DAY THIRTEEN - Saturday April 7

DAY THIRTEEN - Saturday April 7

The day started very early for me - my friend Jack called me (I think by mistake) at about 2:30 AM and I couldn't get back to sleep.  So I chatted with Phoebe and Nathaniel a bit - as well as my in-laws since they were in NY to go to a Seder at our synagogue.  So that was nice.

I finally got to sleep and woke up at 5AM to Skype into my parents' house on my niece's computer.

Here's what the service looked like from my end:




I was on with them for about 3 hours of the 4 hour event - I took a nap while they had dinner.  They had a sumptuous meal on a gorgeously set table.  I had this:

 A malenki (small) piece of cheese!

We finished up music today in the first session and since there was a big show in the evening, we cancelled rehearsal - Gregg and I went to the show.  It was another Kalman operetta (ours is also by Kalman and they have about 5 different Kalmans running this month alone).  It was called "The Gypsy Violinist" and the show felt a bit too long to me - not the theatre's fault.  Some really hilarious and great performances - many by some of our company members. Again, a company full of great character men. Again, the house was completely full.  Apparently, Kalman is hugely popular in Russia. I had never heard of the guy before this project.  I do think "Duchess of Chicago" is a far better piece - dramatically as well as musically.  They were written about 16 years apart.  

All the programs have an insert - normal (for Russia) A4 size paper.  They have both casts listed and ushers spend their pre-show time checking off with little pencils who is playing the roles in each and every program.  Why not just print them once they've assigned the roles and save all that checking off time? Again, I quote Gregg: labor - cheap, technology - expensive.

I need to prep for continuing staging tomorrow - and I'm exhausted from not sleeping last night!