Mimi Le Duck

Adieu to LeDuckBlog for now!

2011-05-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

Since this last post, much has happened. I'm in the middle of a divorce. I'm broke. I'm climbing out of a black hole, using words as pitons. I don't know if I will continue LeDuckBlog in the future. Maybe. Probably. Don't know. Wishy-Washy. We'll see. Meanwhile, I'm documenting my climb out at

http://dianahansenyoung.typepad.com/blog/

Enjoy!

Diana Hansen-Young
May19, 2011

Stop the hands of time

2010-10-20T11:00:00.000-04:00

And that is the thought for the day.

MondayMonday

2010-10-18T09:33:00.000-04:00

So when I pass along books I've finished reading there are always complaints, carefully phrased, of course -- because a newly-read-passed-along-within-a-day hardcover of a favorite mystery author means the giftee doesn't have to buy the hardcover or wait till it gets to the library/in paperback -- of the state of the book, which is always 1. without outer cover 2. pages turned down 3. notes in margins 4. every page crinkled and 5. blotched where water has caused the cloth cover ink to run.
No mystery here. I read in the bath, nearly immersed. One of the great pleasures in life. No deep tub in Oregon, as the folks lived in a 76 doublewide. The tub was 16" deep and molded plastic.
But Brooklyn tubbing. . . perfection. The only question is: When will book publishers learn to make the dyes and inks on the cloth covers waterproof?
On the other hand, dyes that transfer to wet hands (where they become semi-permanent) are proof positive that you CAN tell a book by its cover. If you can't put it down, if you read it all in one sitting, a copious amount of dye stains your fingers.
Thus, in handing off a new but abused book to a friend, they remark (looking at your hands): "So you'd recommend it?"
The Black Hand Syndrome.

Long road behind, long road ahead

2010-10-16T11:17:00.003-04:00

So someone asks: why no posts for so long? Let me count the ways.
1. Broken left leg, then two knee replacements
3. Mom diagnosed on a Friday with Ovarian Cancer, dies at home on Monday of same.
4. Take care of Dad with his Alzheimer's, and his native plant nursery in Salem Oregon. Dad falls down the stairs July 09, breaks back and hip, and dies at home three days later.
5. During funeral, my own appendix rupture. Ignore stomach ache; think: "Stress." Bury Dad, next day end up in ER, septic. Three weeks in hospital ICU, 8 surgeries, kidneys and heart fail, systems shut down.
But somehow I'm not done yet. All systems come back online, slowly. Two more surgeries, last one July 2010. Some other personally disastrous stuff, NTBDP (NotToBeDiscussedPublically).
So - maybe, maybe, the long streak of bad luck has screeched to a halt - and this wreck of human flesh can pull itself back together and write again.
God willing and the creek don't rise, as Grandpa would say, I'll be posting again. And please no OMGIMSOSORRYRUOK txts. Time for tea and sympathy is over. There's a long road behind. I'm not looking over my shoulder NYMORE. I'm looking at a long -- and exciting - road ahead.

Eartha and Dad: They come and they go.

2008-12-27T11:28:00.013-05:00

Closing Night of LeDuck and Dad's Alzheimer's . . .

So its still dark here in Salem, Oregon. Ice melting from the storm, sullen ice, drip drip drip, digging in its pointy heels, clinging to the branches 'til the last drop.

I think of Eartha and Dad, clinging to life until the last drop.

I walk outside. The ten-foot blueblossom tree kneels on the ground under the weight of the ice.
The Baker's Cypress bows in surrender.

A Yukon birch bends at a forty-five degree angle.
The chorus of willows, a curtain call.
I see the branches of the ninebark tree touch the ground; I am doubtful it will recover.

Dad, who has Alzheimer's, yells for me. I come running inside. He's in panic. "Diana! The wells have run dry!" He's learned for the 100th time that the water pressure is low. I tell him that the ice storm wrecked the pump, which will be replaced Monday, and there is plenty of water. He can't remember that; only the anxiety of No Water, imprinted on his brain after years running the native plant nursery. "Diana, the wells have run dry," he says again, and I write down the answer so he can read it, over and over.

Like Eartha, Dad had colon cancer. And also pancreatic cancer. And kidney cancer. Incredibly, he beat them all. But Alzheimer's got him now, and there's no wiggle room out of that one. And yet he hangs on; he has vowed to "fight that big night" until the bitter end.

He was a true conservative. Patriotic. He served in WWII and the Korean War, and was on the deck of the USS Missouri, standing behind McCain, when the "little Japanese men in black suits climbed up the side" and sat down opposite MacArthur and signed the surrender documents.

For his birthday December 3, we gave him a flag flown over the capitol. He pulled it out of the box and was silent for a moment. Then: "I fought many wars for this flag."
They put him in the army corps of engineers in WWII because had filled out a questionnaire that asked: Do you object to serving with Negroes?

Dad wrote he had no objection to serving with anyone, and so he was assigned as an officer to a squadron of black troops who followed the front lines, doing reconstruction. He learned that the belief was that African-Americans would turn and run from battle, and thus were placed behind the front lines. After the war, it dawned on him that while all of his college friends had lost their lives, many at Normandy, he was still alive because of that questionnaire. His friends had objected to "serving with Negroes," but Dad had not, and was relegated to the back with his black troops, and was spared.

He was furious with Eartha when she denounced the war; there were many family arguments over that one. But he mellowed over the years, and by 2006, when Eartha agreed to play Vallet in Mimi LeDuck, he hated to admit he had voted for Bush. He wanted to see Eartha perform, but he was busy losing a kidney, and couldn't leave Salem.

I hear Dad calling. I go inside and spend a few hours with him. Outside, more ice has melted. The old Garry oak in the front yard has broken free of the white stuff. The sun shines through mist, illuminating the moss. I show Dad. "Beautiful," he says. "This beauty is enough to live for."
Suddenly, I feel a pang of homesickness for the urban beauty of New York. I alternate between coasts these days, running Dad's native plant nursery for him until we can decide what to do, and back for stints of writing in New York. The best of both worlds, I think, but I can't seem to write here in Salem, midst the Trilliums and the Alzheimer's.

And so they go, one by one. I remember closing night of LeDuck.

I was exhausted and devastated and sad. Eartha took it all in stride. She said "give me a hug," and I did (she was so very very tiny, like a bird) and then she said "They come and they go, dear, but not your talent. There'll be other shows for you," and asked if she could use "Everything Changes" in her cabaret act. Of course, I said. Of course.

I am unsuccessfully editing this post when I hear Dad calling again. "Diana, the wells are running dry." I'll post, mistakes, bad tenses, and all.

Dad's at the sink, opening and closing the faucet, panicked. I reassure him yet again. Dad, dad, dad.

We come and we go, but there's water in the well, and there'll be other shows.

Aloha, Eartha Kitt

2008-12-26T17:10:00.010-05:00

So I’m iced in on Christmas Day and Marie calls from New Orleans: Eartha Kitt passed away.

And the emails began flooding in from people telling me how Eartha's ethereal rendition of the song “Everything Changes” had moved them.

Our lives overlapped briefly during the production of Mimi LeDuck in the fall of 2006. The show ran for 58 performances, and generally got lousy reviews -- except for Eartha’s performance, which was extraordinary.

Everywhere today, eloquent voices are raised, toasting to memories, and praising her talent, pluck, and humanity. I would like to add a story.

I wrote the song “Everything Changes” for LeDuck after looking in the mirror one morning and for the first time, realizing that my time was, indeed, marching on. Eartha took my words, inhabited them, gave them life, and made them her own. And when they poured out of the depths of her soul, they turned them into the bittersweet cry that all of us who are aging feel, but cannot express.

She took my words and gave them back to me, a song.

My birthday fell during rehearsal. Over the birthday cake, we were conspirators in aging, and when she sang “Everything Changes” that day, it was a gift to me, and for that, I thank her.

The original cast album after the show closed. Despite numerous requests, I never released it. I don’t really know why, Perhaps it’s ghosts, perhaps I’ll figure it out, perhaps I’ll write about what really happened one of these days.

But meanwhile, it is clear to me that thousands of her fans want to hear this song. The partial clips on YouTube have over 60,000 hits. It would be downright mean if I stubbornly refused to release it.

So I’ll get it up on iTunes and other download stores as soon as possible (keep checking) and will have a limited number of CD’s duplicated.

Email me at dianahansenyoung@gmail.com if you want to be notified when it’s available.

Aloha, Eartha.

Rest In Peace.

Anxiety vibrates out of the TV set

2008-10-09T18:03:00.001-04:00

and fills the room as the stock market tanks again.

My cell phone rings; I've cleverly forwarded the Salem nursery phone to my cell phone so I can do dad's native plant business while in New York. I put the TV on mute.

It's a government public works office who ordered several thousand plants for a restoration project six months ago. They are calling to cancel the order. Drastic budget cuts, they say. We have no money. We have to cut programs, or benefits. So, I ask, what about these plants? What about the labor? What about our contract? So sorry, they say; refer to the cancellation clause.

Six major mitigation and wetland restoration jobs put on hold, or canceled, in the past 3 days. This thing is gathering speed, barreling downhill on us.

I'm good and angry as I watch the images on the muted TV screen. Now, I'm disgusted with both candidates, congress, the president, King Henry. Where's the leadership? I hear empty rhetoric. I don't hear a plan. Everyone gets vague when they try to explain exactly how these bailouts are supposed to work.

So tell me, Barak and John and George and Henry: Tell me exactly what to say to the guys here at the nursery if I have to I lay them off next week? They've been with Dad for 15 years.

Give me the words.

Back in New York City and the white boys

2008-10-08T14:02:00.000-04:00

are angry that I've been gone. They pout and ignore me. I get out the catnip and Whiska treats and they are all furring and purring.

I don't tell them about Paco, the Salem Cat. Remember that old song? About the sailor with a cat in every port?

A physics lesson. . .

2008-10-07T01:10:00.004-04:00

So there's an old outhouse in one corner of the nursery. I decide it has to go. I give George the task of getting rid of it. He puts it on Craig's list: FREE OUTHOUSE, and while he waits to be deluged with eager takers, he decides to move it closer to the front gate.

So he uses a principle of his profession, namely physics: Give me a fulcrum and a place to stand and I can move the world, he says, and by golly, he gets the thing levered up and pipes under it and rolls it downhill to the front of the nursery.

But now it's smack dab in the front -- it's the first thing customers see as they drive in.

"We have to move it," I say, but two customers drive up.

"We need two vine maples," the driver says.

"What are you doing with that outhouse?" the passenger says.

George tells them he's on the way to deliver it to the capitol steps to leave for our congressman who's busy voting for the bailout.

"No, really," they say, looking at each other. "How much do you want for it."

Now, I don't care how bad the economy is, I can't sell an outhouse in that condition and face myself in the mirror in the morning.

I tell them it's free, but explain that there's a slight problem. It hasn't been used in many months, on account of the fact that the company who was supposed to come and clean it went bankrupt, and consequently it's still fully loaded (packed, and dried). (Which is why we put the yellow crime tape around it).

"Perfect," they say. "We need an outhouse." They look at each other. "For the farm."

They can hardly load it into the back of their pickup, they are laughing so hard. They buy two vine maples and tie them next to their bijoux and merrily drive away.

I have a sneaking suspicion that their intended use for the outhouse for the farm. So what? It's a good day when you can make someone happy by giving them something for free.

One plays, one pays. . .

2008-10-05T19:56:00.003-04:00

Decrepit, hobbling, bent over, oh regret! for the pickaxing. Playing in mud is fun; but there's got to be a morning after. . .

More rain. Nothing can revive the dead junipers.

Fairly spectacular, I think. They arrived as bare roots in the spring from a nursery in Montana. Blue powdery mildew billowed out of the box when we took out the plants. We tried, however, potted them up, 100 juniperus communis, nursed them tenderly, but alas, they are deader than a doornail. Off to the compost pile and be done with it.

Have not written for so long, it feels strange, and maybe good, to write again. Better than watching debate reruns on CNN? You betcha.

Paco the Oregon Cat . . .

2008-10-04T20:15:00.000-04:00

Paco the Vole-Catcher lurks by a birdhouse high in a tree, hoping that some hapless bird won't notice his gaudy coat, surveying the ground for Vole movement.

It rains all day. I listen to the honking from the low clouds as I take a pick axe and dig a trench around part of the house for a rain garden to catch the roof runoff. I carry rocks, one at a time, and line the trench with big ones, then smaller, then river rock, then tumbled rock on top, and plant juncus along the side.

Dad rolled around the house last night in his wheelchair. He snagged the cookie jar, ate every cookie, and wrote a note on a manila folder, which he tapes on the lid with duct tape : "Keep This Full, Please! Signed, The Night Crawler."

Oh my aching back. Oh my blisters. Oh chain gang. Oh rocks. Time to hang up the pick axe, and feed Paco.

In the cat food bowl, a surprise for me: a mangled vole. I flush it, clean the bowl (cat, not toilet) and fill it up (kibbles). Where is he? Kitty, kitty? Out hunting.

I am mud. It seeps through my gloves. My fingernails are packed with dirt. I am soaking wet and filthy. My garden clogs are caked with red clay. I slip them off by the door. The rain stops. The clouds part; the sky is empty. There is no quacking. The birds are down for the night.

It's dusk, and the frogs take up the silence.

18 Months, To The Day. . .

2008-10-03T23:33:00.005-04:00

. . . I'm back.

It's a long story, best told in bits and pieces, as in, never cram all the back story into the first chapter of the mystery.

So, this morning, I wake up and it's raining. The light bulb goes on. The one in my head, not the one in my DIY ceiling.

I start to think: I hate rain. . . but then the aha moment: Rain means I don't have to water the plants 24/7, like I have all summer. All 76,000 native plants. The nightmare of busted hose bibs, duct-taped hoses, broken timers and haywire sprinklers is finally over. Aahhhhh. Rain.

Outside, the sky is low, and thick. And then I hear it. . . honk, honk, honking . . . louder. . . and more . . . and then my ears are filled with honks and quacks from thousands of unseen geese and ducks, heading south, broadcasting from deep within the piles of gray heavy clouds.

I realize it was exactly one year ago that I stood outside here in Salem and looked up and heard tens of thousands of ducks and geese flying south. Winter was coming, and in the house, Mom was dying (and I didn't know it yet) and Dad was losing his mind (and I didn't know it yet) and the year to come would be called Bewilderment (and I didn't know that, either).

Back then, the year yet to come was as opaque to me then as that year, now passed, is today. I could tell you the events, and I will; but time, unlike the unseen ducks, did not broadcast its passing, and the meaning was hidden in the mysterious gray clouds.

And so I am back doing my daily blog entries, listening for my voice, watching for the translucency of clouds.

Tucker, contact me. . .

2007-04-03T20:06:00.000-04:00

the money you slipped under my door is counterfeit.

Too bad, because I found the address of the apartment that was gutted. Ground Floor, East 15th, just off Union Square. But there's no Tucker on the lease. The tenant is 81 years old. He was in the hospital at the time of the gutting of his coop apartment, (on the ground floor - remember, the floor in the photgraph was concrete?) Now he's in a nursing home, and the apartment's up for sale.

Don't ask how I found this all out. Mostly luck, but I will say that a lot of sweat was involved as I crutched my way down the stairs, down to the Q, and took the subway to Union Square. A bit hairy; I took a cab back to Brooklyn and barely made it up the stairs.

So the apartment's overpriced, still gutted - and unsold. I may go back and see it again with the oh-so-helpful realtor before I make an offer, and I'll take the camera.

So what's the deal, Tucker? Is it spelled BAMBOOZLED?

April Fool's Day

2007-04-01T21:29:00.000-04:00

No opportunity to play a prank on anyone, so I'm considering short-sheeting my own bed, switching the milk and orange juice out, and of course, putting sugar in the salt shaker, and cornflakes under the pillow. All traditional tricks we would play on each other growing up. At some point it became "I know they switched out the salt. So I'll go get the sugar and put that on my hamburger." And the trick was NOT to have done it when they think you did. As is everything in life, a mind game.

No word from Tucker. Nothing under the door. I need to nail down the address of the apartment that was gutted - Tucker's apartment - if there is a Tucker.

I need the date of the gutting. That will lead me to the address. In our local community newspapers there's always a "police blotter" page that lists the crime in the neighborhood. Certainly, an apartment gutting would be important enough to be listed there (and not important enough to get major newspaper coverage).

I would guess this event occured after the show closed. During its run, Tucker would have no reason to think I'd have the time or interest to dabble in mysteries. It's no coincidence that he chooses to pique my interest when I've got Broken Leg Boredom.

So now I'm making a list of community newspapers, starting downtown. Someone whimsical enough to do this wouldn't live north of 28th.

Then, it's just a function of searching online editions for keywords in the police blotter reports.
Between tracking down Tucker, and my 500 steps in the hallway, tomorrow's going to be a big day. Tucker, my boy, I'm sniffing at your tracks. I'll have your address by Thursday.

No cash under the door this morning!

2007-03-31T23:06:00.000-04:00

Believe me, I looked. Probably a hoax, except it's too much money to blow on a hoax. Or maybe some elaborate game that is unraveling. But its been a brighter day in Legless Black Rock.
Thekla sends fruit from Miami, fresh fruit from the Caribbean, fruit I've never heard of. The box arrives - I can smell the postman bringing it upstairs -- it smells like Hawaii, like tropics, mangos, beaches, fresh papaya - sweet - I open the box and perfume fills the apartment. The cats go crazy. Their fur stands up on end as they circle the Evil Fruit Box. I make a startle motion; they go two feet straight up.
George is off to the coast for a week on business, so I'm hunker down and write. Ten pages today, ten pages tomorrow, that's the goal each day. Visit another world, time, and space while in a Simple Bledsoe cast in Brooklyn. I walk up and down the hallway (on crutches, but trying to build up the atrophied muscles) today for a half hour, write for two hours, walk a half hour, etc. I manage to get to the goal: 400 steps. This is quite an achievement, as the hallway is 14 feet long. Tomorrow I'll add on another 100 steps. It's about 900 feet to the subway. Goal: 900 feet by Friday. I keep the ipod blasting, or I will die of Hallway Boredom.
I will take pictures of the tropical fruit tomorrow while I'm thinking about drooling beets, and Tucker. Ah, Tucker!

When I woke up this morning, an envelope had

2007-03-30T19:38:00.000-04:00

been shoved under my door.
The return address was a printed label that said:
HAND DELIVER
And it had my Brooklyn home address.
I opened the envelope. Inside, another photograph:

And a note (not laser printed; it looked like it was from a typewriter, maybe a Smith-Corona, ca. 1962)
Ms. Hansen-Young -
My name is Tucker. I am a faithful blog reader. I saw LeDuck, and felt a strong kinship with Claude Duluc, Detective. You crafted his character so well that I thought you must have an affinity for detectives and mysteries. I read your bio, and see you're a member of Mystery Writers of America. I'd like to hire you to solve this mystery.
I've been in Shanghai on business for six weeks. I returned Sunday to find that someone had not only stripped my apartment bare, but had gutted all the appliances, everything, including kitchen tiles. The only thing left behind was the photograph of beets and drooling grapes that I left under your door two days ago (I admit, to intrigue you).
I want you to find out who did this, and why. When I know who they are, I will decide either to go to the police or take corrective action on my own.
I sympathize with you re your broken leg - several years ago, in Rio, I narrowly missed being hit by a train - but in the jump, I landed wrong - fractured my leg. It's no fun. But I think you can start with Google, at home.
Report on progress in your blog. I'll communicate by posting private comments back. If the details are such that they should not be made public, create a private password protected blog and we'll use that. Oh, and I'm enclosing the first payment."

In the envelope, 20 crisp new $100 bills. Were these real? Was this a hoax? I admit, I was intrigued. Very, very intrigued. On the other hand, there are a lot of nuts out there. They email me all the time. This could be one of them. But why go to all this trouble? Why put cash under my door? Was this a set-up? How the hell can I figure out who stripped his apartment if I didn't even know what the address of the apartment was?

I don't know. Tucker, these are some of my thoughts. I really have to think about this, and I think I really need to insist on the address of your apartment - or some other kind of ID. I await your comments.

A mysterious photograph arrives by mail.

2007-03-28T21:28:00.000-04:00

The caption on the back reads: GRAPES AND DROOLING BEETS.

A yellow stickie note is attached. The writing is messy, hasty, smudged. It reads:
"Stand by. I may need your help. Tucker"

Now, this is a mystery that should make any one-legged woman arise from the grave and walk!
I can't wait to get tomorrow's mail.

Spring has sprung

2007-03-27T21:17:00.000-04:00

The grass has riz
I wonder where
The birdies iz.
I asked some friends if they remember any spring limericks and rhymes they remember from growing up.
Yes, of course: and all are too raunchy to print.

A beautiful spring day, with little to say, so I won't.

So Thekla blows into town from Miami,

2007-03-26T20:15:00.000-04:00

a hurricane, to celebrate a law associate's impending marriage. She's clerking for a federal appeals judge, but escaped to New York for the weekend to inhale the urban air that she misses so much being in Miami.
We decide to practice stairs. Going down: crutch, left right. Crutch, left, right. You use the bannister as the second crutch. Going up, it's the opposite. So I practice a few short lengths of stairs and then I make my great escape down three flights, out the door, down the stoop, and onto the street. We call a car service and whiz off to Manhattan to the mixing studio, where we are finishing the cast album for LeDuck. I handle the curb nicely. The office building has a slick granite floor. The doorman has apoplexy. He's figuring out what he'll tell his boss on Monday when the second leg gets broken.
We work for several hours, and then she calls: she's getting a cab, swinging by to get me, the cab will run us to Brooklyn, she will start me up the stairs, run in, get her suitcase, keep the cab waiting, jump in, and hightail it to JFK, which she does. On the third flight, I can barely continue. I realize that I am benchpressing my considerable weight each time I push myself up onto the next step.
But if I don't get up the last flight, what will happen? Can I just sit down on the landing and refuse to move? Demand that my meals be brought down a flight? Have George throw down a blanket and pillow, or two? I consider the many options. A deciding factor is that there is no bathroom on the landing. Having drunk several bottles of water all afternoon, I decide that I am going to have to bench press my way up the last flight. Soon. Very, very soon.
All's well that ends well, or at least, ends without a second broken leg. I passed on another excursion out this morning in favor of watching wall to wall Anna Nicole coverage, of course. Question: Does Dr. Perper have a funny-shaped head? I flip through channels and can't tell if it's bad lighting.
It's one of the few questions in the universe that the reporters have not asked him. Maybe Katy Couric should interview him and ask the hard questions about the shape of his head, just like she went after Mrs. Edwards.
As dusk falls, I regret not making a break for it. Nose pressed against the window, a cat on either side of me, their noses pressed against the window, we watch night fall over Brooklyn.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to get down the stairs again and crutch and hop to the corner mailbox. Then, maybe the supermarket across the street. Can I cross the street fast enough on crutches before the light changes? It's a wide one.
And -- does anyone know how to push a grocery cart on crutches? (me, not the cart).

Scuttling

2007-03-22T19:09:00.000-04:00

Up and down the stairs, in and out, yikes. Question: If you scuttle up and down stairs and across lobbies on your butt, are you a scuttlebutt? What is the origin of that word?
So I look it up on the web and find a bunch of interesting word detective sites. The consensus seems to be that it's a compound word formed from scuttle, a `small opening or hatchway in the deck of a ship, furnished with a lid,' and butt `a large cask, especially for holding wine or water.'
Therefore, a scuttlebutt was a cask used to carry a day's worth of drinking water aboard a ship, or, in more modern times, it is a drinking fountain aboard a ship or naval/marine installation.
The term scuttlebutt `gossip' emerged as sailors would congregate around the scuttlebutt and engage in friendly chat and gossip.
So how does a crab "scuttle"
I'll dig into this pressing question tomorrow between hopping and crutching.

In sympathy with my scuttling, a reader sends this picture of HIS stressful day!

And I made it out to the stoop!

2007-03-21T21:53:00.000-04:00

Small victory: I make it out to the street, bumping down the stairs on my butt out to the stoop, and benchpressing my way back up, also on my butt, one step at a time. The Great White Russian cats freak out and hide under the bed as I galump my way down the hallway.
I wake up to burning desire to cook, which is tough. I've stayed away from boiling pasta; lifting a boiling pasta pot is tough on one leg. Also stupid. So what can I make? I have wonderful frozen wild blueberries. I will make blueberry crumble. But i have great apples - why not an apple pie as well? Why not do the crust from scratch? George had an annual Oatmeal Cookie Spasm a few weeks ago and bought a bag of flour - not yet in the flour container. Everything's there. Why not?
I assemble the ingredients, loading them all onto my lap at one time on the rolling chair from the cupboards and scooting them across the kitchen en masse to the counter, which is now at chin level. I work my way through the crust, the crumble topping for the blueberries, etc etc etc and run out of counter space, its such a big production, so i set the open flour bag onto the floor and keep working and hear a funny snuffling sound and Jaws, one of the Great Whites, had his whole head in the flour bag and evidently pressed his nose into the flour. He jerks out, covered with flour, making schooweezie sounds, and i dust off his face and look in the flour bag, and there's a perfect cat nose/face print in the pristine flour.
I changed plans and used a single frozen ready-made crust to make a kind of folded-over-broken leg apple pie. Blueberry crumble turned out well. George ate 80% of each masterpiece.
I'm going to have to send the cats to a cat shrink. Galumping in the hallway, and a sand-flour-trap in a bag.

More fooling around with iMovie

2007-03-20T22:23:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I learned on Christmas Night that my digital still camera has a video function, albeit low megapixels. On the long subway ride home after dinner at Marie and Paul's, I fiddled around with it.
So today, dying of boredom, I find the clips and set myself a task: In three hours, create a story in a one-minute video using only the clips taken on that Christmas ride home.
So here it is. Don't snort. I'm still learning iMovie. And my leg is still broken.

If you can't get it to load at first, YouTube runs an hour or more behind in posting the videos once you've uploaded them. come back later.

Red door and lock, with boy: Africa

2007-03-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

Zambia: George's Habitat trip to build mud brick houses in a small village 100 miles out of Ndola, near Congo border.

Not staged, and profound.

My world

2007-03-18T20:12:00.000-04:00

So its a rollicking Sunday night in leg-up land. The highlight of the day is on BBC: Avengers and The Saint.
The Two Great White Russians are happy at my incarceration, and ecstatic that I ordered twice from Amazon.com. Two boxes come in the mail. I set them up each morning and they become Box Cats (not Bob Cats).

Notice that one box is smaller. It belongs to Jaws, who chewed it up and busted out one side to provide a little more leg room, like economy-plus on United.

Besides two boxed cats, I photograph what is next to me all afternoon: three bottles of water, my rhyming dictionary, the channel changer, glasses, and the chinese restaurant menu from across the street.

I promise to expand my horizons tomorrow. Perhaps I'll photograph the crutches, or give you a shocking look at the Simple Bledso cast, locked at 30 degrees.
I know you can't wait. Neither can I.

My little brother Eric, an ex-pat in Germany,

2007-03-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

has a hot new book out in Berlin; PLANET GERMANY with incredible reviews, including a rave from Der Speigel. It's his second (the first: Driving Through The Dark Ages, also in German). Here's the Der Spiegel review (in German):

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,464663,00.html

Click the title of this post - it's a direct link to his website, a study in nuttiness complete with video interview - or cut and paste:
http://www.ethansen.de/

and here's the publisher's site
http://www.fischerverlage.de/

I can deduce that the book deals, in part, with growing up in Hawaii, and it appears to deal with other nutty things as well. Eric has the Hansen nuttiness gene. Here he is with life partner Astrid on a trip to NYC:

The resemblance to my dad is eerie. Here's a photo of my dad, one of my favorites, taken several years ago at his home and NW Native Plant Nursery in Salem, Oregon - after he taught Heidi and Thekla, daughters, some highly useful skills, like shooting. (And yes, he has a permit and no, he's not a member of the NRA; he's a WW II and Korean War vet).

Ah, family!

I confess I know "ein eye" or something like that in German, meaning, "one egg," which I learned at a train station somewhere in Germany in the 70's when I tried to buy boiled eggs for lunch. The woman wouldn't sell me an egg until I pronounced it correctly.

So this evening, one-legged as I am these days, I will sleuth google, looking for decent English translations of any of Eric's reviews. If not, I'll pour over existing reviews and see if I can find "ein eye."

First try on iMovie

2007-03-16T13:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry, Alfred, I know this is a first try, but I'm learning iMovie and Garage Band while one-legged, so make it a gentle roll-over in your grave.

Hooray, the bitter hag is back! And so am I!

2007-03-15T20:55:00.000-04:00

Glad to see you're still reading, O Bitter Hag, Cheerful That thou Art!
"Glad you finally gave up," he says.
Sometimes life happens, I say.
So what did happen? Someone else writes, and someone else keeps complaining that I'm not showing any other kind of food except pizza.

So I read this "Glad You Gave Up" email and sit bolt upright in bed, a hard thing to do these days because in early February I took a flying header down the stairs in my apartment and severely broke my left leg. I spend 8 days in the hospital WITHOUT INTERNET ACCESS, a kind of pain no percocet can dull.
So no blog.
Back up. How did this happen? You ask.
I'm heading out to Portland to see my folks, who are not in good health. George is off on business in California. I take a box of fresh pasta downstairs to a neighbor, and presto, changeo, I am suddenly flying, flying through the air, and end up on the lobby floor, my left leg bent completely back under me. Now this happens to be the leg upon which there is a bad knee which was to be replaced THIS month (after putting it off all during LeDuck).

So its painful, and I'm not Bond in Casino Royale, so I'm shouting and swearing, and my neighbor comes out and I say "Call 911, I've broken something," and she turns to go in and I say "Wait, here, here's your fresh pasta" and then I start yelling again.

You don't want to hear the dreary details but suffice it to say that it took trips to two hospitals, and back up and down the three flights of stairs (being carried) and on the way to the NYU Joint joint on 2nd Ave, there is a Russian driver, a newbie, who gets lost leaving Brooklyn (all he had to do was drive down Flatbush and get onto the Manhattan Bridge. Door to door, 3 miles). But he ends up on the Belt Parkway and I think "This is taking a long time" and I realize, through the fog, that the EMT guy in the back is yelling at him in Russian and I lift my head and I see we're passing the JFK cutoff.

There was a lot of what I guessed was probably Russian Swearing, and finally he finds the Battery Tunnel and we wind our way through the city to the hospital. One hour, ten minutes. "Good thing I'm not having a heart attack," I scream at them as they bump my broken leg exiting on the stretcher.

It was a very unpleasant time. I can take a lot, Gunga Din, all of that, but I don't do Sick very well at all. And I can't navigate the stairs on crutches. So I COULD bump down three flights on my butt, and bump back up on my butt, but I can't stand up from an on-the-floor position with my left leg in a Bledsoe locked at 30 degrees, so I'm trapped here until I can do the one-footed crutch hop down steep stairs, or until I can put weight on my left leg.

So I wallow in self-pity, watching daytime judge shows and irritating the downstairs neighbor as I hop over wooden floors at 3 a.m. to get to the bathroom. I discover the Sleuth Channel and watch all the reruns of the Rockford Files and Magnum PI (I don't like Simon and Simon). Friend Marie comes to visit and she sits down in a chair and I stretch out on the living room couch and we have the BBC's Cash In The Attic on. "There's a lot of murmuring on this show," she says, and we promptly both fall asleep. Yes, this joint is jumping.

And then Happy Day! Bitter Hag's anonymous comment sends a rocket of the old adrenelin through me. I turn off a rerun of Law and Order. I resurrect my iPod and blast a CD my daughter the lawyer sent me from Miami - a new kind of latin-reggae-rap fusion, called Reggaeton, by a group called Calle 13, and I love it, and I start thinking: I should write a song in this style, just for practice, and I haul out the rhyming dictionary and it feels as good as when I had my first bath home from the hospital.

So tonight I open Blogger, and yep, the last entry was end of January, a big piece of pizza, and I think: How could I let Judge Judy, Alex, Joe, Christina, Marilyn and Hatchett suck the air out of the room?

There's a lot to be thankful for. Ten pounds vanished (being trapped inside means you can't pick up a croissant on the way to the subway). I didn't break both legs. And the best of all, Bitter Hag's comment that that rocketed me back to the here and now. Thank you, thank you, thank you, sweet thang. I can honestly say, Glad You're Back.

Pizza Dreams of a New York Slice

2007-01-27T17:50:00.000-05:00

So its freezing cold in the office and I'm ready to throw in the towel. (What does that really, really mean?) I've been writing and doing year-end taxes all day, and I only notice that it's cold when tax stuff is on the screen. I diverted to iMovie again, trying to make my 45 second bijoux, my first foray into the world of Directing, its bad, it really is, but I will throw it up (literally and figuratively) Tuesday or Wednesday. It's fun to fiddle.
I go through some still shots to see if there's something I want to add to the video. Not this one. . . not this one. . . not this one. . . . ah. This one.

Not to add to the video, add to my stomach. It's daughter Heidi with a Real New York Slice. When she sees this, her mouth will water. Thekla, in Miami, will want one. Can't fax it, can't fedex it, but I can go and get one so they can both enjoy it by proxy.
My stomach is rumbling; I'm shutting down this cold Mac Mother and heading to Ray's Original for a Real New York Slice.
Stuffed Meat, I think.

Green Moto Mama Moving On.

2007-01-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

Annie Golden's coming over to work on some photographs Friday night, so I'm looking thru the photos, searching for the ones she might want, and I come across the roll from closing night. A great sadness washes over me, and I think about the experience: Nothing like it ever was, and nothing like it ever will be again.
And then I see this picture that Thekla took closing night on the green motorbikes in the lobby of New World Stages.

So I will pin this over my desk to remind me that LeDuck opened and closed, the world spun, the sun rose and set, the homeless still inhabit the sidewalks, our boys are still dying in Iraq and Judge Judy is still on 55 at 10, and I am still and again typing, writing, typing, laying down words across the page like dirtbike tracks in the dust.
Green Moto Mama, Moving on.

Cell phone on a car battery.

2007-01-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

So the homeless guy that parks himself regularly in front of Macy's has moved uptown a block. He usually has a keyboard hooked into a car battery which he wheels on a little cart. He plays jazz and other music, depending on his mood.
Today he had a cell phone hooked up to his car battery. First he was yelling at his wife. She wasn't home all night. Then, he was ordering lunch (no, not delivered, I guess, I heard him say he was coming by in half an hour to pick it up). When he was through, he returned to vigorous shaking of the cup with coins.
It's 10:37 pm and I'm just finishing writing for the day. There's a guy in the office yelling at his wife on his cell phone. She was supposed to be home by now. I'm getting out of here before he orders food, and wheels out his car battery.

We'll start with a mystery. I cleared off shelves and

2007-01-21T17:16:00.000-05:00

painted a downstairs basement locker this morning before I wrote. On the shelf, a mysterious Tickle Bug sits on a jar of almonds, next to a bag of Friskies Snacks. How did he get there? Where did he come from? Is he guarding nuts or cat snax? I showed the picture to a woman on the subway and asked her opinion. She said to email it to the CEO of Friskies and ask him what the hell is up with the ticklebugs.
So I did.

Readers send emails to show me they're still there.
Lee from Japan with golfing buddies:

Note to Clay: Thanks for your frequent, faithful comments! Will let u know more about short story soon.
Here's good friend Suzanne, back in Hawaii from Spain, who swims 4 or 5 miles every morning out beyond the reef at Hanauma Bay, sometimes with dolphins, sting rays, once a shark. A very friendly turtle came ashore, they called the experts, everyone had a photo before they took TurtleSoup back out where he belonged. Suzanne reports she sees him sneaking back near shore for the easy pickings.
Last week in Chinatown, on Mott Street, I saw a crowd gathered around a tin rubbish can on the sidewalk. Being curious, I gently elbowed my way up to the tin can. Big turtles for sale. Big money. A lookout down the block: TWEETTWEETTWEET, the turtle merchant grabs the tin garbage can, slams a lid over it, and rushes it into a back room. Everyone scatters. Two policemen come strolling down the street. An old hippie, long gray hair in pony tail, grabs them before I can and points to the door the turtle-merchant vanished into. Off they go to check. I leave before I see the outcome; I am rushing to catch the B train. So Suzanne's turtle is especially pertinent:

A waterbuffalo from Zambia. Note the same attitude as the turtle.

Last year George went on Habitat Global Village build to Zambia, which is why that waterbuffalo is so near and dear to our hearts. Out of hundreds of photographs, this is my favorite.

George is heading to Madagascar on another Habitat Build in June. I am going to rent the cartoon, Madagascar, from Netflix, so he knows what's what over there.
Last but not least, another email from Zambia. Remember Rhino, George? The Pride of the Copperbelt?

George Remembers.
Tomorrow, another business day. Still reconciling accounts, filling out actor's unemployment claims, assembling tax forms, dropping numbers into Quickbooks. Getting closer to a set of fairly accurate numbers for the show. I can only do a few hours a day of numbers, and then I write.
Today, the office is empty and silent. There's no heat in the building. I sit here in my coat and scarves writing, nose running, shivering. Time to head home. First, call Lucky Star Chinese Restaurant across the street from the apartment and order take-out.
What's on the menu? Any specials tonight?
Turtle soup.

Çan't believe its 20 Jan 2007: How Time Flies

2007-01-20T15:37:00.000-05:00

The story left off with the squirrels and the cookie dough, and in the last three weeks I have learned the following:
1. They love cookie dough
2. They love barley, wheat, carrot pulp from the juicer
3. I seem to have lost three weeks
4. I'd better start blogging again or I am toast, out with the squirrels, El RottenOne.
I had a request to publish this photo of me with a custard pielet from Chinatown. The pielet was a gift from my daughters, not the squirrels, and I thought it made a stunning brooch. It was also tres tasty.

I'm not sure yet what Tenor and Tone of 2007 Blog will be. There was a freight train rumbling through the yard, and all of a sudden it's not there, and I have to flag down the next one; so I'm standing on the tracks, waiting for a Surprise.
In the meantime, they changed the window displays at Macy's from Christmas to freezing mannequins in postage-stamp black bikinis with Hawaiian print beach tops and unwalkable sandals. The mouse is still there in the corner; when the workmen painted the window in stark white, I was walking home late one night and there was the mouse, gnawing a hole in the corner, dark filings scattered around on the white floor. The Macy Mouse, like Eloise at the Plaza.
I have a short story coming out in a Mystery Writers of America book (Little/Brown) in April, and I'm writing two other things which I am not yet ready to blab about, and thinking about a vlog, but the most interesting thing I'm working on over the next few months (with friend Marie) is a entitled How Not To Produce An Off-Broadway Show.
We're going to be brutally honest with the numbers, figures, analysis, actual costs, budgets, ticket sales, advances, actual payroll and fees, and provide some kind of pool of knowledge that other new producer/writers can draw from. There are some who will be unhappy about it, but this was an expensive education, and if someone else can benefit from what we've paid dearly to learn - and that contributes to new work being produced off-Broadway - then Why Not? as Claude would say, waving his oyster shucking knife.

Here's to 2007 and custard pies
And Macy's Mice and How Time Flies
And all that the word Surprise implies
And all of the where and the who and the whys
Especially the who and the whys,
yes,
Especially the who and the whys.

So the squirrels had a great Christmas Feast

2006-12-26T16:01:00.000-05:00

First, the spectacular Mountain O' Dough:

Then, a squirrel approaches:

Aha! An interesting note, they took the individual baked cookies first, because they could grab one and scamper off. The Mountain O'Dough needs a bit of tooth-chiseling to get a chunk off.

Needless to say, the Cats had a Squirrel TV on all afternoon. It was a mild day and I left the window up, with only the screen as a barrier between the cats and the squirrels, and they wore themselves out guarding the Mountain O'Dough from the squirrels, and then launching themselves at the screen when one of the rodents was chiseling out a mouthful. They screen-bounced, squirrels chiseled chips, and a great Christmas was had by all.

Happy day before christmas eve, bad cookies

2006-12-23T19:36:00.000-05:00

I have a feeling of Christmas guilt wash over me. I haven't baked anything. The girls and I promised each other we would only exchanged baked goods, but of course that fell by the wayside, and I find I have nothing baked. I am awash in remorse and shame. I run across the street and get chocolate chips, etc., and haul out my cookbook (I used to cook all the time, loved it) and found Mrs. Field's perfect chocolate chip recipe. So I get the ingredients and start making it and I intend to use the butter that's frozen in the freezer, from Costco, I thaw it out and let it get to room temperature and do up the cookie dough and bake the first batch and serve it to George with cold milk and he says: "These have a funny smell." I smell them. There's something. . . but what? What?

Of course there is a whole bowl of cookie dough back in the kitchen, and another sheet baking in the oven. I sniff. Indeed, something is OFF. There were other smells in the kitchen, I had baked a butternut squash and made roasted apple and butternut squash soup, and I hadn't isolated the cookie smell, and when I did, yes, painful to admit, george was right.

I go through the ingredients with him. Old flour? no. Chips? No. Baking soda, fresh eggs, fresh vanilla, fresh dark brown and white sugar, butter -- BUTTER! I get up and run to the leftover butter, stick it close to my nose, and inhale. It's turning. It's got that very faint smell that my grandmother and mother used to say "it's turning." Slightly sweet in a sickening kind of way. The butter had been frozen, but it was turning anyway. I look on the label. It says 2005. WHAT?

George, honey, I say, I think that butter from Costco has been sitting in the back of the freezer since 2005. George, who will eat nearly anything, passes. I pass. I offer some to the cats. They run. I am scraping the whole mass of cookie dough, chips and all, into the garbage, along with the finished cookies (which didn't look right anyway), when George says: What about the squirrels?

Ah. The Christmassy thing to do. I open the window to the fire escape and put out the cookie dough in one huge mass. I mould it into a nice shape and leave it for the squirrels to find at dawn. I can see it now - -- they run up the wires, up the first escape -- and see a cookie dough tower. Chirp, chatter. Will they eat it? Will they cart it off and bury it? Or will it sit there? And if it sits there, for how long? Maybe I will just leave it, and see what happens to a pile of Mrs. Field's cookie dough on the fire escape through the winter.

Tomorrow I'll take a picture of the Dough Mountain on Fire Escape, and post it on the blog. Meanwhile, I did my duty, baked the cookies, nowhere is it written than anyone has to eat them.

Time vanishes and a Kicking Korean Bride

2006-12-21T14:18:00.000-05:00

Somehow I loose four days without blogging. Call the blog police: She's been resting. Bear with me while I plan the next hare-brained scheme, which will come to me as I am horizontal watching Judge Judy. I may skip a few days over the holidays, but will be back in full force with the next Plot!

So I go to Central Park with a friend who's in town from Honolulu (blame her) and I go to sit by the lake. From the distance I see a bride in white, and hear -- guess what -- Eartha Kitt: "C'est Si Bon!" I ask one of their entourage. They're from Korea, getting married in Central Park. They feed the ducks, and then a huge swan (a swimmin') and they've brought along their favorite music, and it's an Eartha Kitt CD.

I listen through the whole CD and then watch as they take pictures of each other by the tree. Suddenly there is a shout, and both bride and groom kick at each other, and I take their picture.

This is most mysterious. Did they meet in karate class? Are they Jackie Chan fans? Or do they do Black Belt Sudoku together?
My camera takes on a life of its own. It suddenly swings downward, and clicks a picture of the brick pavement, including a bit of moss between the bricks. I put it through Photoshop. It is clearly a Wedding Oija

I immediately google Oija, and come up with the following site:
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/WebOuija.html
So I'm now going to stop working, reconciling LeDuck accounts, and spend some time asking this board pertinent questions. Why were the bride and groom kicking? Why did they bring an Eartha Kitt CD all the way from Korea to play on the banks of the lake in Central Park? And what is next?

And now its Saturday! And two days of recording are over

2006-12-16T18:18:00.000-05:00

incredible recording sessions! Everyone upbeat, happy to see each other, sang their hearts out, ate, and said goodbye. Candy Buckley:

The gang

More of the gang

Suzanne the violinist

Chuck, Ricky, et al

Hail Hail more of the gang. See Allen Fitzpatrick? Beard gone. Haircuts all around, even Ricky and Chuck.

Will these people never stop eating?

After the recording last night, we congregated at a nearby restaurant for a bite and a glass of water, full, with ice, was knocked over and shattered into Gena's lap. (Gena's dressed like Santa's elf in the picture). Chuck said he paid to have someone knock it over.
More tomorrow, including a funny story from Tom Aldredge. Happy Saturday night!

Well, it's Wednesday

2006-12-13T19:41:00.000-05:00

and it seems to be a I-spent-all-morning-at-the-doc's kind of day, with knees that aren't being nice any more. I hobble back to the office and work for two hours and then go to a long meeting about the LeDuck cast album. We're laying down voices on Thursday and Friday, and everyone is in a heightened state of frenzied work. I hobble home and find that brother and wife have sent a giant giant Christmas gift box from Island Cookies in Hilo, on the big island.

There are brownies, macadamia nuts, shortbread dipped in macadamia nut chocolate stuff, there must be 100,000 calories sitting here looking at me. I vowed after LeDuck closed to start on the torturous path back to exercise and weight loss. I bought a book called "Mindless Eating," fascinating reading; vowed to be mindful, and now I am mindfully looking at the 100,000-cal-basket and mindfully thinking about mindlessly eating some of it.

The only way out was to leave the room and blog. Brownie Blog, MacNut Blog, Shortbread Blog, Guava Cookie Blog, Mac Crunch Blog, MacNutPopcorn Blog, MacBrittle Blog. . . quick, call the Mindless Eating police and send them out here, armed and ready to wrestly this gift pack from my arms. I will now disown my brother and his wife for sending it.

I'll take pictures and document the laying-down-of-voices Thursday and Friday and post. Another fascinating chapter in the never-ending tale will be the Cast Album.

Boring Brownie Blogging, Better Blog Tomorrow.

Ticket in the Park Guy

2006-12-11T18:03:00.000-05:00

So things are winding down. Paperwork, paperwork. Filing, reports, filing, reports,blah blah blah. Closing a show is just as time-consuming as opening a show, minus the fact that the body must be at the theatre. The claim for the ruined costumes goes to the insurance (yes, yes, they washed the choir robes, yes, they're wrecked, yes, Clay's emboidered jeans are wrecked, yes, you want to come over and see? And Eartha's Dress? What do you mean, you don't understand that they were washed. They were washed. No, of course not on purpose. By accident. You don't cover accidents? This wasn't our accident, it was the laundry's accident. No, I won't speak to the laundry now, I'm speaking to you."
Squawk, squawk. I don't feel all Polite and Nice-Nice today. So I find the download-thingie and capture the picture of the Grinch in Union Square giving singers a tickets:

Take that, Meanie. And who else wants one?
My daughter sends me a new pair of tennis shoes because by the time the show was over, I hadn't shopped for anything for 5 months and my tennis shoes had holes in them. I barely noticed, but I took out the shoes and while putting them on, the cat hops in the box. What is this Obsessive Compulsive Box Disorder?

It's dark. Macy's windows are so packed with shoppers in front of them, blocking the sidewalks and gawking at the roaring lion, taking pictures, I walk uptown to the 42nd Street Q Train instead of picking it up at 34th.
Today I walked over to Bryant Park and had soup for lunch. Skaters in the rink in the middle. I write. Sanity reigns. Quick, call the Sanity Police. Where are they? Giving a ticket to the Ticket Guy in Union Square.

I'm going to journal Christmas spirit events

2006-12-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

In Union Square this afternoon a great blue-grass washtub groups of musicians was playing up a storm. A large, appreciate crowd was stomping and hooting. Everywhere, artists, street peddlers, Christmas booths, and then the Park Police marched up and dispersed the crowd and gave all four of them TICKETS.

Isn't playing music in the park covered by free speech? What a grinch. I took a picture of him giving the ticket, and I'm going to post it just as soon as I find my download-thingie. It's like the Standpipes of New York: The Grinches of New York.

Call the Park Police! There are two squirrels stealing nuts! Quick! Get'em! Give 'em a Squirrel Summons.

"Your honor, we were just doing what squirrels do."
"There will be no music or nut-thefts on my watch. Bail denied."

Sneezing Panda

2006-12-09T18:30:00.000-05:00

You can see that I'm doing a lot of work this afternoon. Click on "Sneezing Panda"

Ah, that Christmas spirit

2006-12-09T17:49:00.000-05:00

Today, the Christmas Spirit premeates the air.

On the train coming from Brooklyn today, at Atlantic Avenue, a Romanian guy gets on with a boombox around his neck and a battered silver trumpet in his hand runs into the car, plants himself at the end, and quickly starts trumpeting.

Right on his heels, three African-American men, the "doo-wop" singers that always ride the R train, jump on and try to muscle him out of the way.

"This is my train."
"It's my train too"
"You can't take this car."
"Well I've got this car now"
"We were in line first"
"I got on first"
"That's because you got off the other car before us."
"So?"
"We're singing Christmas stuff, man. Doo-wop, doo-wop, Rudolph the Red-Nosed, man"
"I'm doing Christmas music too. I'm doing Ave Maria."
"You weren't doing Ave Maria in the last car"
"I decided to do Ave Maria in this car."
"We're doing Rudolph in this car."
You can shove Rudoph up your #$%^&"
"After you shove that trumpet up yours, Maria!"

By this time we were on the bridge, and there was no way for anyone to get out of the car except by going through the window and over the side into the East River. The three doo-woppers chased the Romanian Trumpeter down the aisle and took a swing, and he advanced toward them, swinging his trumpet like a musketeer's sword. Doo-wop # 1 pins the Romanian back against the door. It's a stalemate. Doo Wop #1 wants to hit the Romanian, but doesn't want to be bonked on the head with his trumpet.

Meanwhile, Doo-wop 2 and 3 turn, snap their fingers, and head down the aisle, jingling a cup, singing Rudolph. Defiantly, the Romanian turns on his boom box at full volume. The acapella singing goes up a notch. Passengers have flocked to the far end of the car. No one is making eye contact with anyone. The train pulls into Canal Street with Rudolph and Ave Maria blasting, and we boil out of there like lobsters from a hot pot toward the next car.

But the dueling musicians bolt too, following us toward the next car, so like a flock of birds, we turn 180 degrees in unison and flee back into the car we'd just left.

Dueling musicians are flailing, grappling, in the doorway of the other car. The conductor tries to close the doors while they're beating on each other, trying to claim the car and shove the loser out the door. Suddenly, all of them fell out on the platform, and the conductor, who has been leaning out the window, slams the doors shut and pulls out of the station. We sail past the four guys, now in pitched battle, and the last sight we have of them is a silver trumpet in a mass of puffy black winter jackets.

I get off at Prince to do an errand, and run smack dab into two artists, shouting and yelling at each other. Jewelry Man has nabbed Canvas Man's place.

"This is my spot, man. You can't get into my spot."
"I was here first, man"
"There's rules, man"
"Where? Show me the rules? Where are they, man. It's first come first served."
"I'm here every weekend, have been for years."
"So what?"

Canvas Man upends Jewelry man's table. Hand-made jewelry and artistic coasters and knitted hats go flying. Jewelry man rips the paintings off Canvas Man's man cart and sends them flying down the sidewalk. Shoppers, gawkers, tourists, vendors flee, like a flock of birds, clearing the sidewalks to make room for the two street peddlers to duke it out.

Ah, that Christmas spirit.

cat in a box, cat in a box

2006-12-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all of you who sent in the phone number and contact information to the NY dog police! I did my due diligence yesterday, got the address, and turned that sucker in. The doorman confirmed that the skinny dalmation lives there. So I will follow up and see if the guy has been put in a cage and starved (he looked as though he had never missed a meal).

So I go home last night and open a tin box to organize and keep the cleaning going after a year of no cleaning, and immediately one of the cats squeezes himself into the box, and won't get out, and the other cat comes up and tries to bully him out, and then climb in, and its obviously too small for two cats, but it's a battle of wills, and the cat in the box wins and doesn't get out for a few hours.

This cat-in-a-box psychosis is here to stay. Put down any empty box and there's a cat inside.

A terrific dinner last night with old friends, and this morning I start on a new writing project, plus work on the stuff for the cast album being recorded this next weekend. Onward and upward. I can't wait to get the first words on paper, its a terrific idea (albeit hare-brained). So the whole weekend is devoted to words, not paperwork and contracts and cleaning up LeDuck, and going forward (with a little dog agression) is a good thing to do.

And no, I'm not going to stop blogging, we'll go through this next project together as well.

So tonight I go to the musical theatre writing program

2006-12-07T23:19:00.000-05:00

and guest lecture about the LeDuck Experience. I hope no one was taping that one. I spilled the beans, telling all the intimate details, for example, what bra size Bob DuSold's Miss Marple Bra was (no, Marie told that story).

The temperature's dropping and it's downright mean outside. On the way home I finally get the #$%^& cats the only kind of catfood they'll eat. On the other hand, if I just didn't feed them. . .

Speaking of which, walking down 4th Ave toward the school, between 13 and 12, a guy comes out of a high rise with a Dalmation that was so severely emaciated it could hardly stand. I stopped and stared at the dog. The man was shoving him toward the curb, impatiently, and his legs kept giving way. I just stared at the guy and the dog and I didn't quite know what to do. Maybe the dog was old and sick, but maybe the guy kept it in a crate in his apartment and didn't feed it. I went up to the guy, who interestingly enough was in shirtsleeves with huge sweat circles under his armpits, and said "Is your dog sick?" "It's none of your business," he said. I just stood there and stared at him. I was thinking: who do I call? I walked away and turn and look back and see him go back into a highrise, so tomorrow I'm going to be a busy body and go back and get the number of the building and contact someone, don't know who yet but I'm sure someone out there knows how to find really agressive dog Dalmation rescue people who will track down this sad Dalmation?

I am sure that highrise has a doorman, and he must know who owns the Dalmation, and would probably give him up for a Ben Franklin, or maybe for free, if he was a doglover.

I should have yanked the dog away from him, but what then? What if the dog is just very old and sick? I was not prepared for something like that. I've thought all evening about what the options are -- not many. If it was a mother with an emaciated kid, you can call a cop. But 911: "There's an emaciated Dalmation on 4th?" How fast would they be out there?

So tonight when I get the cats their Turkey Florentine With Delicate Souffle Sauces in Basted Buttered Fish Fillet and Sauteed Garden Gourmet Greens,, I think about the dog, and hope it's okay until tomorrow. when I'll take a couple of hours off at lunch and be Dog Detective. I think a little Dog Agression is probably good for the soul right now. Oh, Claude Duluc, AKA Miss Marple, with your 40-D Bra, where are you when I need you?

Here's a happy photo: Ken and Candy, as the Spanish Gypsy and Clay, heading to Barcelona.

And another part of the set before it came down:

No more nostalgia. It's time to get out there and find that Dalmation and George, when you read this, I swear, I won't bring it home.

Already, Nostalgia

2006-12-06T17:43:00.000-05:00

Costumes, shoes, hats, etc., went into storage today. Bits and pieces hauled out. U-Haul truck in midtown traffic. Inch by inch on Brooklyn Bridge. Props and salvageable sets pieces to New Jersey. Load-out 99% done. I think. Waiting for the other shoe to drop: "Oh, and by the way, there's this extra giant room off the main stage that more stuff is stashed in. Come and get it."
Last photo of part of the mysterious woman on John Arnone's set, before it was gone forever:

Trying to create giant digital file of all pictures of the making of Mimi, snapshots in rehearsal halls, clowning around, formal, informal, for the cast. Looking at the photos: Claude, the Spanish Gypsy and Peter sing:

The whole cast on stage at once, as the House, listening to Peter and Miriam argue.

Already, nostalgia.

Toilette Mystery, Load Out Continues, Chuck's Mom

2006-12-05T15:09:00.000-05:00

Mystery of the day:
THE SPANISH GYPSY TOILETTE SIGN IS MISSING. Here it is, photographed just before the last performance on Dec. 3, 2006:

When I went looking for it yesterday, someone had snitched it. Now, this is not nice. Whoever took it, please return it. Drop it off at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, 113 2nd Avenue, in a plain brown wrapper, marked: ATTENTION MARIE. Big Reward if you saw who took it and tell Chuck or me. If you took it, and don't give it back, each time you look at it on your wall as you go through your life, it will remind you that you are a thief, and not an honest one.
Load Out at New World Stages Continues. Sad news: We couldn't save the Eiffel Tower. George is out on the stage under dangling lights with no hard hat talking to a guy in a hard hat.

A "carp" adjusts the bottom of a scaffold-rig-thingie.

Silver snakes in heaps across the stage.

Note to Chuck's Mom: Here's a picture you need to ask him about. Who are the beautiful women, one on each arm? Why is one smiling? What is in that white styrofoam cup? And what is the meaning of the scarf around his neck? You need to come and get this kid before he gets tangled up in. . . green. I'll send the lump of coal for his stocking, fedex priority.

The Day After the Day Before

2006-12-04T19:37:00.001-05:00

So Sunday matinee, here's the theatre before the last show.

Saturday night, an hour before the performance, the theatre is blasting with Michael Jackson, and I someone yells for me to come up and dance on stage, so I do the moonwalk, and someone takes a picture, so on a dare I'm posting it on the blog. Moonwalk with Angela, Karen and Diana on the second to the last performance of LeDuck:

So its December 4, and LeDuck is closed, and today the lights, sets, everything, comes down, and it once again looks like something exploded in the theatre, dangling wires, conversations, props. Last night, after the performance, Annie says she could hardly get through the last 5 and a half minutes. Just before Garden is Green, she comes through the brick wiindow with Ernest Hemingway and she said "I heard Allen say: I am calling can you hear me," and Allen's hand was shaking, and when one by one the cast comes out and shows her the garden, Claude: It's a canvas; Eartha: Use your paintbrush; and the ziggy comes out, she said everyone was saying goodbye to each other, and she was ready to break down and then, in typical Annie-Golden-style, she says "Honey, I told myself, I can't afford to go there, I have 5 and a half minutes of singing left to do."

Other tidbits, stories, will follow,but right now, numbness and complete exhaustion, and I finally came home and ran a hot bath and drank a vanilla cream soda in the bubbles and finished my James Lee Burke book I started a month ago.

The cats are shocked I am home early. they nervously pace back and for th in front of the tub. A clutch of people email me: you can't stop blogging. Okay, I say, so what new project, what new hare-brained gumshoe scheme shall I embark on next? Let me think. Give me 24 hours to cook something up. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging.

Thekla and Heidi came from Atlanta and San Francisco to be here for the closing, just as they were here for the opening, and the hardest thing was Sunday morning, to leave home and go to the theatre for the last time, but they were there, as were Marie and Paul, and George, and old friends Mike and Brent, who sat behind us, and at the last curtain, the standing ovation, I turned around and there was Mike, and I had the hug of a lifetime, which seemed to go on forever,because if I let go of Mike, then it would be over. And I did, and it was, and all that remains is to strike the sets and pack the costumes and that's what we did.

Eartha says she wants Clay's tricycle, the one with the clay wheel on the front. I say: "Eartha! I'm shocked! You want the clay male reproductive organ too" And she says no, she wants the tricycle to put her grandchildren on the back of and bike them around. So I'll try to get you a picture of the trike that Eartha wants in the next blog.

Eartha's lighting the national Christmas Tree on Thursday at the White House, years after she spoke her mind about the vietnam War to Ladybird Johnson. I tell her: Eartha. We have cash for bail money. Just call us. And don't touch anything in the Lincoln Bedroom." "What?" someone says, and in unison, five people turn and say "Danny DeVito was in there, iddn't you see his interview on The View?"

George is sound asleep, it's only 7:53, he's so sound asleep that the cats are draped next to his legs and he doesn't even know it. I'm signing off, tomorrow is another day, but tonight, it's the rest of the cream soda and reruns of Law and Order.

Guys, guys, guys, chill!

2006-12-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

A couple of you thought the post from Pond Scum was something I somehow agreed with! Chill! Chill! I don't! Actually, I thought it was funny in a wierd way. As one comment back this morning pointed out -- if he hates what you write -- why does he keep reading the blog?

I promised the blog would be honest, no hype. You would not have a true idea of beginning-to-end if you did not know what really goes on. It's not being negative. It's just not icing the cake every night.

I'm proud of the show, proud of what I wrote, proud of the cast and crew, and we did the show we wanted to do. It will have a life. This isn't a comment on the show; it's showing you, dear reader, what really happens.

Con calma!

:)

Pond Scum, Ben, and 4 left

2006-11-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

So there's this anonymous guy who claims he's a regular on All-That-Chat who sends me pointers to all the nasty LeDuck posts, along with some snarky comment of his own. (He hates us but can't stop reading the blog).

So tonight I get home and there's an anonmous comment from Pond Scum: "If you REALLY want to keep Le Duck open, darlin', please, please, fall off the subway platform in front of a train. Do it now. You can have your own Jonathan Larsen moment and your show will run forever, like Rent. You get what you want - a hit show - and the world gets what it wants - no one ever has to listen to another piece of shit you write."

Then, a $100 bill vanishes. Don't ask.

And I wander backstage to take pictures of the quiet, dark shadows, all the props set, before the performance, and get kicked out by Karen, Assistant Stage Manager, because it's half-hour and I had set a hard and fast rule that no one goes backstage at the half-hour. "I'm sorry to do this, Diana," says Fearless Karen, "but a rule's a rule." She escorts me to the door. I pass Brian, lounging backstage. "You too, Brian," Karen says. Out we go. Kicked out of our own production.

So I will put Pond Scum and Nut Producer and Ben Franklin out of my mind and go to bed, drifting off to sleep toggling between 202 (CNN) and 242 (Law and Order reruns), and tomorrow we're down to Four and then it's over.

(Note to all of you who ask me to keep blogging when the show is over. Don't worry. There will always be a hare-brained scheme in the Hansen-Young House).

5 and counting down.

2006-11-29T23:20:00.000-05:00

Now it gets interesting. The nuts are coming out of the woodwork.

Rumors, mean-ness, nicey-nice to face, stab behind back. It's a whodunit - who's the person who's saying all of this stuff? Why? I don't get it. And then there are the wierdos who are demanding to do some nutty scheme with the show -- and when we politely decline, they rampage through their rolodex dialing dialing dialing wreaking havoc, leaving a scorched earth.

There's a book in all this. Unbelievable, I say to an old veteran. "It's the Biznizz," he says with a snort. Ha. Bizznizz.

Oh, well, no where is it written that people will be happy all the time!

:)

Great Show # 8 - 7 more to go. Goodnight, sweet dreams.

2006-11-28T22:49:00.000-05:00

So tonight I sit down toward the front with Marie, and I realize that everyone's playing with their roles, and it gets funnier and funnier, stuff appears that wasn't there before. We know it's the last week, and we will play. Eartha was laughing, and the "legs" stretchout is getting wilder and wilder.She calls everyone Ma Petite Choux, my little cabbage. Let it rip. It's the last week.

Our wonderful printed t-shirts arrive, too late, of course, but at least we have all our Christmas shopping done. My sister will get "Why Not;" Marie is going to give Paul "The Carrot is Cooked" (It's a joke paul!!) But who will get "It's All About Legs?" who will get "Everything Changes?" Who but Eartha could wear: "Nobody's got legs as good as mine?"

Eartha wants all of the posters and cards with her image on them, to sign and send off to make money for the school in Watts that she supports. She's after me for her song. After the matinee, tomorrow, I say, before the evening performance. Everything is profoundly intensified, even the words: Matinee. Evening Performance - all new meanings, now.

Lists for load-out. Do we keep the Paris doors? Who wants the coffee-maker? Where will we store the tricycles? The Eiffel Tower -- keep? Where? Drycleaning the costumes, then boxing? or hanging in bags? Danny, the Wardrobe King, who is going on to Color Purple, sneaks out to smoke a cigarette after asking me if I want the drycleaned costumed delivered to my home. "Why Not?" I sing, in the best Claude the Oystershucker tradition.

I will take the $16,000 Red Bird of Paris Madame Vallet Dress and hang in on my bedroom wall, over my scale, and every morning when I get up and weigh, I will look at the dress, and think: Diana, with a little more self-discipline, you could be in that dress by New Year's Eve.

I will be in all of these moments now, be there when it all comes down, just as I was there seven years ago when I put the first line of Everything Changes to paper: When I was a young girl, the world was my oyster.

I want to help dismantle the Eiffel Tower. I want to wind electrical cords. I want to haul doors up and down in the freight elevator. I want to take a crowbar and hammer to the built-up front of the stage. I want to sweep the stage and take out the trash and close the lights and put it all to bed, tuck it all in, sweet dreams my little eiffel tower, goodnight my pretty trikes, ma petite choux, my words, my lyrics, my Playbills, my pretty new red dress: Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams.

A motherly message for Bitter Hags, with love, from me.

2006-11-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a sample of six anonymous responses to last night's blog from the "Bitter Hags," that group of Brown Recluses who lurk in their spider webs in dark corners:

"Your horse died weeks ago, darlin'. You just now figured it out."

Six Hag emails. 127 wonderful emails from readers who saw the show and loved it, mathematically consistent with the 4% of the audience who hated it, and 96% of the audience who loved it.

And once again, I invite the Bitter Hags to step out of the darkness, sign their emails, and have a constructive dialogue.

The sad thing is that these six people will never understand that this was an adventure, and I tell them this with love: I hope you will someday understand (before it's gone) that life is an adventure. You don't win. You don't lose. You experience.

I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Living every day of that process, in the moment, up, down, exhausted -- the roller coaster -- was and continues to be an experience that no Bitter Hag has ever been through, and never will, because it is not in their nature to risk anything to have experiences and adventures like this.

Am I bitter? No. Do I think I've failed? No. Am I sad? Yes, but those bittersweet feelings, too, are part of the adventure, and I celebrate the fact that I can FEEL those emotions.

Ah, you say: what about the money? What about it? What is money, I ask you? A piece of paper you trade for an experience you want. Some people buy boats. Property. Horses. Women. Men. Big Fat Diamonds. Because they believe that those things give them joy. So what's the difference?

So on to the next adventure: closing the show. And on to the next, and the next. There's an open road that stretches in front of me, ending only in my death, and I shall be a gypsy of the heart, and eagerly trot ahead, and see how far I can get before the final curtain.

And I'll bet anyone a dinner at Gray's that I will never meet a Bitter Hag along that highway.

When your horse dies, get off.

2006-11-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

So I spend the last four days (in and out of the haze of Thanksgiving and the light stuff) making a tough decision about the show. At a bittersweet meeting after today's matinee, we sit down with the cast and crew on stage, around a long table full of pizza (It was The Last Supper! Marcus joked!) and we tell them that we are closing Mimi le duck on Sunday, December 3, after the matinee.

I made a fool of myself by breaking down, but I'd had the good sense to stop at Starbuck's on the way to the theatre and borrow a stack of napkins, which I used to blow my nose and dry my tears -- but have you ever used Starbuck's napkins to blow your nose? It's as rough as Romanian toilet paper; my nose is permanently red.

A week ago I was full of optimism. I could feel the numbers moving. Our team has been flyering, working, blitzing, emailing, grassroots, calling - we had a great promotion lined up with NJ Transit and other things planned -- but this week was too much, a confluence of events and mistakes having nothing to do with money -- any one or two of them, we could have survived -- but not all of them, at once, rolling over us like a freight train full of Bob Dylan's hobos bound for Memphis.

And in the end, it comes down to numbers. We were finding our audience. The box office this week is 50% higher than last week. But the rate of increase is not fast enough to get us where we need to be when we hit bleak January. So, as my great great great grandfather wrote, in the journal that he kept while crossing the Oregon trail: WHEN YOUR HORSE DIES, GET OFF.

Now: The last 8 performances. That's it for New York City. We have inquiries from regional theatres, and we are producing an original cast album - so LeDuck will have life after off-Broadway. But the experience of closing down and loading out, I suspect, will be as interesting and trying as opening. So I will blog thru this whole experience. I have Plenty to Say about Things. But not tonight.

After the sadness of telling the cast and crew, and emailing everyone (I hope I didn't forget someone, but if I did, i'll get you in the morning), I am strangely calm. Someone said to me: "You took a gamble to put it out there; how do you feel when you lose?" And I say: LOSE? LOSE? This isn't win, or lose, on or off, white or black. It's an adventure.

Hemingway to Ziggy: "Time to go, you lucky bastard. On to the next adventure."

Ziggy: "There are so many."

So 58 performances. 58 adventures. And so this week, it won't be the House of Grim Gloom. We're going out with style and grace. We're going to have fun, enjoy each other, enjoy being in the here and now, each day, each moment of each performance, moving, like time, inexorably to the end, the last performance, until there are none left, and then the final curtain, and I will haul out my wad of Starbuck's napkins.

So tonight riding home on the subway with all the leftover pizza (no one ate much) with this burden off my shoulders, I suddenly figure out how to tweak Eartha's song to give her a long A at the end, which is something that has been bugging me for five weeks, when there has been no creativity, only energy into the business of the show.

I haul out my pen and a yellow pad of paper and write. George takes a picture.

By the time I'm on the Manhattan Bridge, I have the long A figured out, and by the time I'm home, I've written the first draft of a new song, and I am lighthearted again.

What happened to Wednesday and Thursday?

2006-11-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know!

I blurred through Wednesday. Gena organizes flyering before she leaves for Chicago Turkey. Yesterday vanished in a haze of snoozing and books. Clicked thru the Thanksgiving Day parade, drifted away and woke up to a Something-National Dog Show. They were running Best In Breeds around the ring, and lo and behold, a tiny poodle with hair clipped in white balls all over its body won best in show. I get out my clippers, determined to make the cats look as good as that dog, but neither wants to become a Trotting Bouquet of Cotton Balls, and crawl under the bed.

I study spreadsheets. Where are my glasses? George laughs and snaps a picture. An alien.

Mom calls. My dad survives a removal of a kidney (cancer) and is recovering nicely. My sister heroically stays in Oregon with them, helping them back to health, while I lay on a bed of nails of Guilt for not going.

Here's a treat. Madame Vallet, Miriam Sanders, and Claude.

I want a red bird hat like hers for Christmas.

I stop scrolling through my photos. Break out the spreadsheets. Naw, it's the day after Thanksgiving and the whole world has shopped until they no longer stand, and in honor of their tired feet, I'm going to bed.

Never put your costumes in a washing machine.

2006-11-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

So today we learn that Eartha is feeling a bit under the weather, but the trooper that she is, she is determined to go on. We get the understudy ready (Kaye hasn't walked thru part yet, but she's such a great actress that no one is worried). But the problem is the red understudy dress went off only a half-hour earlier for alterations. So while we are dealing with that on the phone (while in a meeting) Carol gets a call from Danny, our Wardrobe Master, who says that Monday he put some costumes to be drycleaned, as usual, up at the stage door at NWS. "How To Save The World" sets their laundry out to go to the laundry -- not drycleaning. So a sub is on the desk, and whoever picks up the costumes picks up all the bags from both shows and takes them back and dumps them all into a giant tub and washes everything together, including Eartha's $10K black silk dress, all of the Idaho choir robes, Candy's embroidered/built jeans, her sweater, a bunch of stuff. We got that call and my heart stopped. All I could think was: Did Danny put the duck costume out for drycleaning? My God! Would someone have really put a beaded duck costume (costing several thousand dollars) into the WASH? And -- heaven help us -- did Danny send out EARTHA'S RED DRESS FOR DRYCLEANING? Was it possible that the red dress ended up in the wash with the dirty underwear from "How To Save The World and Find Love in 90 minutes?"

So we get to the theatre and find that the duck costume and eartha's dress are safe. Danny kept saying "Thank God I didn't send out the duck costume and eartha's dress". . . .

. . . but. . . candy's jeans, which were dyed, bled onto eerything, so the white choir robes (rayon) have blue spots, and the necks are frayed (you cant wash rayon) and Bob Dusold's "Claude" BRA IS TOTALLY RUINED -- the stuffing went all lumpy -- so the OUTSIDE of the bra is fine, but the stuffing is lumpy. Being the trooper that he is, Bob says "I can live with a lumpy bra."

So Danny heroically puts the costumes together and steams and fixes and we just get by. We could not call back the girl who had taken off the understudy's red dress to be altered, so ther was no red dress should the understudy have to fill in should Eartha feel worse. So Gena makes a 65 minute round trip to Macy's and gets three red dresses off the racks to see if one will fit the understudy if she has to go on. Otherwise, the understudy'sfor Eartha's going on in a bird headdress and jeans.

So there was some kind of other sound problem. We started late, but the audience seemed forgiving. I watched Eartha through the first introduction and then the anxiety from the whole past three hours rose up and I could not stand to sit there and watch, it will jinx the rest of the show, my anxiety will wash over the actors like unseen waves, so I left George there to mind the store and I came home. I got on the wrong train, and rode out into the heartland of Brooklyn before I realized what I'd done, and, defeated, I took the train back, transferred twice, and trudged home.

Tomorrow is another day, as they say. Tomorrow we'll assess the damage to the costumes and see what we're going to do. Danny, Heroic Danny, will take Eartha's incredible black silk dress and the other things out to a one-day expert drycleaners specializing in theatrical costumes and let them do their magic.

Chuck, stage manager, was cool and collected and calm. What a guy! Everyone's great, except the nitwit at the laundry who opened the bag of drycleaning and didn't think: "Hmmmmm . . . wonder if this black silk dress and embroidered jeans and choir robes should go into the same washer as dirty underwear. . . hmm . . . . ." What a moron.

Terrific shows, terrific audiences this weekend

2006-11-19T20:28:00.000-05:00

Wow! The cast stormed the stage, and the audiences loved it! Hats off to everyone for three incredible shows in a row.
Ziggy woes Eartha with "The Only Time We Have Is Now" in Act II.

Brought pizzas in before performance for everyone. I know everyone's starving, and I want to feed them and I know pizza-with-everything is a hit, but I feel a bit guilty sometimes clogging up their throats before the show. If I had more discipline, I'd serve hot lemon water and honey.
Annie's got a show coming up at Ars Nova, her "Velvet Prison" cabaret, on Dec. 18. Helping her with flyers, which she'll stuff and put in our programs.
Drumstruck abruptly left NWS. Here yesterday, gone today, but NWS is starting to take off, and there's already a new piece coming in. There's so much energy and choice every day: Evil Dead, How to Save the World, Altar Boyz - and watching the audiences come in, you can almost steer them to the right theatre. 19 years old, black jacket, chains, bloody make-up? Evil Dead. Red Hats? Mimi Le Duck. Twenty-somethings in Gap? How to Save the World. High-energy teens? Altar Boyz. New World Stages is taking off.
As for me, gotta get the t-shirts going. Too many requests! And people want hats. Berets. Where am I going to find berets? I'll put it on the list, after "Butts In Seats."

Couple of Photos

2006-11-18T20:47:00.000-05:00

I'll treat you to a beautiful picture of Annie Golden and her umbrella, going to Paris:

And an incredible shot of Candy Buckley, as Clay! The Neo-Avant-Garde Sculptress!

Heading home. Late night. Tons of work. More tomorrow! Hooray!

Lyrics to Everything changes

2006-11-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

Once again, the lyrics to Everything Changes that Eartha sang on Today Show. Sunday and Monday there were 47,000 Google hits for the title of this song.

When I was a young girl, the world was my oyster
I danced till dawn underneath the Paris skies
I waltzed with Picasso on polished terrazo
I stared at strangers with longing in my eyes

One time in Montmartre I drank gin with Sartre
We made love in daylight; we had nothing to hide
Now Ernest and Henry and Truman and Ezra
There's no one left. They grew older, then they died.

Though no one had promised that I'd live forever
I never believed that my youth would be gone

Everything changes
Evolving and shifting
And moving and drifting
As time is marching on

Evolving and shifting
And Everything changes
and the mirror tells the truth:
That my time is marching
time is marching on

The saddest reflection is what I used to be
But everything changes
Even me.

We got through Phase I: opening. Now, Phase II: staying open. Focus has shifted to ticket sales, butts in seats, promotions, recording the cast album. But you need to build your audience, find them, let word of mouth take its course.So we focus on staying open and building the audience. There are several big things cooking: will let the cat out of the bag (or box) in another post. Meanwhile, to those who have written asking for the lyrics: enjoy.

A Paw in the Rainy Macy Night

2006-11-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

Coming home tonight, the rain in Herald Square. . . I stand across the street from that purple thing above the window. Can you see it? It's right there. . . a purple octapus, I think. . . with Christmas lights on the top.

I return home. I leave the camera on the table while George and I order Chinese food and dine in style from a plastic tub. When I go to download these photos I've just taken on the way home, there is a picture of . . . . . a paw.

The photo of the paw was taken AFTER the macy's pictures I took on the way home. So how, who, why? Who took a picture of the paw? Not me. Not George.
Is it possible that one cat took a picture of the other cat's paw?
This is a mystery, just like the mysterious two eggs on the open book.
A long day, as nearly everyone except the cats can tell.

From the Today Show "Green Room"

2006-11-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

Eartha returns from her interview

Our own Gena, with the famous hands of Chris Fenwick, music director/orchestrator in the background

And Little Jessica!

I photographed the purple thing in front of Macy's but there's a disconnect between downloads, once again, no one's perfect, not even close. At least I'm not taking pictures of Standpipes!
Yet.

One egg, or two; The Three of Us; Cat in Box Again

2006-11-14T19:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a mystey for you. Why are two brown eggs of uneven size resting in the open pages of a James Lee Burke murder mystery?

Smudge the cat is squeezed into a Harry and David's Pear Box Lid that is 50% his size. It's tough when your ratty old sausage-catnip toy is also in the box.

My two daughters and myself, opening night. (L) Thekla; (R) Heidi

We're dark in the theatre tonight. I'm heading home from the office, down a damp Broadway, past the Macy's windows which are once again under construction for the parade, but I have my doubts: there's an evil purple thing installed above one of the windows where the awning used to be. I'll try to get a picture. If I never appear again, someone check the purple thing. It could be related to the Little Shop Plant.

50's!

2006-11-13T22:30:00.001-05:00

I'm getting a ton of requests for a copy of

2006-11-12T13:57:00.000-05:00

the song Eartha sang on the Today show this morning: "Everything Changes." It's part of the show, Mimi le Duck, but unfortunately an original cast album hasn't been recorded yet. We're going to figure out how to fill the requests that are pouring in. If you're interested in being on a list, email me at dianahy@aol.com.

We'll try to post the interview sometime tomorrow. You can hear the song again from that!

Thanks for tuning in. A good time was had by all in the green room, and I have to say, it was a thrill to hear my lyrics sung on national TV. Now stop wallowing in pride and get back to work!
:)

Carried away

2006-11-11T16:22:00.000-05:00

with discovering these old clips of Eartha singing on YouTube! I promise, no more today.

Eartha's on Today show tomorrow morning 8-9 a.m. We'll all troop down to support her, and watch from some safe location so none of us sneezes, shuffles, waves to her, or otherwise wrecks the performance.

She has a 3 minute interview, and will sing the entire song, Everything Changes - so hooray, Brian and I don't have to keep trying to make these cuts work.

Great Red Hat Society turnout at today's matinee! Red Hats everywhere. Kay Walbe, a great understudy, substituted for Candy Buckley in the role of Clay (Candy's away at a wedding). Raves for Kay.

Getting dark in New York. My office is by a window, so I catch the last little bit of sunlight of the day. I will walk over to Soup Man now and sit in Bryant Park and eat soup, one of the great pleasures of a cold day.

"I'm Just An Old Fashioned Girl" Eartha singing 1957

2006-11-11T16:18:00.000-05:00

Couldn't resist.

Eartha live at San Remo in 1968

2006-11-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

I'm in awe. Thank you to whoever's collected and shared these incredible slices of history.

"Here's To Life" old CNN/Larry King appearance

2006-11-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

Another fascinating old Eartha clip

2006-11-11T16:04:00.000-05:00

from You Tube. I'm going to post several. These are fantastic to watch. She's better today than she's ever been!

Eartha Kitt on YouTube

2006-11-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

Click to see more of the song.

Broadway.com photos of the Opening Party

2006-11-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

Click on the above link!

The photos of Eartha are incredible. I am sorry to report that I did not get to eat much of anything. I saw fine food, steak, salmon, ginger wontons, all around me but alas, they sailed past as I was always talking to someone.

A couple of other reviews coming in:

http://www.curtainup.com/mimileduck.html

http://journals.aol.com/savvycrone/waiting-in-the-wings/

2006-11-10T12:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a comment from a reader that I just have to publish. It's typical of the many emails I'm getting.

" saw Mimi in previews almost two weeks ago. It was a Saturday matinee. The audience gave it a standing ovation. I met you and said I could see from the blogs the stress you were undergoing. I had no guts when I was young, Unlike Mimi when my parents said become a teacher the life of show business is tough I listened to them. My son however decided on the career of becoming a comedy writer.He has been In LA for twelve years and when he works has worked for Leno, Greg Kinnear and even was nominated for an Emmy when he was with Bill Maher. He is unemployed more than employed. Will he ever make it? Who knows. He produces short films, web site hilarity all very poorly paid. Perhaps my parents were right. However I will probably never know now where the road not taken could have led me. In a way Mimi speaks to all our hearts. At least she tried. At least you have taken the unknown path."

I the fork in the road I took the path least traveled by. And that has made all the difference. Thank you, Robert Frost.

Beloved Claude, Silliness, Cutting down song, Yikes

2006-11-10T00:03:00.000-05:00

Here's one of Joan Marcus' fantastic production photos of our Beloved Bob DuSold as Claude the oystershucker with his ancestors, who won't shut up:

Readers send me comments: my rant about RRU (Reviews-R-Us) - Because the comments are anonymous, I can't respond to you except in the blog: No, I don't really believe there is a review-conspiracy; and there is no RRU listed on Nasdaq. It was a tongue-in-cheek bit of silliness. Take it as seriously as when I say that the Standpipes in the city are speaking to me, whispering as I walk past. Nuttiness. Blowing off steam. Let's all lighten up.
The Today show on Sunday morning is going to be tough. Eartha's segment is 4 1/2 minutes, 2 1/2 for the interview, 2 minutes to sing "Everything Changes" from LeDuck. "Everything Changes" is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long. So now I have a problem. It can't even be one second over 2 minutes.
So we have to cut it by 35 seconds -- or have her sing it really really fast!! -- but now comes the tough part, deciding which verse gets cut to fit the time.
This is going to keep me up all night. Cut "When I was a young girl the world was my oyster" verse?
or "Now Ernest and Henry and Ezra and Truman
There's no one left. They grew older, then they died."
Ai, yi, yi yikes. Any suggestions? I'll sleep on it.

Eartha sings LeDuck on TODAY SHOW Sunday

2006-11-08T15:42:00.000-05:00

Great news!

The Today show (national weekend edition) has invited Eartha Kitt to come on Sunday morning from 9-10 and sing one of the songs from Mimi le Duck, live, for 9 million viewers!

So set your alarms, turn on the TV and cheer her on. I PROMISE you it will be more fun than the political news. . . maybe we should all have a Today Show Party after the Sunday Matinee at 3:00.

Standpipe News: I've been looking for a Political Standpipe, or a Hillary Hydrant, or something that looks well, political, but I'm having no luck. When I find it, I'll photograph it for all of you who are collecting my Standpipe pictures. In post-opening laundry news, I've sorted piles. That's progress. I threw out green stuff from the refrigerator and hauled out three weeks of recycling.

My mom evidently reads the blog (she just informed me!) from Salem, Oregon. She sent flowers for opening, and she wanted to make sure they were nice! So here's a photo:

I would show you the chocolate covered strawberries the family sent me but alas, they are gone.

The morning after the night before

2006-11-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

So I wake up to discover a whole compost pile of bad reviews. The first few were depressing, but then as I read on, there was a recognizable similarity in all the reviews. Different reviewers used the same lines and comments, sometimes phrase for phrase ("toilet bowl" twice). This seemed curious to me.

Ah! I logged onto a little-known online service called Reviews-R-Us (RRU is the NASDAQ symbol), where, for a modest yearly subscription fee (half the price of Variety Online) you can download pre-written reviews. You get 12 reviews a year for free; thereafter, they charge a modest $3.49, and will take Paypal. (A good review , which is tougher to write, is twice the price; hence, more bad reviews are sold yearly).

RRU are a division of College-Entrance-Statements-R-Us )(CESRU), a world-wide conglomerate offering personal essays in every language, for every culture, on every continent.

The value of RRU is that no real reviewer has to actually attend any performance. RRU sends out moonlighting Learning Annex teachers (How To Make Dough As A Stand-up Comedian) who can make a $50 flat fee by attending, and then writing, a review of any musical, which is then posted online, available for any Reviewer to download and "adapt" to their own "style" or "voice."

RRU also offers a sidebar of Witty or Catty Phrases than can be used by reviewers to customize their reviews. "Duck A L'Orange" was the second most popular phrase, the first being a variation on "this duck won't fly." (Although Mimi Le Duck was written without using the word "fly," the RRU guy is, sadly, fly-challenged.)

A little known fact is that the RRU reviewer gets paid per click from the "Witty/Catty Phrase" Sidebar. Google is now considering a take-over of RRU, due to it's Witty/Catty Phrase Sidebars, as certain phrases are used constantly and produce a high volume of income. Google plans to expand this Sidebar Click Phrase service to politics.

I downloaded the RRU review and laid it side by side with the stack from today. Call my stockbroker! I got Jim Cramer on the line, gave him my tip about RRU: the single-review model of writing is hotter than hell. He promised he'd tout the stock tomorrow. I bought 500 shares.

The only downside were that some reviewers became confused because of RRU's confusion. One claimed that LeDuck gave away apples that should have been "Duck a L'Orange" (oh, that RRU guy gets another 10 cents for that phrase again). Unfortunately, the musical next door, Evil Dead, gave away the apples. RRU had a few drinks at the bar during intermission, became befuddled, and took away the Evil Dead basket of apples. RRU also mistook the Frito-Lay man (who was restocking the concession stand) for the House Manager (it was the uniform) and asked how big the house was. "499," the Frito-Lay guy said, meaning 499 square feet in his newly purchased tract house. Unfortunately, Variety was snared in this Frito-Lay RRU Apple Basket mixup, attributed the apples to Le Duck and the size of the theatre as 499. I don't fault Variety. It happens.

There is one sad note to this debacle. One of the reviewers accidentally downloaded one of the Fringe reviews from 2004, instead of the RRU 2006 review. He cut down one of the actresses (by name) who appeared in 2004 - who, alas, did not move forward with the play. So the poor girl in 2004 got a nasty comment about today's performance! RRU reported him to his editor (who was incensed that he'd squandered one of the 12 free reviews per year) and promptly cancelled his membership. This sad fellow, unfortunately, will now have to actually buy a pencil and attend a performance.

Oh, it's a sad, sad day in Mudville when that happens.

Meanwhile, I shall paper the bathroom with the reviews. I'm going to email RRU with a suggestion: offer a free download of a Playbill with every review sold. Oh, and call my stockbroker again in the morning and pick up another 500 shares of RRU. I think they've got something there.

great opening night, great party, reviews

2006-11-07T01:24:00.000-05:00

are coming out.

Trashed by the New York Tmes! (What a surprise) -- Hooray! I'm a writer! I am immediately calling the T-shirt company and getting out a rush limited edition of a "Trashed By The Times" t-shirt.

It will sell like hotcakes to all writers of all the musicals that have been trashed by the Times but still (what a surprise) keep getting audiences.

What a ride. What a party. What a night.

Last preview tonight!

2006-11-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

Full house, great audience. Brian looks like death warmed over. I look worse. This is it, Brian. From 1999 to now, this is it. We officially open tomorrow. Curtain up at 7:00; after, the opening night party at Ruth Chris' Steakhouse. In my ears, the voice of my daughter's Chinese grandmother before she took everyone to dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet: GET YOUR MONEY'S WORTH. I tell everyone: Eat, Eat, Eat. Cast and crew pledge to do their part. I want everyone rolling out of there like stuffed cabbages. Bring ziplocks and tupperware, as my Swedish grandmother would say, the Swedish grandmother who had a 24/7 smorgasboard in her kitchen.

Family descends. I warn them: You're on your own.

What does it feel like, someone asks? I think I will know what it feels like afterwards. All the work, all the rewriting, the meltdowns, the midnight meetings, the shouting: it all comes down to this, I think, and I don't know how I feel right now, but I will know when opening night is over.

We have an ad meeting for Tuesday at 1:00 pm, where everyone goes over the reviews. I guess I'll have to read them. A seasoned writer tells me: It's the audiences who vote with their pocketbook. You'll find an audience no matter what the reviews.

So that's it: the Night Before, and Counting.

Beets carrots and eggplants

2006-11-05T00:28:00.000-05:00

So I'm in pre-opening anxiety-limbo.

So I haul out pictures of vegetables and decide to play with Photoshop and create a limited edition Pre-Review Anxiety Art Prints:

Now maybe you can't tell, but this used to be a plain old stack of carrots at the union square farmer's market. Now, it is a Work of Arte. I call it:

"Mankind Comes A'Runnin', Part II."

I named this one:
"Eggplants Eggplants Everywhere. . . Eggplants Eggplants have no chair, III"

And number three in the Anxious Vegetable Limited Edition Series:
"Beets May Be Red, But When Henny Penny Says The Sky is Falling, Beets are Purple, III."
"

Sunday.
Monday we open.
Tuesday, reviews.
Wednesday, the farmer's market is open at union square and I will apologize to the innocent carrots, beets and eggplants for ruining them in photoshop.
If I can hold on. . . hold on. . . if not, I'm going to spend the time between the matinee and evening performance taking pictures of standpipes with vegetables on them. It's going to be a tough tough afternoon, not because of anything show-related, but because it's gonna take a lot of searching to find a standpipe covered in corn.

And so tonight

2006-11-04T01:33:00.000-05:00

everyone seems to be at each other's throats. Press is coming to see the show now for the next few days and everyone is on edge.

We put our creative work out there, believing in it, and now it's being "judged" and emotions are running very, very high.

There are misunderstandings and accusations and filtering of inconsequential events through the highly-charged atmosphere that surrounds us and we misunderstand the most ordinary event and it rises to the level of the Apocalypse.

I melt down. Others do too, shouting, accusing. I am reduced to tears by the unfairness of some accusations and then I step back from it and say: everyone is in this state. We can't implode now.

Please, let's look at the great work we've done, the wonderful process of the creation of a new show, and be proud.

We've done the best we can. We've done the show we wanted to do. We told the story in a way that we would tell it. Others would tell the same story differently, but this is our voice, and this is what we did, and for better or for worse, this is it.

So whatever happens in the reviews, in the show, mistakes, sound bleeds, whatever, we celebrate what we have done, and we lift a glass to a team who has risen to extraordinary heights.

Get to the bathroom! Look in the mirror! Give ourselves a slap on the cheek and squint and say to our reflection: THANKS, KID, I NEEDED THAT.

Sneak Peek at Eartha singing "Everything Changes"

2006-11-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

Click on the title just above this line: "Sneak Peek At Eartha Singing "Everything Changes"

You should be able to see a couple of verses of a video of her singing from the show.

Chuck's peddling his kisses again

2006-11-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

I'm tattling on Chuck, the stage manager. He came to the theatre in a "KISSES ONLy 25 CENTS" box. He evidently didn't have much luck drumming up a quarter so he said he would float a girl a quarter if she wanted a kiss. He almost nabbed a NWS usher, who came dressed as Diana Ross, but she just didn't want to pay, no matter how cute Chuck was inside his little red kissing booth.

PS Chuck had a hard time calling the show out of his kissing booth. Everyone said he sounded like he was inside a cardboard box.
Meanwhile, sister Melanie and brother-in-law Rick flew in from California to see LeDuck on Halloween. We have a good time, eating at Ben's Deli on 38th, and then seeing LeDuck:

I take off the late afternoon and we go to Whole Foods and sit out in a perfect November Day in Union Square and eat healthy food. We troop up to see Drowsy Chaperone, and bump into Allen Fitzpatrick (Hemingway) and his gorgeous girlfriend from Seattle -- also seeing Drowsy.
"It's like crack," I tell Allen. "We're in that theatre for weeks and weeks and on a night off, we go to theatre."
Big preparations for opening night, party, etc. Big Ad meeting. Lunch and potato chips and Oh! My! Wonderful Gherkins.
"Gherkins?" I say.
"Gherkins," says Richard Kornberg, polishing off the last one. We discover our marketing guys won a bigwhoop national award for their coconut-symphony promotion for Spamalot!
Once again I have nothing to wear. Friends are gently offering me their clothing: "I have a lovely evening top" and "I have a beautiful black kimono top" and "I left something you might like hanging on your door." My daughters intend to make me over this coming weekend. I will compromise: I won't wear the tennis shoes with the holes. Anything more, I can't promise.

12:06 a.m. and all's well, except for odorful odor.

2006-11-01T00:13:00.000-05:00

Sister Melanie and husband Rick came to see the show from California. We ate at Ben's Deli on 38th street; she ordered stuffed cabbage and two giant cabbages came on a plate, enough cabbage to choke a horse. We debated whether or not to take them in a doggie bag to the theatre but I fear the cabbage would have filled the theatre with an odorful odor.

Odorful odor. Time to quit.

Great show tonight - we're approaching opening -

2006-10-30T23:37:00.000-05:00

Members of the press, etc., start to come to review from thursday through sunday shows, and then the official opening: Monday night November 6.

Comments tonight from many people: it's come together. Yes, I say, barely able to speak, a croak issuing forth from my mouth: yes, yes, yes, and that's all i can say. I reach for a pen and paper and write: CALL THE WHEELBARROW COMPANY. ORDER A WHEELBARROW, LARGE, ASAP. CALL PROP DELIVERY AND GET THEM TO RUN IT OVER NOW. I NEED TO BE WHEELED HOME.

Wait. How much is the wheelbarrow? Call the bookeeper: Can we afford a wheelbarrow? Yes, he says, so I'm waiting to be wheeled to bed. I'll deal with the Wheelbarrow Contract in the morning.

Silliness rules.

Friends and Family Halloween Show: 50 free tickets

2006-10-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

As you all know, we moved our opening from 10/31 to Monday Nov. 6. Opening was by invitation only - so we only just now opened up the box office to sales!

So we're also using Halloween to invite friends and family (Tuesday night 8 pm Oct 31). I've got 50 free tickets to readers of my blog.

First come, first served.

EMAIL: TeamLeDuck@aol.com and leave your names and we'll email you back with instructions on how to pick up your tickets at the box office!

Hope to see you there.

Terrific matinee show.

2006-10-28T21:22:00.000-04:00

Full house, full standing ovation. It's coming together. Let go and trust the actors now to do their thing. Very hard to let go.
I make myself stay away from tonight's performance. I can't hover like a nervous hen with chicks. I come home, vowing to do laundry. Laundry on a saturday night? Are you kidding? LAUNDRY?
So I have a new hardcover Dave Robicheaux mystery that I've been hoarding and I am going to greedily read my first piece of fiction since July. To hell with laundry! When the handtowels run out, I'll use washcloths. Laundry tomorrow, fiction tonight.

Show's frozen, laundry's a crisis

2006-10-28T02:04:00.000-04:00

No more changes. You could feel the energy shift at tonight's performance, moving forward, on the home stretch now. New opening works. Eartha's song beautiful. Big surprise coming down the pike but can't say, of course, until it's finalized. Actually, two big surprises. So I tried to find a clean towel to take a shower and there isn't a clean towel in the house. I had to use two hand towels. Tonight, the freezing of the show. Tomorrow, the laundry. Go figure.

Second to last night of rehearsals.

2006-10-26T23:56:00.000-04:00

Freeze show tomorrow. Wiped out. There was something funny that happened that I was going to blog but I forgot, so ha, ha, laugh, pretend it's hysterical, when I remember, in the next lifetime, I'll put it on. My brother Leif and wife Carol are flying in tomorrow from Portland to see the show. Tomorrow we drop Eartha's new song in, tech a few more changes, and that's it.

I make elaborate apologies to the cats tonight for their lack of attention. They are so angry they have stopped speaking to me. There have been no treats, no flashlight games, no catnip, no wheatgrass for several months. They're eating Iams dry catfood and water and are in a catsnit about it.

Laundry's not done, no groceries in house, dishes in sink, bed unmade, we're living on the cookies my daughter sent by fedex.

And it's wonderful.

My daughter says I'm being a brat. Suggestions.

2006-10-26T00:26:00.000-04:00

My crabby venting has earned me a scolding from my daughter, who is evidently on the chatlines and has entered some of the discussions. She agreed I was also being bitchy and too harsh when I mentioned the "bitchy unemployed." I reread what I'd written (see? This makes a case for editing!) and she's right, and I apologize to anyone I've offended, and I promise from now on to rant to myself ( one of the people on the train talking to themselves) and wait till morning to send it off. Someone also responded to me to say to keep the blog positive. And finally, I DO welcome critique and dialogue. Might I say -- I can dish it out, and I can take it. So keep the comments coming. And PS: It is really just us. No slick PR stunt.

A comment from a viewer: she felt that the Spanish gypsy might have given Mimi back her purse that he'd stolen at the end, to sort of "atone" for what he'd done. We all talked it over, and decided that in fact, he had 'atoned" for his purse-snatching by patching things back up between Peter and Claude. But that was something we wouldn't have caught.

Someone asked why we didn't make it a very long one-act. Truth? Because people have to pee.

My long-lost friend Greg and his wife Steph came from the coast to see the show tonight. He has a musical he's writing in Los Angeles called OH HELL where there is a paucity of collaborators. We have to seduce him to write in New York.

So I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are all exhausted. The usher was after me about the potato chips that Brian left laying around. I denied that they were my chips. Brian, if you are reading this, don't leave chips around. The ushers all have your number!

Big push to Friday, to freeze the show, then just let the actors own their roles. And as it rolls to that time, I can sense already that things are shifting and changing and in a month the experience of these last three months will be encapsulated in time, and although the experience will be repeated, it will never be duplicated.

So lest I wax maudlin, I am quitting while I am ahead. Thekla, my-daughter-the-lawyer-clerking-in-a-fed-court, had a baking frenzy, evidently, and I came home tonight to the LARGE fedex box packed to the brim with cookies, cupcakes, brownies, all for the cast. Unfortunately, George and I have delicately dipped into them. We'll repack them so no one knows. Jeanette: I think she had a guilt attack when she saw the cookies you'd made!

PS Eartha loves the song. We all worked on it today with her, tweaking the key, etc. She makes suggestions, then laughing: "What kind of percent do I get from this song?" I found out today that in 1955, she had breakfast with Einstein.

That's my next song: Breakfast With Einstein. What a hook. Maybe a musical. Yikes. Haven't I learned my lesson?

Another new song, old friends,

2006-10-25T00:06:00.000-04:00

We tackle the Idaho opening again this afternoon and evening. i rewrite, rewrite. It's the bane of our existence. Unfortunately we can't put all the changes in until they're teched, so I have to listen to stuff that doesn't work until we get the new parts in.

Various people eagerly rush up to tell me about the chat rooms chatter. Someone has evidently said my husband is a politician. Wrong. He's an engineer. I was the politician in Hawaii in 1968-1972, elected to the State House of Representatives. How does this stuff get so twisted on the chatrooms? It's all on the website. Go read the website.

Someone told me that they'd put in their email and they got an email in return and said it looked like part of a slick pr campaign. There's no PR campaign, bub. It's all authentic. Once again, I invite you out of the shadows to come and sit down with me and I will show you. There's nothing to hide. I ask people after the performance for their emails. I sent them an email after the show asking for comments. Several hundred people responded. Based on that feedback, we are making substantial changes. THERE'S NO SLICK PR CAMPAIGN.

I make myself available at the shows. I introduce myself. Many people who have emailed me have stayed after the show to give me comments. I like honest to-my-face feedback, not behind-my-back anonymous lipflap on chatlines. I will openly and honestly say what we're doing, what I'm unhappy with, what we're changing, how hard it is. I talk openly about the process, on this blog and in person, which is why I'm a little surprised and disappointed that people I've talked to have rushed to the chatlines to selectively interpret what I've said, as though they have an inside track. This show is transparent. No one but me is sitting here in the bedroom with the cats draped across my legs writing a blog, half asleep, unedited, full of typos - no one else would be that stupid.

An author gets to write his first draft, and then edit in privacy. I don't get that privilege. We're editing in front of audiences, using their feedback and reaction to tighten, rewrite, rework, shape the show. it's live theatre. Does this clique-claque on the chatlines not understand that? Hemingway said that first drafts are crap. They are. And then you rewrite rewrite rewrite.

It's process. This isn't Broadway. This isn't spectacle. It's a small 350 seat theatre and a new book musical, not an adaptation, an off-Broadway production that some will like and some won't. So what? Let it breathe. Let it live. Let new shows and new work get up on their feet and find their voice and their audience. Why is it so important to cut it down - anonymously?

Let it breathe. Let it find an audience it speaks to. You don't like it. Others do. that's okay too. Go see a different show. Or write one yourself. Go find backers who believe in your work. T hen put it out there. That's what it's all about, not hiding anonymously behind a screen name. Come out of the shadows. Here's my email, to make it easy: dianahy@aol.com. Speak to me, but sign your name. Have the courage to put your name to your comment.

Enough venting. News on the Idaho opening front (which has NOT been right!): we finished the changes tonight. I think we've got it now. I'm happy with it. It was a dramaturgical issue: When Hemingway appears and tells Miriam to go to Paris, she has to go. We can't go back to Idaho. It's stopping and starting up again. When he says GO, Idaho's gone, and we're in Paris. But that revelation didn't happen during lunch. It's a process.

An old friend of mine flew in from Los Angeles to come tomorrow night. It's serendipity. In high school, we wrote a musical together that was the impetus for wanting to write musicals. We took different paths, lost track of each other, and when he saw the announcement about LeDuck in the Times, he called me from Los Angeles. He's been in television producing, but saw a Magritte painting and was inspired to go back to musical theatre. He wrote "Oh, Hell" and is participating in Ascap Workshops. He'll have to come back after previews to see the new stuff which won't be in the show till the weekend. But he can hear Eartha say: "Old times? Old friends? And what will we do with one another? Sit around and stare at each other's wrinkles?"

So that's what we'll do tomorrow night. And all that news and a dollar will get you a coffee and a bagel.

"All Things You" - new Eartha song

2006-10-24T00:49:00.000-04:00

Finished new song for Eartha Kitt yesterday, set it with Brian last night, and then played it for Eartha tonight after the show upstairs in the "pit" (orchestra) which is really a pit! She loved it and took the tape and music home with her. "Homework," she said. After the show there were fans waiting patiently out the stage door for her. We'll rehearse the song weds and thurs and probaby drop it in friday night.

Last night with sweet and honest words
You stripped the lies away
We rode upon the wings of birds
And found the time to play

And now my heart is full of song
And I can start anew
My heart is full of music
Full of all things you.

Last night you held me tenderly
You kissed away my tears
You whispered that you love me
You chased away my fears

And now my heart is full of hope
And all things bright and new
My heart is full of promise
Full of all things you.

I won't regret the days and years I've lost along the way
No matter what may lie ahead I'll celebrate today

For in that simple night
You gave me all that's true
A lifetime full of promise
Full of all things true
Full of all things you.

So that's it. I'm brain dead. Come and see Eartha sing the new song.

Sunday Sunday, Bloomingdale, Annie's Crisis, Jeanette's Cookies, MacDrooling

2006-10-22T22:32:00.000-04:00

The meltdowns keep topping themselves!!! We're all stressed, extremely tired, and the Idaho opening still isn't write. Wrote a great new song for Eartha. We'll play it for her tomorrow. If she doesn't like it, we'll write another one. And its back to the drawing board on Idaho.

Ken Jennings and Allen Fitzpatrick are going over to a promotion at Bloomingdale's tomorrow at 6:00 to showcase Mimi Le Duck, singing two songs from the show at 6:00 pm and then rushing back to the theatre.

And here's a very important cookie curtain call: The Remains of Jeanette's Cookies:

She baked a container of incredible cookies (special oatmeal for me) and Tom Aldredge and Ken Jennings (her friends) and mine are gone except for these few. By morning, there'll be none. Thank you, Jeanette!

Here's a call to all Mimi le Duck fans from MARIE'S CRISIS:
"On Tuesday, October 24th from 7:30 – 9:00pm at Marie’s Crisis, we are
having an ANNIE GOLDEN NIGHT. Come down, sing a song, win prizes and
MEET THE CAST. Be the first to taste a Golden Apple Annie, a MIMI-tini
and a KITTalicious Cosmo! Why not? Marie’s Crisis (piano bar at 59
Grove St . (btwn Bleecker and 7th)."

Wiped out. I can feel my eyelids closing, my head is drooping, drooping. . . I just pulled my face up off the keyboard. I hope I didn't short-circuit the laptop with slobber-in-the-keys. I wonder if I can find the warranty.

New World Stages, also known as Meltdown City

2006-10-21T23:35:00.000-04:00

Everyone is exhausted.
Full house both matinee and evening, 96% full last night. Tonight, the crowd and cast were on fire. There is so much to do before we open. Last night we made a very tough decision. We are postponing opening from October 31 to November 6 (Monday).

There are many reasons: If we open October 31, the show must be "frozen" (no more changes) day after tomorrow. The actors then have to have a few days to settle in before the press comes. We have Eartha's song to put into Act II, and I'm still working on that. It has to be orchestrated. The earliest we can rehearse it is Wednesday, a few days before the press comes. It's just not fair to Eartha. Plus, I want to polish some lines throughout, and we'll drop them in Monday (we can't give the actors any changes this weekend because of two performances a day), and Brian and I want to work on the Idaho opening, which is still our weak spot.

So -- a tough decision. We'll have to call friends and family tomorrow and help everyone change plane and hotel reservations! Some friends and family are coming this week anyway. We still have the party to finish planning and the invitations to get out and everyone is working at maximum capacity and it's just too pressured. We need to make it the best we can make it.

The show is already causing controversy and division. The Bitchy Unemployed in the theatre chat rooms (who rushed out to buy a first preview ticket so they could rush home and give their opinions on an unfinished show) hate it. The audience loves it. Chris Fenwick has a good point (when we are discussing the reception of the show). He says that a show like this, which is a story told from a different point of view, with a unique voice, definately not mainstream (in many ways) always becomes divisive in the theatre community. People fall into two camps. He points out that the audience is like a big collective unit, interacting with the collective unit on the stage. You cannot separate out the two or three who don't like it from the audience as a whole. The audience and actors are a live, dynamic, moving thing. Some will love it, some will hate it, but if we do the show we want to do, say what we want to say in our voice, then let it stand as it is, and the people who love it will come, and the people who don't like it will go to other shows that are their own taste.

Tom says this is the time in a show when everyone has an opinion, knows how it should be done. We have to keep the show our own, not dilute it with other's opinions.

So we have our work cut out for it. more meltdowns and shouting and carrying on today than at any other time, me included.
Everyone is stretched tight, no sleep, pressure, coming down to the wire, and under it all, the desire to make it good.

So now I have to go back to working on the Idaho opening, and Eartha's song, and my ten other changes, so we can play the stuff for Tom Caruso and Matt West TOMORROW. PLAY IT TOMORROW AT 7:00. Yikes. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Mimi Fans drive up from South Carolina!

2006-10-21T00:48:00.000-04:00

They're the ones who look spiffy; I'm the wreck with the brown Drowsy Chaperone sweater. They suggested a fantastic catfood, green can, salmon florentine, which I will rush out and order tomorrow. Come back and see Eartha's new song in the second act, friends!

The manager at NWS has a baby-baba-boo-boo named Christine, who came down to the theatre with her mum Beverly. Start them early, I always say:

I still have to write Eartha's song. Have ideas, some lyrical hooks, brian has some musical figures, we have to get this done by tomorrow, plus other rewrites
Tightening, cleaning, cutting, polishing, rewriting. As Mimi sings in Act I, "as always."

Can't blog tonight

2006-10-20T00:36:00.000-04:00

I'm writing a new song for Eartha for Act II.

Stay tuned.

Performance #6: Vomitus Theatricus

2006-10-19T01:13:00.000-04:00

Tonight's another first: Someone vomited in the seventh row from the back during Act II. Gena helped her out in the lobby. She felt horrified and humilitated. She assured us it was dinner, not the play. We invited her back. During the applause, a theatrical version of a HazMat squad came in with buckets, rubber gloves, masks and cleaners.

Tomorrow night a group is coming from an oyster bar to the theatre. Pray there isn't a batch of bad oysters or we will have a spectacular eruption.

This event may become grist for the Chat Roomies who don't see the shows they are criticizing. Here's a conversation I overhead:

PinkLady: Did you hear that someone vomited during the last act of Mimi Le Duck?
Midnight Rose: Was it part of the show? Or was it real?
Blue Velvet: Probably staged, a publicity ploy to get attention on the chat rooms.
Pinklady: They had a shill in the audience.
GrapeFace: I know it was a shill because I saw her walk up to the window and pay cash.
NutNose: Cash! Cash!
IWillSurvive: Dead giveaway. Trying to cover her trail.
Nutnose: Vomit trail.
OverTheRainbow: Well, let me tell you, I wish I could have stayed to see it, but I left after the first act so I could rush home and get on the chatrooms and beat you all out with the cattiest comment. I'm working on a good one. A Lennie-type Zinger.
IWillSurvive: The worst thing is, it isn't even an adaptation. What the hell was she thinking of? An original book musical? How dare she. And she didn't even ask for Permission from the Original Book Commission.
Grapeface: She won't write another musical in this town after we're through.
Nutnose: Maybe Detroit.
IWillSurvive: Hey, that's my favorite city.
Pinklady: Well, someone told me in the restroom that she thought it sucked.
Nutnose: What sucked?
OverTheRainbow: Sucked? In The Restroom?
Blue Velvet: Yeah, I heard that too about the show. The Restroom sucks. Just a shame, really, a real shame. What's musical theatre coming to?
Pinklady: To Rack and Ruin, obviously. Anyone that's so desperate for publicity that they would put a shill, vomiting in the 7th row back, just to get attention on a chat room, yeah, they're desperate.
Nutnose: Totally.
IWillSurvive: Yeah, but what about the full houses they're running?
Grapeface: Their audience are philistines who easily fall for those old theatricus vomitus tricks.
Nutnose: Well, that seems to be the way it's going these days. People write any old thing and a long as they keep those shill vomitors coming, their tickets sell.

To be continued. . . . .

Forgiveness, Vodka and Condoms

2006-10-18T00:25:00.000-04:00

And what, you ask yourself, is this all about? Read on. . .

It's my day off, and I'm still not through working, and the first 10:30 appointment is going to roll around really fast. We have a noon ad meeting and then it's rush to the theatre and tech some script changes, meeting with director and choreo at 5, and a performance at 8:00. The "avails" show we are 75% sold for Wednesday night. It will be interesting to see how the numbers and data start to show patterns: which nights are light, etc. A curiosity is the Saturday and Sunday matinees -- 98% full. Saturday night - 50%+. It's hard to be patient and see how the numbers unfold.

I'm curious to see what day-of sales are. And someday, my pets, I will share this all with you, too, but first we have to get the show open. So if I can count on my fingers, it's TWO WEEKS from last night (Tuesday) we'll be open. Right about now we'll be online to see if we were decimated in the reviews. I've ordered a case of HEAD ON from Duane Reade, and am buying therapy books and stacking them by the bed. Here's three titles so far:

Learn to Love Bad Reviews in 24 Hours
Forgiveness: The Reviewee's Guide to Finding Peace the Day After
Ten Reviewer's You'll Find In Hell

Ken Denison called me up today and said:" If you see vodka and condoms on our budget, don't flip your lid." Turns out Vodka is used to clean stinky/stained costumes on-the-spot, and condoms are used by the gross by the sound department for equipment, not because they're all cute.

So Tom calls and asks forgiveness in advance for the next three days: Just remember, he says, I'm not who I really am in the next three days. Forgive me! Tom has an endearing quality of letting everyone know what's happening, in advance!

So here's to forgiveness, Vodka and Condoms!

Monday perf, liquid nitrogen, dogtired, free wart removal

2006-10-17T01:36:00.000-04:00

Tonight I see old and new friends (Clay, the sculptress is really not named after you!) in the audience. Everyone is dog-tired. (Suddenly the phrase "dog-tired" seems funny. What does that really mean? Dog-tired?

We cut and reshaped the entire Idaho opening and Tom gave the changes to the actors today. Tomorrow's their day off, and they will come back Wednesday fresh and rested, we hope, and we will try to tech the changes and then put them into the show.

Our "duckjet" that takes mimi to Paris may not survive. It is clear in the production meeting that there are so many problems getting Duckjet across the stage, and the lack of room backstage, that it may be cut. It also slows down the pace. Cutting is always painful. So is adding in a fog machine, which to everyone seems like a nightmare. It turns out that there are smokers, misters, foggers, whatever, all of them have drawbacks, the biggest being their size, weight (400 pounds full) and storing them. Someone suggests some chemical set-up that requires liquid nitrogen. Liquid Nitrogen!!! I jerk upright in the seat. Suddenly I see New World Stages being blasted into the atmosphere. No liquid nitrogen, I say. Oh, they say, it's safe, you just hire a pyrotechnician full time to take care of the liquid nitrogen.
More like a liquid nightmare. George and I head home. One of the readers wanted a picture or two of Times Square (she's homesick in Singapore) when we come home. So here's two. For this one I stand in the middle of the street.

I didn't get hit by a car so I take another:

The boys were singing and dancing on the tailgate of the food truck as they unloaded food. Or was it loading garbage? It's all a mystery.
Two mysteries on the way home:
1. A man in the subway station suddenly leaps to the ground and does sets of pushups. White wife-beater t-shirt, muscles, bare hands on subway platform, up down up down up down. What does it mean/
2. A man in the subway car chews a white plastic straw furiously. He feeds it into his mouth like a stick of chewing gum. Occasionally the small round plastic end of the straw pops out. What is that all about?

Maybe it's a sign from the muses. Call Tom! Call Brian! I've got a new change to put into the show. We're going to add two new songs: "Strawchewing And You" and "I'm a Pushover Pushup". Call Chris! Get him to orchestrate them immediately! Get two vials of liquid nitrogen! Here's the deal: Besides a free CD if you come to previews, you get a FREE WART REMOVAL.

Time to hit the hay. This is silly beyond belief. I'm dogtired.

92% house Sunday night and photos

2006-10-16T00:47:00.000-04:00

Scenes from the charged hours before the first performance:
Tom dances with David Landers' beloved sock puppet:

I call this Limited Edition Photo: "CAST IN FRONT FROM BEHIND"

This one is named: "Feet up! Feet up! Call Dr. Scholl's! Feet up!"

Brian and Chris a half-hour before the first paid performance. Moments after this happy shot, they began the slow inevitable descent into first night hell. Brian brought a plastic bag from home in case he barfed. Strangely enough, so did I (bring a bag, not barf)

End of the line, folks. 236 unanswered emails wait for me in the morning. Sales, printing, meetings, some stuff up my sleeve that I'm not telling anyone about - yet - and bone bone bone tired. (Call the dog!)

Kicked out and haggling

2006-10-15T01:51:00.000-04:00

So last night (technically, since it's 1:46 a.m. Sunday) the preview was again sold out. There was not one seat. All 350 seats were filled. George and I had nowhere to sit. We were standing in the back, by the door, and the usher asked us to leave because we couldn't be seated and it was against fire regulations, or whatever, but the upshot of it is, we were kicked out! I managed to see the show anyway, and i am sworn to secrecy as to how.

George took a picture of me, just kicked out, but of course the camera download thingie is at the office and I'm here. There is mega discomboobulation at this particular time.

We continue to cut, trim LeDuck. Matt and Tom call it "climbing out of tech." Today Brian and I worked on Idaho section, then went over some changes in a note meeting with Chris Fenwick, Matt and Tom during the dinner hour. What to cut? What to keep? If you change it, will it be worse? Better? Time is running out for changes. Ideas that we all thought were great just don't work up there. Other things work better than we thought. The audience is the test. Like the line in Eartha's song, "The mirror tells the truth." Well, the audience tells the truth, so we listen, and work, and listen.

An Anonymous reader took great umbrage with my haggling with a kebab seller in Times Square over the price (He wanted $4 each, and I offered him 2 for $7) on the way home after the first preview.

Now, I love comments from readers, and when they leave their emails, I answer them (and often we get a great dialogue going and (as happened tonight), reader "J" and I met for the first time at the theatre) - had a great chat on the way out - and somehow I ended up with an offer of oatmeal cookies, which I did NOT haggle about!

Since Anonymous did not leave an email, I'll answer here:

Offering to pay $7 for TWO kebabs has nothing to do with having a sold-out show. I counter offer everything. The kebab seller could say two things: Yes, or No. If he says No, I might buy it anyway. Or not. If he says Yes, then I buy it, and that's dinner.

It's midnight. He wants to sell his product, which, like my theatre seats, have no value the next day. (And that's why, Anonymous, you get offers thru TDF or Theatre mania for discounted seats). Anonymous' implication is that because we have a sold-out preview, we should be ashamed of beating down a poor kebab man. Kebabs or theatre seats, it's a commodity, like real estate in California or used cars in Brooklyn or knock-off vendors in Chinatown or agent or lawyers- the world runs on offer/counteroffer. It's Economics 101.

What if you came up to the box office window at 7:55 and I had a $70 seat. You might offer $30. I might take it, or refuse it, hoping that someone comes along in the next 5 minutes that will pay $70. But if I said "Okay, done for $30" -- would you REALLy say to me: "No, I can't beat you down in price. It's not right. I insist that I pay you $70 for the ticket you offered me for $30."

Not a chance.

Sorry, Anonymous. If I didn't haggle, we wouldn't have a show. But I appreciate your opinion, and a little controversy spices things up (like the BBQ/hot sauce on the kebabs).

The real question you should be asking is: Does Cameron MacIntosh eat kebabs after his show?

Or the cosmic question: Does he haggle?

If we're sold out tonight, I'm going to haggle with the usher: "Can I share a seat with someone? What if I sat on their lap? Could that count as one seat?"

Your new phrase: FLOP SWEAT

2006-10-14T01:34:00.003-04:00

It's a sold-out house.
Second preview, and it's a sold-out house.
We had to scramble when the house lights went down and find some place to sit.

Annie's duck costume feathers got caught in the doorway of her room (she slammed her door on her own feathers) and at the top of Act II, she was singing "My Mother Always Said" while she was putting her shoes on and she realized with horror that she had put her shoes on backwards. Afterwards, she said she was singing and thinking: can people see my shoes are on the wrong foot? And when Claude's prop got caught in the black curtain, he saluted the audience when he yanked it off. Tonight was Adirondack Theatre Festival night. Mimi got it's start up at Glens Falls; they came down to celebrate. Of course, George just noticed this afternoon, when he had his first minute to read our Playbill, that they left off the Adirondack Theatre Festival and Fringe from the title page. So the ad agency swung into action and ran down a stuffer sheet that had the correct information, and at 7:15 six of us: three ushers, Marie, George and I were sitting in the aisles stuffing programs.

Mattt introduces us to FLOP SWEAT: sweating through your clothes in a a first preview. In one of his Disney shows, the first preview was 7 hours long. Everything that could go wrong, did. In one of his operas, a huge moveable set started leaking oil and the stage was a slick of oil and the actors came skidding out across the stage. they put out chairs and read and sang sitting down.

Flop Sweat. What a great phrase. When I told Matt we were sold out again, he sang "SRO! SRO! SRO!" and we did a little dance, which I think tomorrow I will ask him to choreograph because my intention is that we will do an SRO dance most every night. Tomorrow night we're sold out. Someone sent an email asking for a VIP emergency seating (3). I may have to uninvite my friends . Now I'm obsessing about not having an extra seat. Last week I was obsessing about not having any seats filled. Flop Sweat.

First preview

2006-10-13T01:04:00.000-04:00

I stand in the entry and watch the people fill up the seats. The overture starts and the lights go to half. "Well, we're here," George says. I put my arm around him and shed tears.

And the dark theatre becomes 22 Rue Danou, and my characters come to life: my oystershucker, my faded chanteuse, my cabaret owner, my Hemingway, my sculptress, my Spanish gypsy, and my Miriam and Peter.

And as I watch, a curious thing happens. I feel them slip out of my hands. Like grown children, they are leaving me, fading away, and I feel a profound sense of loss as I watch the audience own them, take them into their hearts, take them away from me, and take them home.

They don't belong to me anymore. I don't have a choice. I put them out there to go, and they did.

George and I walk home, old parents who have sent their children to college. We have the t-shirts and random stuff piled on George's battered old handcart, like the purse and watch vendors in Chinatown. The first chilly wind of autumn brings the smell of kebabs, and we stop at the street cart on 43rd and Broadway.

"How much?" I ask.

"Four dollars each."

"Too much," I say. "We're not tourists. Two for seven bucks." He scowls. "We're from Booklyn," I say.

"Okay." He nods. "Barbecue sauce? Hot sauce?" We nod.

We exchange money for kebabs. A gaggle of midwest tourists, clutching Phantom Playbills, look curiously at us eating on the streetcorner. "They're delicious," I say. "You gotta try one." I wink at the kebab seller." And they're only four dollars."

"Four dollars?"

"A steal," I tell them. "Usually six bucks. Get them while you can." They press around the cart and start to order. It's their adventure. It's their Rue Danou.

So we're home, and the kitty litter needs changing, and the laundry needs doing, and I need sleep, and I'll call my girls tomorrow, and my mom, and my friend Marie, and my team LeDuck and thank them, and everyone else and thank them, then I'll go to the theatre where Tom and Matt have pages and pages of notes for us, and we get to work selling tickets and making it better, better, better.

I'll finish the blog and turn off the computer and turn out the lights. I'll see my children tomorrow night, on the stage, and every night, I tell myself, but I feel a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat and I can barely see the screen, and I know in my heart that they have left home, like my daughters, and for me, nothing like this ever was, and nothing like this ever will be, again.

20

2006-10-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

hours.
Everything that seemed wrong 24 hours ago has miraculously turned around. We had a terrific run-thru this evening, making it a perfect cancelled preview!

Telecharge called many ticket buyers to notify them. I had a t-shirt printed up this morning:
THEY CANCELLED thE FIRST PREVIEW
AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

Marc and Gena hauled four boxes of t-shirts across town in the pouring rain and hooked up with Maura, Christine and Marie aat New world Stages lobby. Gena brought yellow balloons, we set up a table in the lobby, and every ticketholder who showed up = only to find that it was cancelled - we introduced ourselves to, told them why, gave them this special t-shirt (which you can only have if you're involved in the cancelled first sold-out preview!) --

Ther were two or three grouchies, mostly because it was a miserable night outside, but we jollied them up and they left happy. All day long we asked ourselves: What would Paris Hilton do in this situation?

(!)

Front of House signs are delivered. They look great, except that Tom thinks that they might give away the plot. Carol Fishman brings over the "sliders" which are the little strips that have the actors names on them and the role they play. All the characters in the play have their little "slider."

Carol brought over Peter Sander's slider. "This is a present for you," she said. We laughed until we were crying. I took a picture of it. I know no one will think this is funny but Carol and me, but somehow, it says it all:

Call Bill Finn! Get the winner of Spelling Bee over here!!! Is there time to get this sliderette re-lettered? Sorry, Peeter, that's just going to have to be your name. Peet for short.
20 hours and counting.