April 20, 2005
As you can probably tell, when family is in town, the blog suffers. But when they're gone, I suffer. I saw Sasha and Dexter off this morning at the airport and was not prepared for the empty sadness that would follow. I was a wreck for most of the day. There just wasn't enough time for us. Even with the show up and running now, daytime hours are still interrupted by cleanup rehearsals or matinee performances. So our time was limited, to say the least. but I did get a day off on Monday, and we managed to get in a little sightseeing and some chill time, too.
Sasha was able to catch the show a couple of times, and also hit it off with Will's wife Lori, who's here for the duration along with their two daughters, who are around Dexter's age. Lori is a comedienne and a bunch of us caught her act Monday night at the Punch Line. She was damn funny.
Bill and Marsha caught the last preview of the show on Sunday afternoon and were privileged to be seated very close to Yoko Ono herself, who had come into town a few days before opening night. Ono was extremely pleased with the show in its complete form (she had previously seen a stripped-down rehearsal in New York) and all of us got a hug from her that day.
Sasha was my official date for opening night on Tuesday, and we sat together in hid-house near the front. It was my first time to sit in the middle of a packed house for the full audience experience of Lennon, and we both had a great time. Opening night is largely reserved for family, friends and other VIPs, but in a theatre as large as the Orpheum, there was plenty of room for the general public as well. They all seemed to really enjoy the night, and everyone onstage was a hundred percent tweaked. After the performance we boarded buses and went to the after party at the Great American Music Hall just a few blocks away. There was the usual publicity stuff - interviews upstairs with Don, the opening cast, and Yoko, and even Yoko's legendary daughter Kyoko showed up to help celebrate! After the interviews and photo ops the entourage headed downstairs for a bit of dancing, and everything loosened up from there. Being a Tuesday night, however, the party thinned out early. Fine with us. The cast had a matinee to rest up for, we had a kid to retrieve and a flight to make in the morning.
I've now become well versed on the customs of opening night within the company, as my dressing room became flooded with cards, flowers, wine and other assorted goodies from members of the staff and cast. Being a newcomer, I was a little ashamed that I had nothing to pass out myself, but I have two more openings in which to find redemption.