogue, when it
was erroneously converted from the pdf to be directions.
There are all sorts of other robust features of Final Draft, and
always have been, that I have never utilized, as I haven't had the
occasions to need them. I think there are enhancements in v.12 that
if I do use them, I won't be in the position to appreciate the
improvements. They most all have to do with
screenplays
and teleplays,
neither of which I have any immediate plans to start any time soon.
But at some point, I will be writing a screenplay, most
likely for a
short film.
PLAYWRIGHT WORK ‐‐
SEARCHING FOR A TAGLINE AND SQUASHING A SOFTWARE BUG:
I have written the
logline
for the play, however, I'm not sold on it. I think it needs to be
simplified, so I'll likely rewrite it. Also, I looked at that supposed
tagline
that I had written before, and I realized that it's really an
elevator pitch,
and not a bad one at that. At the moment I don't have a tagline. In
fact, right now the space in the script for the tag line says:
"I have no clue what this should be at the moment.
If you've read the manuscript and have an idea, DO send
it along!"
That note is clearly only for those who I have given the drafts to
for their feedback.
Now that I've gone through a couple passes of the manuscript with
Final Draft 12,
and I have one complaint. The formatting for
dual dialogue,
for which my play has a bit of, gets screwed up if significant
edits are made. Somehow a page break get introduced just before each
dual dialogue entry ‐‐ an unwanted and unnecessary page
break. Then I have to go in and reformat every single dual dialogue
spot to get each back to where they belong on the page. It's annoying!
It's a bug you can bet I have already reported to
Final Draft.
I have added an addendum to the On-Liner Notes essay about
"The Answer."
There was a particular point that it slipped my mind to address,
so now it's an addendum at the ends of the essay.
As some readers may know, I recently graduated the draft numbers
for my stage play
manuscript to Draft 6, with a pass through where I
murder a lot of my little darlings
and did a lot of other tweaks and nips‐&‐tucks. I also
had added to a few places where there was conflict to spice that
conflict up just a smidgeon.
I was about to do another pass that would be Draft 6B, but then I
got some feedback from a reader that addressed some nagging concerns
I've had about the action in the first scene, and some other things.
So, I have decided to significantly rearrange some things in at least
the first part of Scene 1, and maybe to a certain extent later on.
The changes are enough that I'm numbering this next pass as Draft
7.
SOMETHING NEW!:
I've just added the page
Vacation
& Recreation,
dedicated to the things not directly related
to my own acting, writing, music, etc. All such new activity will
be on this page. This sort of stuff, of course, has been fodder for
the blog since its inception, and there are some things that will
stay as such. Local theatre productions that I attend will usually
stay as blog entries, but, if I take a trip to Chicago, or New York,
or wherever, that event will have it's own page, or pages, and will
be listed on the new page. Obviously,
vacations
and recreational activities (hiking, camping, even working out)
will be featured there. Gradually, all the past entries of such
things will migrate to that page from the blog ‐‐ it'll
be very gradual. There will always be a link to the event here
on the day the feature is made live, but any images and text will be
on the page for the event, and there will be an icon link on the
Vacation
& Recreation
page for everything in this category, new or migrated. Each event
will then have its own page, or pages if it's elaborate enough,
such as the
Summer
Vacation
Get Away 2021, which was
just posted last week, and which is the first item to be on the
vacations
& Recreation page. In some cases, concerning performances
I have attended, including movies, whether it's an entry for a
blog post or it ends up as part of this new thing, will depend
on how significant the text I write is, and also whether or not
there are photos from the event.
At this point I have to declare a moratorium on saying "yes"
to any more sound designing. I've now come close to boxing myself
out of any good spots for
vacation,
and despite that car repairs earlier in the year have put the
kibosh on my grander
vacation
plans, I still want/NEED
at least one good
vacation
this summer.
"NO! NOT ANOTHER NEW SERIES YOU WANT ME TO WATCH!!!":
In the last week, I have twice binged the first season of a new
Netflix offering,
The Diplomat,
starring
Keri Russell as
Ambassador Kate Wyler. I Cannot recommend it enough. It's a smart,
well-done, well-acted show. I was told that it was a sort of cross
between The West Wing
and Madame Secretary,
and where there's a smidgeon of truth to that, ultimately that
assessment is off the mark. They are all three shows about politics,
so they have that similarity, but, they are all different animals.
The Diplomat is a little closer to Madame Secretary
than to The West Wing, in two key ways. First, the protagonist
is a strong, intelligent woman; second, there is much focus on her
marriage to a comparably strong, intelligent husband. The differences
are that these are two completely different women, two completely
different men, and absolutely two completely different marriages.
On Madame Secretary, the McCords, Elizabeth
(Téa Leoni)
and Henry (Tim Daly),
are in marriage that is a strong, complimentary partnership. The
Wylers, on The Diplomat have a far more complicated
relationship, often symbiotic and perhaps a little more often
adversarial. The Wylers' marriage seems to be on life support,
but things may not be what they seem.
As already stated, our two female protagonist, both strong, both
smart, both excellent at there jobs, are still two most different
women, to be sure. But the bigger difference is the two husbands.
Where Daly's Henry McCord, and ex-fighter pilot and current Ethics
professor, is a genuinely thoughtful, upstanding man who practices
what he preaches and has the utmost respect for his wife,
Rufus Sewell's Hal
Wyler, a former super-star diplomat himself, is a bit more complicated
and far more challenging, for the audience and most certainly for
Kate. He's a man that always seems to have an agenda, and a
clandestine ploy to see that agenda realized. It's clear he loves
Kate but he's riddled with ambition and self-interest that sabotages
her and his love for her. It's clear she loves him, but she knows
she often can't trust him. Yet, when the two are in synch, they are
really in synch. So the question is: what is stronger, what
will win, the symbiosis or the adversity?
There are several other interesting and well-drawn relationships in
the ensemble, and those along with overall political intrigue make
this a compelling series.
My essay about "Burning Bridge"
is now up on the On-Liner Notes
page. It's probably far too verbose for some readers; I guess it's
not written for them. This essay includes an exclusive video of me
working on the song when it was in it's composing infancy. There
are also a couple embedded sound files with two directed remixes.
Here's a brief excerpt from the essay:
I'm supposed to be too old to do this. It's supposed to be
an absurd notion. But I reject that, because when I'm doing
this, I'm not past sixty, I'm twenty-one! But for the most
part on this journey, I won't be making the practical
discoveries that a younger me would make ‐‐ I already
made them*. Yes, I am in my sixties, but so much of this has
the feel and vigor of a young man's odyssey. I venture to
smell the fragrant spring flowers of my youth.
Over the course of the last several months I've had a few people
suggest that I design, or have designed for me, some merchandise
connected to the recording artist thing, the album, etc. ‐‐
at the very least have some t-shirts, maybe some coffee mugs to sell.
Now, I may not have the biggest ego on the face of the planet, but
neither am I the poster child for humility. Yet, despite that illuminating
fact about my vanity, my feet are at least planted firmly enough on
the ground to know that offering up merch based on my personality
as a musician, or any other artistic venture of mine, is a ridiculous
idea.
There is no following, no fan-base to justify merch. There are only
a handful of people on this planet who've bought my album, and barely
any more who have even bothered to check out the tracks on
YouTube,
or wherever, despite that listening would be free, or at no extra
cost if one were, say, a subscriber to
Apple Music,
Spotify,
or some other streaming service. It's probably optimistic to state
that my album is bubbling under the top 100,000 on the
Billboard album chart.
I haven't even been able to interest my local public radio station,
WYSO, in my music, much less any
other station, anywhere. On a bad day it makes me feel like the
album sucks; on a good day it frustrates me that it's not being
given a chance.
Maybe if album sales were to hit 1000, maybe even a few hundred, I
wouldn't feel like a presumptuous, delusional doofus for offering
merch. Maybe at that point it would feel like maybe I could say, with
a sense of reality, "I do have 'fans.' T-shirts with my
face and name isn't some fantasy-ridden ego trip." Right now
it would be nothing but me, playing a sad joke on myself.
FIELDING THE FIELDTRIP:
Yesterday, several of us Guild
boardmembers did a sort of half-day workshop at the theatre for a
small group of fifth and sixth grade students of from
St. Helen's Elementary School.
It was Carol Finley, Barb Jorgensen, Michael Welly, and I who met
and worked with the kids.
Michael kicked it off with an overview of us being an
all-volunteer community theatre
and discussed our not-for-profit status. Carol talked about
costume design
and also discussed how many people, duties, and things it takes to
put on a show. Barb talked about acting in general and had some of
the kids come on stage to act out little scenarios.
I talked about sound design and did a simple little demonstration.
The kids and I discussed what would be appropriate
SFX
for a scene taking place in a garden, first during the day, then at
night. And I did a quick overview of the sound system and the
Show Cue Systems
software.
I also talked briefly about the difference between acting on the
stage and acting for the camera ‐‐ parroting Barb about
how the actor must be a little more exaggerated in their body movements
and gestures on stage, and of course I reiterated the other big point
Barb had already touched on:
vocal projection.
I contrasted that with how actors are more subtle in their performances,
and volume, for a camera and how a stage performance will usually
seem like over-acting on screen. Plus, I briefly discussed what it
means for an actor to be
off-book.
Also, I added an addendum to an earlier discussion about when actors
have to fight in a scene; I touched on the need for
fight choreography
as well as how there will usually be a
fight call
before each performance of the play, both to ensure realism and
just as importantly to ensure that all actors who participate in the
make-believe fight are safe. I also demonstrated
a knap
sound effect.
Carol also took them on a tour of the upstairs costume and
props
areas. I did a quick tour through the
scene shop
and the first floor area where we keep the larger
set pieces.
We were going to take them on a tour downstairs where the tables
and other types of lesser-sized set pieces are housed, but we were
running out if time and the kids had prepared a short play Then
Empress's New Clothes, and it was obvious they really wanted to
perform it, so we ended with that. And I gotta tell you, we are all
hoping that someday we see a few of those youngin's in auditions.
There were two of them in particular who have strong actor's instincts.
BRINGING MY, AHEM, "EXPERTISE":
Wednesday night I acted as a sound consultant for our upcoming
Hedda Gabler
production. Director
and Sound Designer
David Shough needed advise on how to program a particular function
in Show Cue Systems,
as well as how specifically to set up an additional channel and
speaker. I dropped in to be of assistance.
When I sat down at the
Legato III piano
to start a new song, during that
vacation,
I was consciously going for my watered-down version of a
Steely Dan flavoring...My
original intent was to write lyrics for the music, but I never
got into a groove with that which worked for me. My estimation
is that this is a relatively standard modern jazz number. I
am happy with it, but with a couple complaints....
I've already done much of the production for the
promotional trailer
for Hedda Gabler.
I shot what I consider to be the only actual
principal photography
for this DV movie last Wednesday. The footage is just really about
one specific minute that will be peppered over the length of the
video, supplemented by what I consider
b-roll,
which I'll shoot tonight. The distinction I am drawing is that
what I shot last Wednesday was performed specifically for the
camera. Tonight I'll be shooting the
tech/dress rehearsal
as it progresses, staying out of the actors' way as they do a
straight-up rehearsal
This past Wednesday, I also recorded the cast voicing selected
moments from the play for
voice-overs
in the trailer. I actually have two more short segments to get from
a cast member who wasn't there last week.
In the meantime, I have used the principal photography along with
some rehearsal photos, and a drum track I created in
GarageBand, to
edit together a DV movie teaser as a warm-up for the trailer. It's
out already. And here it is:
AUDITION SPECS COMING SOON:
Though my auditions are not until the day after Labor Day, at the
end of summer, I still plan to have the
audition specs
out in the near future. My plan is to have them out as soon as
possible after the auditions for
August Wilson's Radio Golf
are wrapped; and those end this coming Tuesday, the 5th. So far,
I've done only a few passes through reading
Wednesday's Child;
I'll be doing a lot more this summer. But I want one more pass through
before I sit down to write my audition requirements. Both are on
my agenda for this weekend.
This Friday I'll see one of my new favorite stand-up comics,
Nate Bargatze
on his stop in Dayton for his Be Funny tour. Nate is clearly
a rising star in the stand-up world, and he's maybe the cleanest
comic on the circuit ‐‐ dare I say it: he's even
cleaner than
Jim Gaffigan!
Bargatze has several specials out, most on Netflix, and I find them
all funny as all get out:
I watched a
full run rehearsal
of Evil Dead: the Musical
last night, and took notes. Today and tomorrow I'm putting together
the sound design.
Tech Week,
well, the first Tech Week (there are two), starts Monday with the
cue-to-cue rehearsal.
There won't be wireless body mics for the actors yet, however. I
don;t work much with such and I am wholly unfamiliar with the
DPH audio hardware. Their resident
technical director*,
Bob Kovach, will come in later in the week to set the body mics up
and school me, and the
sound tech.
*) I don't know if Bob is "technically" the
official DPH tech director, but he essentially acts as such.
It's sort of the way that I'm the closest thing to
a technical director at
The Guild,
which is pretty faulty position for me to be in. I am much
less of a technical expert than many on the DTG board
believe ‐‐ believe me.
Today my mother would have celebrated her 106th birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM
June Storer
1917-1997
EVIL TECHIN':
The technical aspects of this spoofy musical are being incrementally
added in as the two-week tech rehearsal
period progresses. I brought in the
soundwork
Monday, the first day of Tech, and of course, as it goes, have been
tweaking all week, and will continue to do so.
Director,
Johny Detty,
also playing the role of Ash,
has approved of most of the design, but has nixed a couple
SFX,
which is not an uncommon occurrence.
Much of my weekend was focused on the sound for this production,
between building sounds,
and procuring the
pre-show
and intermission
music that John curated. I also ended up taking another
vacation
day Monday, which was when I did most of the programming of the
show into Show Cue Systems.
I was also quite relieved that Bob Kovach was able to drop by last
night, as well as his planned appearance tonight, to help with
setting up the board for the cast members'
Lavalier mic
packs. He'll help with mic setups for the band, too. As we've
discussed here before, despite that it may surprise some folk, this
sort of specific
musical-theatre
sound work is a bit outside my usual element, believe it or not.
Last Saturday, working on the Evil Dead
sound work in my favorite office....
*....more of the same photo-motif, but for a different
story, again....
To reiterate, as a theatre
sound designer,
musical productions
are not my forte. and I don't spend a lot of designer time working
with the whole system of
Lavalier
body mics and the associated sound boards. I'm not completely
ignorant, but I ain't exactly well-versed, either. My strongest
sound design
work for this show was as it usually is, the
sound effects,
all of curating, building,
editing, and mixing them. As I've written in posts before, I was
fortunate to have the help of the prima facie DPH
technical director,
Bob Kovach, to give me a lot of assistance with the DPH sound system,
body mics for actors, and most especially, setting up the mics and
instrument inputs for the orchestra, which is back stage. It also
helps that the show's
sound tech,
Ted Dehoff, has some good sound tech experience and knows the DPH
mixing board, and knows it much, much, much better than I, who knows
very little about it. Ted's definitely donned a sound engineer's hat
during Tech and played the sound board as I can not.
As alluded to above, that ding-dang
production gremlin
hung around a bit during the whole tech rehearsal period. But as
always, after it had a few giggles it simmered its ass down....
....mostly....
....The little punk did decide to mess with one of the
actor's body mic last night, rendering the actor's mic useless for
much of Act 2.
Well, you know, the gremlin
must have its fun. The best thing to do is tolerate it, deal with
it, and let it get its shenanigans out of its system.
The good news is the cast and crew are ready for an audience. They
are ready for tonight. I'll be there one more time as the sound
designer in tonight's audience, seeing if anything needs tweaked
when the seats have bodies in them.
Directed by David Shough
Produced by Rick Flynn & Christina Tomazinis
This Broadway adaptation of Ibsen's timeless drama presents
a sympathetic, yet striking and powerful, Hedda in the
classic tale of her struggle to find a means of escape from
a loveless, ordinary existence. Returning from her honeymoon,
Hedda finds herself already bored of her husband, and longing
for the days when she was free to exercise her wild and
independent whims. With the return of an old flame and a
proposition from an amorous judge, she begins a dangerous
game, amusing herself by manipulating and destroying everyone
around her in an attempt to regain control of her life.
Friday I attended the
opening night performance,
but still as
sound designer,
not an audience member. Although, to be honest, what I was most
interested in was whether or not one particular sound cue was going
to be loud enough. I did determine that the overall volume should
be a little louder. But for the rest of the run, whatever changes
might be made will be determined by the
sound tech
or the stage manager.
Besides the soundwork business, the cast and crew had a good opening
night. I'll be back next Sunday for their closing. I'm looking
forward to where their level will be then. It's a funny show
‐‐ campiness on steroids.
THE TENNESSEE KID IN DAYTON:
It occurred to me that I have not yet blogged about Standup Comedian
Nate Bargatze's
June 2 show at the
Schuster Center.
The Tennessee Kid was as funny as I expected him to be. I hope this
tour will end up as a special on
Netflix
or another streamer.
Nate also had three opening acts:
Graham Kay
and Justin Smith,
who were both funny, too. But his last opener was simply wonderful.
It was Nate's father,
Stephen Bargatze,
who is a veteran comic magician and was just down-right hilarious.
He also was quite charming, and gave a little, touching, heartfelt
speech at the end of his time about how proud he is of his son and
how thrilling it is to see such an audience turn out for his son's
act.
At some point in the near future I'll be meeting with the scenic
designer, Red Newman, to discuss the gameplan for the
set.
I'm going to need to reasonably know what the space will be like so
I can begin contemplating the show's
blocking.
Meanwhile I am commencing with protracted
script study
to deepen my understanding of all aspects of the text, subtext,
characters, conflicts, etcetera, etcetera. I actually have a copy
of the script I'm calling my "scratchpad" copy that I
can mark up profusely with interpretations, observations, questions,
and such. Any relevant items will be transfered to my official
Director's copy. But this first one is just my playground, or
laboratory if you will, for more discovery and deeper analysis.
There's a really good chance, almost an absolute guarantee, that
I'll compose and record
production music
for the show. It's most likely to be music going into the acts and
then out of the acts, with the end-of-Act-2 music doubling as
curtain call music.
Because of the structure of the play, there's probably not much
call for scene-change music. Oh and, when I declared my intent to
write and record music for the show, my friend, Sarah Saunders,
fellow DTG board
member, and the sound tech for the show, said, with more than a
little irony in her voice: "I'm shocked!"
Once again, I have taken a recent excursion down a rabbit hole,
adding more material to the massive
story bible
archives for the universe of the play I am still working on, and
the unfinished novel, that has sat dormant for two decades. The
play is on the agenda for revision
and possibly some out-and-out
rewriting
this summer. However, the era I've been adding to in the story bible
material is decades after the time period of the play. I get a bug
in my ear about something and I have to see through dealing with it.
Though still not at full speed, momentum on
preproduction
is gradually picking up.
I've taken a couple passes through the play doing
script analysis.
There will be many more passes through, with
character analysis
being a big part of these early passes. But I'm also looking for
production things such as set needs, sound needs, lighting needs,
costuming needs (including good and bad places for particular actors
to make costume changes). I've not yet dove deep into any one aspect,
but looking at characters has been forefront in my mind, while still
attending to the other aspects.
During part of the script study I did find a couple lines that made
no sense. I determined that they were left over from an edit, where
something earlier had been cut, and the orphaned lines were
erroneously left in the text. I had to contact Playwright
Mark St. Germain
on another issue, anyway, so while in communication I asked about
these lines and he confirmed my suspicions. Rather than tell me to
go ahead and cut what was left, he gave me the line that they referred
back to, and told me to insert it back into the script. So, that's
the route we are taking.
My main reason for contacting Mr. St. Germain was to ask for his
permission to use dialogue from the play in the
promotional trailer.
Once again, as he was for
Relativity,
he was kind enough to grant us clearance. And, solve the puzzling
line issue in the script.
There have been quite a few actors who have contacted my about the
show, all interested in the female roles. I do need two men, too.
But, auditions are nine-and-a-half weeks away, so I don't think it's
time for me to be concerned as of yet.
Meanwhile both the show's producer, Scott Madden, and I are working
to build the production team, We have some members, but have more
to go.
