Today was “suck it up and run the show” day, and we got to the double-bar with no casualties. My resolution to accept the piano on its own terms got me through Act I, but it began to crumble the moment Act II started. One of my problems is that I have no time to fix any phrases that start to be problematic. It’s not unusual for something that I had securely in my hands a month ago to fall apart in rehearsal. But I haven’t had a moment alone at the piano since we began, so I am having a sweet little meltdown about playing the show. 

Physician: heal thyself! I have a plan for this. 

Katherine and I were like chiropractors today, clicking the skeleton of the show back into place vertebra by vertebra. Moments that the singers had aced yesterday or the day before were once again out of joint, and called for some tough love. Adriana, for example, excels in broad lines, and she can wail with equal beauty and abandon in any part of her wide vocal span. It’s all there…but she still needs someone to tell her how to use that magnificent instrument to its greatest effect. To wit: she got to the end of the Sondheim piece, “The Glamorous Life,” breathed (as planned) for the last note, sustained it…and crapped out before I was done with the playout. My inner Show Queen sprang into violent action. 

“Oh sweetheart, you gotta sustain that note to the END! You don’t WALK AWAY from the climax—GRAB the audience by the [expletive deleted], and PLOW them between the eyes with your voice! SELL THE ENDING!” She did it, and of course it was thrilling beyond belief. I couldn’t believe I had to tell this to her, but that is, after all, why we’re here. 

And it’s surprising how a small detail can make the difference between the ho-hum and the magical. Adriana can do anything in her upper register. It’s so easy for her, in fact, that she can waltz right past the money moments in the Puccini aria. Blazing, resonant, sustained high C? No problem. Pianissimo high B-flat in the very next phrase? No sweat. But as Pavarotti pointed out, it’s best when it’s easy for you but the audience thinks it’s hard. I asked her to slow down the portamento—the vocal slide—between the lower note, a G, and the upper one, the B-flat. She tried it. “No, slower! You’ll feel like you’re dragging the voice, but you’re not. You’re just teasing us.” And there it was, the exact same B-flat, but this time everyone in the room was motionless as they listened. 

Scott is a divinely inspired performer. I don’t know what drugs he puts in his coffee or what incense he burns at home, but he has the capacity to do something so utterly original that it takes your breath away. And his sound can be sweet as honey. But there’s a price for that imaginative freedom: Scott is also somewhat unpredictable, a bit hard to routine, hard to discipline.

Katherine has been on Scott’s case for singing with his eyes closed. When you’re singing your heart out, it’s a temptation to revel in the feelings and the sheer joy of making music, but if indulged in too often it begins to shut the audience out. This hasn’t bothered me in rehearsal because I am off to the side and I simply don’t see it. I am swept away by all the things I love about Scott’s singing, while occasionally dumbfounded by the linguistic and musical slips that I’ve corrected a zillion times. (I call them beet stains, the kind of errors that no amount of reminders seems to remove from the fabric of the performance.)

Today Katherine got to the bottom of Scott’s propensity to close his eyes: he was rehearsing without his glasses and he is quite nearsighted, so when Katherine was asking him to keep his visual focus high, he could not actually see where she wanted him to be looking. Since the world is a blur to him, it feels natural to block it out. Having analyzed the problem, I hope we have finally ironed it out. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Philip is the person in the room I have known longest, and it has been lovely to welcome him back to Orient. He hasn’t been here since 2016, when he came for one night to see his friend in that year’s concert. He’s been a strong scene partner and a fine balladeer in his solo songs, but on Thursday it became obvious that he was having a severe allergic reaction to something in the atmosphere. By the end of rehearsal, he was running out of voice, and today he had to take it very easy, singing at less than half voice for the whole run. He gave a sterling performance and was generous to his colleagues, but I knew he was frustrated that he couldn’t sing. He has now changed his digs—he was in a lovely little cabin that was unfortunately prone to Creeping Orient Mould—and we’re all hoping that between the meds and the change of environment his throat comes to its senses and decides to phonate normally. 

Dress rehearsal at three. It feels odd to put on a tie in this little town, especially since I am still wearing one shoe and one sandal. I am waiting for Vogue Magazine to pick up on this.