The show is terrific. The performers are on it and the Director has done a huge amount of work.
It’s amazing what they put together in four weeks of rehearsal.
I had no idea how funny the play was. I sent them a script that had some jokes here and there, but they’ve transformed it into a comedy and, not surprisingly, it’s a thousand times better than what I wrote.
The audience loves it. Keeley loves it. I love it.
I’m really quite lucky.
At intermission I prowl around the lobby (quite inconspicuous in my black suit, thank you very much) and eavesdrop on conversations. No one’s talking about the show, near as I can tell. But most of them head back in for the second round.
Ah. This is a lot easier than I thought. The performers are working their hearts out and making me look far better than I deserve. The Direction is a huge and incredibly pleasant surprise, Bob found so much in such a short amount of time.
I wrote one sentence: “The sailors silently plot to kill the cyclops.”
Bob directs (and the actors perform) a ten minute sequence straight out of a silent movie, so funny in so many different ways that my stomach hurts from holding the laughter in (I realize, afterwards, that I was afraid of waking the monster, just like the sailors).
And it isn’t everyone who can take something like a giant teddy bear (which I thought was a kind of funny little detail in the script) and turn it into a one of the funniest things I have ever seen on stage.
The show is terrific. The ending moves me more than I realize. I didn’t for a second imagine that so much of my personal life had ended up in the script. It’s all jumbled together, messy and noisy and hurting — just like the past year or so of my life — but it’s there and it hurts a little to watch.
But it’s a good show. The performers do a great job with it and it’s obvious that they had a terrific Director with vision.
Everyone stands up and yells at the end.
Again, lucky lucky lucky me.
From the stage, the performers gesture to the booth . . . and then to me.
My cover is blown but that was going to happen soon enough. The audience has been invited to stick around for a talkback with the Director and myself.
Two hundred people, free to ask questions…
No problem.