I am not going to share some of the fun personal back and fourth he and I had, I have to save something for my grandkids, but I will continue to share interesting stories he told me:
Hi, Angie,
I’m glad you felt good about your work last night. Oh, I hate peforming for a house of critics… they come there to JUDGE, which is frankly, even if they mean well, not the warmest house.
When I did “Laughing Wild” in LA in a small space (99 seats), the director chose not to tell me when the critcs were coming (they came a day or so before the time I thought they were coming, and all at once). We’d been running about a week, and I’d gotten used to a whole series of laughs in the first 3 minutes… literally, about 7 or 8 good laughs.
This one night I got NOTHING on the first 7; and then a chuckle maybe on the 8th. And then sporadic laughter (that improved some) as we went on.
But it was so different, I had a period of turning on the audience inside my head (not a good thing to do, but hard to stop if it happens automatically), I thought “what’s the matter with them?” Then I let go after a few minutes, and just did my best and stopped hating them. But later when I heard it was like 50 critics in a 99 seat house, I got it entirely!. Wow, what a difference. (We got mostly good reviews, oddly… or rather showing that critics can sometimes like something even though they’re not responding but are analyzing, thinking, planning wha tthey can say…)
You wrote: “Thank god we had time to add the caged mimes doing the interpretive dance of the show above the action. It is very tasteful when they pee on the audience, you would really love it.” I laughed and laughed. What a wonderful, inventive way to ruin a play… great idea! The caged part and the above the audience part really makes it perfect.
Hope you have a fun house tonight. I’m glad if my pep talk was helpful… I’ve had to give those to myself… best, Chris D