I've Got Three Little Lists

Today is a day off from staging. To celebrate I stayed up much too late last night watching most of Memoirs of a Geisha, then the last half hour or so of The Shawshank Redemption. So when I got woken up after 4 hours of sleep by the alarm I had forgotten to turn off, I was in the midst of a remarkable dream. I was on vacation in some sort of state park along the Mississippi. Most of the cast was there with me, and we were all fishing, and wading in the water. I went into some sort of house boat that we were staying in, and once inside I realized it was actually the house where all the geishas from M of a G lived. I was met by several members of the OTSL staff as well as Morgan Freeman, who told me it was not actually my day off, and that I needed to stage them into the Act 1 Finale. So I did. I was in the middle of giving them some notes when the alarm went off.

I am starting to think one day off may not be enough.

I blame Sir Arthur. I always dream about the show I am working on to some extent or another. Sometimes this is not pleasant, as when I directed Turn of the Screw. That show gave me VERY unpleasant dreams. Speaks to the effectiveness of the show, but I didn't get a good night's sleep for weeks--creeping, fluid, dark, abstract anxious dreams filled with formless, nameless dread. Fun stuff.

In this case the tunes are so absurdly catchy I can't get them out of my head, even in my dreams. If a passing truck rouses me, "Here's a Howdy-Do" immediately invades my brain and starts step-dancing it's way up and down my neurons. There's no escaping it. Better than Peter Quint lurking over my shoulder, but still...

So I'm posting three new pictures of the set model as an amuse-bouche for the pictures I'll be able to post next week of the actual set. The first one is what we'll see during the overture. The second is a view of downtown Titipu. The buildings in the background are all based on actual buildings in Tokyo. Below that is Yum-Yum singing "We're very wide awake, the moon and I". Have I mentioned how much I love this set?

I am also posting a few lists. Many people have been asking me about the influences and inspirations for the production. It's hard to narrow it down, because once I start thinking about a show, I tend to see everything around me in terms of how it relates to the show. I love nothing better than finding connections between works of art that seem to have not much in common. For instance, Scrubs is on the list because of the way they use dance on the show. They either show the characters dancing as themselves in situations where they would naturally dance (usually victory dances of the "in-your-face!" sort) or they choreograph elaborate dance scenes that riff on various Broadway/Hollywood dance tropes. I like the first type in particular, because dance is often used in a fairly aggressive or teasing way in The Mikado. (Witness "So Please You Sir We Much Regret" and "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring") The second type is also useful because it does with dance idioms what G&S did with operatic ones--it simultaneously makes fun of the cliches and revels in them. All parody requires a certain love and respect for what it parodies (witness South Park: The Movie, The Producers or any musical parody from The Simpsons, such as "Streetcar!" or "Stop the Planet of the Apes-I Want to Get Off!")

Other items listed had direct influences on the costumes (Fruits in particular) or just on the general sense of humor of the production (Court Jester, Black Adder, etc.) If anyone is interested, I'll get into more specifics of each influence in later postings. I just added a feature that lets me see from where people visit (Hello Singapore! Hello England!) and how many of you there are, so now that I know there are a few hundred of you, feel free to let me know if there are things you'd like me to talk or show photos of. And please leave comments--it's nice to know you're out there.