Brush up your Shakespear, Start quoting him now, Brush up your Shakespear and the women you will wow.-From the play Kiss Me Kate by Cole Porter

Once again Roses reminded me of something. She's got a knack for that.


Many years ago a friend of mine was the stage manager for our local community theater group. Getting a cast is pretty easy, every one wants to be on stage,  but getting a crew was more difficult. So she asked me if I'd be the prop mistress for their production of Kiss Me Kate. It was pretty simple I got all the props out before a performance and made sure they we're usable, put them back away after the performance, and made sure they got in to the hands of whoever was supposed to bring them on stage.


I wasn't expecting it to be the most fun I ever had doing a play. The crew consisted of my friend the stage manager, myself, and a girl who did the lighting. You're supposed to be really quiet backstage but the crew do need to communicate so we had these fancy schmancy wireless headsets with little microphones. I don't remember ever using them for anything regarding the play. The lighting tech spent the whole time trying to make us giggle backstage, which made both of us rather silly too. The rest of the time we spent plotting pranks to play on the cast closing night, which is a long and hallowed tradition among stage crews.


You aren't supposed to do anything that would disrupt the play. The prank are on the cast not the audience after all. I only remember one probably because though the other girls agreed it was a good idea it was entirely mine in inspiration and execution.

There is a scene early on in the play where one of the characters is given a bouquet of flowers which she latter throws at the person who sent them. We had a fake arrangement we used ever night but the last. On the last night I had made a bouquet of real flowers and replace the card in them with one that said, "Good luck on your last night." I wasn't in a position to see her reaction when she got them on stage but I heard her deliver the line which was something like, "Oh thank you they're beautiful."  and we could tell this time she wasn't acting and was talking to us. When she came off stage she gave me a hug and I saw she had tears in her eyes. In the later scene where she had to throw the flowers at the other character she was careful to throw them in such a way that he could catch them. The director wound up taking them home and drying them as a souvenir of the production.

I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn't really happen in life is what I'm interested in.-Joss Whedon

The first and most likely last time I ever sang the lead in a musical (sort of)

My second grade teacher was also a part time actress (she also taught the after school Drama program, guess who was a member?). Because she was so fond of acting we did a lot of plays in class and often groups of students would make up their own plays to perform for the class. Most of these were probably pretty awful but my friend Sarah decided to do something more ambitious than had ever been tried before in our class.



Sarah wanted to put on a production of Annie. Our friend Melanie was cast in the lead which would have been fine but she couldn't sing. So because we were seven and logic was not our strong suit rather than recast the part Sarah came up with a creative solution. I knew all the songs and actually could sing the part so she had me stand backstage and sing while Melanie lip sank. And yes we really did wind up performing it that way and my teacher was both impressed and confused.

Wow, sarcasm! That's original!-Dr. Horrible

So she IS related to me after all.

Okay only like two people will get this but Fiona is singing the line, "Four sweater vests" over and over. I knew she must have gotten SOMETHING from me.

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.-P. J. O'Rourke

Do you remember back in the day when you wanted to have a copy of a movie to watch at home and your only option was to record it off tv? Yeah you do, good. And do you further remember how back then the only way to record something without the commercials was to run up to the VCR and hit pause at the beginning of the break and then record again when the movie came back on? Okay good.


My Dad wanted to record The Music Man. There's a long and pointless back story as to why The Music Man is a big part of my family history going back for generations but I won't bore you with that part. The problem was The Music Man was airing on PBS...durring a pledge drive.

Do they still have pledge drives? Do I need to explain what a pledge drive is? Hmm, well for those who don't know a pledge drive is when they air a movie that should normally be about 2 hours long over the coarse of about 12 hours and interrupt it every 15 minutes or so to spend half an hour demanding that you send them money.

Do you know how my Dad got around this roadblock? Go ahead and guess, I'll wait. Do do do do do do dooooo(Jeopardy theme)


If you guessed tell 9 year old daughter that you'd "let" her stay up all night to record it you would be correct.

It wasn't until a couple years ago that I thought about it and said, "HEY!". But I still love that movie.

For Michelle

Stuck in my head for days

"This is the man that I plan to entangle isn't he fine?
My claim to fame was to mame and to mangle vengeance was mine".

Buffy was my all time favorite show. I miss it so very much.

Evil Dead the Musical

I'm a fan of Musicals. Yeah I know that's not really considered cool these days but you see pop music sucks so much ass. I also have a deep affection for B-movies. Evil Dead and it's aptly names sequel Evil Dead 2 are excellent examples of the genre (but NOT Army of Darkness it is a world of badness). So after Once More With Feeling (if you get that reference you can be my new best friend) Evil Dead the Musical is probably the best combination you could come up with if you wanted me to watch. It's coming to the Campbell theatre (so appropriate) in Martinez but sadly I probably won't get to see it. I don't think I can talk Dave in to taking me and I don't think I know anyone else who would want to go. If you see it please let me know how it was.

Interesting piece of trivia (if you happen to be a weirdo like me): There was an English musical called Return to the Forbidden Planet that I guess kinda fizzled and didn't make it across the Atlantic to Broadway but it did win the Olivier award which is the British equivalent to a Tony. You know what it was up against & beat? Miss Saigon. My parents found a framed poster for it at an auction and it's hanging in my room. If you've seen it let me know what you thought of that too.

Um if you've seen both maybe we should start hanging out particularly if you got the Once More With Feeling thing. I've got a poster for that one too.

http://espanol.clasificadossanfrancisco.univision.com/Events/evil_dead_the_musical/clasificados/ViewAd?oid=1481352

Hmmm that sounded pompus

Reading over what I wrote yesterday I realized the post about Peter O'Toole started out sounding all pretentious. Lots of people appreciate older movies, music, and books. I meant that few of my friends do and that's not a criticism it's just not their thing. Okay gonna go watch the end of Dream Girls.

Peter O'Toole is freakin cool!

Unlike many of my peers I prefer older movies and/or music. Current pop culture just seems like a wast of time to me. This drives my sisters in law up the wall. Sorry, Britney can kiss my ass give me Bobby Darin or Robert Plant.

This morning I started watching Man of La Mancha and it occurred to me that I just love Peter O'Toole. I mean I knew he was a good actor (8 Oscar nominations & no wins what's up with that?) but I hadn't thought about how many things he's been in that I really enjoyed.

How to Steal a Million is probably one of my favorite movies. Audrey Hepburn is another person who I find to be a great addition to any film. It's a fun movie and just romantic enough to satisfy my occasional need for a chick flick.

The Lion in Winter has an all star cast including the other great Ms. Hepburn (Katherine) and a young Anthony Hopkins. Its a long movie but the story is so well told and the performances are so good that your riveted.

He was the only person in Troy I believed at all. It was a terrible movie which is too bad because there were a lot of great people in it who I normally admired and it was a classic story. It could have been done well but sadly was not. Peter O'Toole however stole every scene he was in.

I recently saw Stardust and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately this film didn't get much buzz so no one saw it. Mr. O'Toole's part in it was small but he was so good that it didn't occur to me that it was him he simply was his character.

High Spirits is probably the only movie Steve Gutenburg ever made that I didn't hate and that's entirely due to Peter O'Toole's performance. (Steve Gutenburg being the Rob Schneider of the 80's)

The man's just got charisma (and some stunning blue eyes). I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Man of La Mancha because I know I'm in for a great performance even if I don't wind up liking the movie itself.

Listening to others

Okay I'm a fan of musicals which is why I recognize what this is from but....

#1 Please stop repeatedly singing 1 line from Memory under your breath

#2 If you must please sing some line other than "Touch me" over & over & over

I don't want to touch you and it's starting to creep me out