L'esprit de l'escalier

So, this show...

Dropped out of the blue. I auditioned for this theater last year: The Buddy Holly Story. Totally looked the part but my singing looked less than authentic. Learned a valuable lesson: Bring sheet music. Never do a singing audition a cappella. It don't work.

Dropped it from my memory. Said they'd keep my info on file. When do they ever dip into that pool again? Never in my history. You can imagine my shock when they called. Callbacks for this show I never heard of. Thought I misheard the message, but no.

...

Y'know, I don't want to write this anymore. The story's been stuck in my head for days, the title affixed itself to me weeks ago. I sit to write this to finish it and I just get pissed off at the screen. It's not coming out spontaneously enough. I have to hunt for words, and when I do that I lose time. So forget it. I'm not gonna beat a dead horse.

I know I'm lucky. But not completely. The opportunity and I met each other halfway. Partly my ability, partly my availability. Yeah I got the chops to give the part justice, but I also was one of two guys young enough to fit the role who have nothing better to do for the next month. All I had to do was show up.

The show's got a lot of work to go through if we want it up in two weeks. The script's still relatively amorphous. It's an exploration of cabaret music through the past century. Each vignette is a diorama of underground clubs, smoky sirens, and the menagerie of patrons separated by the zeitgeist of decade and country. Sounds good, but it remains a work in progress. The decisions we make one night never stay concrete to the next. My best work's based in improv, so I can roll with the punches. My problem is: How serious do we want to make this? Time's of the essence. Everyone's talking "backstory", "throughline", "relationship", which is good and right and professional and so forth, but nothing gets hammered into shape. I'll just take a character, make some choices, and do my thing. It's called a "play", so let's play. Why throw so much labor into it?

We do have a name actor for the show. Lisa Zane. Heard of her? You probably know the last name. Good locally-born talent. I was delighted just to know her from her connections, but I got more impressed once I checked her out here. And here. And here. Gorgeous. I's impressed. Hell, if this show becomes a movie I might just have a smaller Bacon number.

That's all I really wanted to get out. No doubt I'll think of the right way to say things later.