Unfinished Business

Ta-da. More about the pic later...

As I suspected, today was spent making sure that the County Grant made it safely out of the office and into the eager hands of the County Clerk by 5 pm. The cut-off time. Of course, I could have just taken it to the Post Office and had it postmarked by 5, but then I would have missed out on the fun of going dow to the County Administration Building. It has a very "public works" feeling about it and it is right on the bay. So I don't mind driving down to see the sun on the water and the boats in the bay. Ah San Diego.

So since that was the case I decided I would do a little catch-up today and tomorrow.

As had been stated, we had a nice little gig with the San Diego Symphony. The above picture shows all the dancers posing with Marvin Hamlish at the opening of the Winter Pops. Everyone at Symphony Hall was wonderful to work with and it was great to see some of the "old guard" who I have known since I used to dance in summer musicals.

Two fun stories about the event. Well, at least I hope they are fun enough to keep you reading.

The first is really more of a personal note. A Chorus Line was the first record that I bought with my own money. It was perhaps my greatest misfortune that Marvin wrote the part of Paul for a tenor rather than a lyric baritone. Regardless, it was a very important piece in my life as A Chorus Line opened on Broadway shortly after I became interested in dance. And many of my friends went on to perform in the Broadway show. So when we had the public orchestra rehearsal and Mr. Hamlish asked me if the tempo for "One" was okay with me, I just had to laugh. In the first place, I had heard the song so many times that teh tempo was ingrained. In the second, it's HIS song. I understand that he was just being accommodating, but just imagine Frank Sinatra asking if he should sing My Way differently.

The second thing was the dancers. Although I knew that I had told them that Marvin was conducting, it hadn't quite made a connection. While this could partialy be attributed to their costumes... they were having so much fun that they were taking picture after picture in every conceivable combination. Gold satin, rhinestones andsequins does that to one I guess. But it also had to do with the age and nationality of many of the dancers. While they had all HEARD the music before, whether in a show or at the dancing waters of the Bellagio, dancers from Japan, Hungary, and Kazakstan didn't quite put two and two together when I was talking about "Marvin" and "A Chorus Line." The same was true for some of the younger American dancers. It wasn't until opening night when it dawned on them that the conductor was the same guy who wrote the piece of music that they had been listending to for years. I guess it was somewhere around the time when I told them how lucky they were, because most casts of A Chorus Line didn't perform to the composer conducting his own song with a SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA.

That made up a bit for the verrrrrry narrow stage. :)

Tomorrow a quick note about the Nutcracker Tour and then onto SONNETS!!!