Quiet day today. Had a lot of people at the show, more traffic again but things went well and smoothly. Kimmie said Taylor was feeling ill backstage during intermission but looks like he went on again at the end anyway (thankfully he's only in a few scenes at the end not doing too much). Steve turned on the lights for me early circa 10:30, asked how he was doing and he said he was moving around a little more today but still didn't have much appetite.

The one funny quote today: Kimmie onstage with drinks saying "I'm taking drink orders, does anybody want anything?" and Omar saying, "hair gel, please."

I did talk to Jean (costumes) about auditioning at Woodland pre-show, as she saw my comment to Scott about auditioning on FB and was all "yeah, now he knows what they're like there," and grumbled that these people take a long time to make their decisions "and they take who they want to take" and meanwhile other people might want to move onto other shows and right now nobody knows what's going on. I said it sounded yesterday like the people who got the role have been told, at least, but that means everyone else is waiting around indefinitely while they audition more men, assuming they find more dancing ones.

I told her I'm not really into that theater* and was pretty much just doing it because I preferred Young Frankenstein to Pirates of Penzance, and she agreed with me that it's stupid, but sometimes some people like stupid. She doesn't think it'll be a big seller either. Then the conversation moved on to people with unusual names (I gather Montana's siblings are also named after states, which led to "is that where they got conceived?!" theory) and how people will show her their AA tokens while she's manning the bar. I'm not sure why people do that, but good for them?

* I dunno, I just get kind of an...oogy? feeling about the idea of performing there, even though obviously my theater friends who have done it there seem to have had a good time. I have no idea why it feels oogy for me when others are fine, but....y'know, it's fine that I'll never get in. Won't have to find out why the oogh.

It was nice to be distracted from being me for several hours while there. I didn't like having to go back home to my own thoughts for the rest of the night.

Things I'm wondering about Cabaret, 1966 version (or at least the one we're doing), especially after reading Wikipedia:

* It seems to have left out some songs, like "Mein Herr." Where did those go? I didn't see them in the script, which for obvious reasons I've read a lot, and they weren't in the index, but maybe I should flip through the sheet music in the back to check? (Note: "Maybe This Time" is a later addition to the show, so it's not in this, sight.)

* Why is it set in 1930 (note: explicitly spelled out on New Year's Eve from the emcee's old-man costume that it was 1929) and not 1933? From all my reading, it sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_power 1933 is when everything went to shit. Cliff is incredibly psychic to look at how things are going in spring 1930 and go, "Oh FUCK THIS, WE GOTTA BUG OUT TOMORROW," whereas it sounds like the original author of all of this stuff realized he had to bug out in April 1933. I have combed through Wikipedia and frankly it sounds the Creeping Sense of Doom should not have been going off in 1930 or even 1931. 1932 and especially 1933 is when everything goes kaboombah.

* I am relieved to read on Wikipedia that fictional Sally Bowles left Berlin right as things went to shit and fled to Rome, because I have seriously thought, "You think she ends up boinking Nazis? If she's THAT apolitical?"

* Apparently cabaret performers (even if they weren't gay/Jewish) were thrown into concentration camps. I had thought that sounded kinda much in other version of the show I've heard of--especially since this show seems to indicate that the Kit Kat Klub non-emcee performers will happily goose step out of a kickline or sing along to "Tomorrow Belongs To Me," so I was all "um...I guess they're gonna be Nazis, then?" I note that due to the small number of people in this show, the people busting out into this song are the Kit Kat Klub dancers and patrons that Sally invited to the engagement party. Maybe that's just a subtext in this particular show. At any rate, it plays into my musical theater theory that "sooner or later, everybody plays a Nazi" because of The Producers/Cabaret/Sound of Music. (Omar agreed with this.)

Still dragging through the dregs that are the Hallmark Mysteries channel movies this year:

Long Lost Christmas: So this designer chick lost her dad and her mother mentions having some long-lost uncle somewhere. Hayley goes to visit the guy who she thinks is the long lost uncle under business pretense, but the guy haaaaaaaates to talk about personal shit and getting any personal details out of him is like pulling teeth. An hour in, the guy finally says he doesn't have any siblings and Hayley bursts into tears. Finally Hayley gets up the nerve to tell Gordon, "I had this crazy idea that you were..." and Gordon immediately keels over. SO THAT WENT WELL. Turns out he just passed out from low blood pressure, another fakeout I saw previously on A Fabled Christmas.

Anyway, she gets all snitty after he mentions doing fundraising for "Braithwaite," and she's all "I'm Patricia's daughter, the sister you abandoned at Braithwaite!" and he's all, "YOU LIED!" and she's all "YOU LIED!" and I'm all, wtf is this movie. Finally he admits he had a sister and she stomps home in a huff to go make more videos for the 'gram or whatever with all the heart emojis going off the sides, because I guess that's how a designer works these days.

Gordon finally shows up and says he was unable to take care of an 11-year-old once he was out of foster care (I guess that's what they were in) and he went into the military per a judge's order rather than prison. This is sounding like My Southern Family Christmas now when he goes on about how he looked her up and she'd been adopted. He even has an old stash of unsent letters in a box like that movie did.

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