Silent Dream of a Scale Model Set Design

“All the World’s a Stage,

so 

Hold On to Your Dreams”

~~~

Today I wrote in my journal about the items on my bucket list!

Such as:

Published a memoir,

Made a CD of Piano Solos

Made a CD of Jazz & Gin

~ ~ ~

Which two are left?

First: I want a scale model of

the set design I sketched for

my musical: Silent Dreams.

It’s set in 1955 near Greenwich Village, 

a brownstone boarding house and a “coffee house” across the street.

A park bench, d.l.

The lights of Broadway in the distance.

I wish knew how to insert the Overture

so you could hear it!

~ ~ ~~

Back Story

Back in 1978,

I did a set design for

A Member of the Wedding.

 Our community theater

The Town and Gown Players

was down to $400

to produce our spring show

A Member of the Wedding.

Our Artistic Director, 

Fritz Nementz Kelly

said we had no set design,

so I decided to give it a try.

I’d taken Set Design in the 

Drama Department of

The University of Georgia.

I wanted the set to look like an old kitchen with kitchen chairs and running water

and a screen door to the outside

 for a bench near the grape arbor scene.

I borrowed two junipers and 

eight gumpo azalea plants

from Cofer’s Garden Center

to use for a “real” hedge.

I even cut down a long pine branch

from behind my house,

dragged it to the carport

 and shoved it into the trunk of my 

little red Pinto Station Wagon.

Two crew members “flew” it

 from the grids.

 The wonderful unexpected feature

 was that suspended like that

 it would “sway” a bit when the actors walked by.

I'm so grateful that someone took a photo.

A couple of years ago I found the old play review.

T & G Evokes South in McCullers Play

Athens Banner Herald May 11, 1978 

Reviewed by Staff Writer Cecil Bentley

I thought I was having a dream for a minute.

There, on stage, was a simple bare kitchen. Three wooden chairs that didn’t match were shoved haphazardly under a nondescript table, a pack of Fig Newtons lay open on top of the old ice box, a pine branch rubbed against the kitchen window, and a sink of half-washed dishes sat next to the screen door leading to the shady back yard.

It could easily have been a mirage, lingering with the lost thoughts of the first kitchen I remember bumping a shin in, snapping beans, having a glass of milk and asking my mother a million questions as she prepared supper.

But it wasn’t.

Carson McCullers vision of a kitchen in a small Georgia town during the late 1940s is beautifully brought to life in this Southern play focusing on the loneliness and insecurities of adolescence . . . Chip McDaniel’s set decoration evokes the time perfectly and deserves applause as well as the actors and the director, Mary (Fritz) Kelley.

——

Even though my musical,

 Silent Dreams, 

has never been produced, 

it’s alive in my head

because of the Set Design.

I want to see a scale model.

Maybe I can videotape it and

narrate the plot.

That’s on my bucket list.

Can you help me?

~ ~ ~

Second on the Bucket List

Publish a Poetic Diary 

entitled

Only the Stars Are Immortal

~ ~ ~

scroll down for more

 creative posts

Diary of A Latter Day Eccentric

Dear Diary,
You are my best friend.

I can tell you everything.

I can even sketch a book I might

actually write one day.

~ ~ ~

I stay home a lot these days,
weather, age, being alone.

looking at the snow out 
my bedroom window.

But I can always write to you, and tell
you about how cold it is . . .

and put flowers in the bedroom

I can draw my own vase of flowers

   and color them any way I like.

 I can draw a rainbow
and a
a magic eye in the sky! 

and the pot of
soup I almost burned!!

Oh, yes, I am now making
up Monk Soup.
It's a Lazy Girl's Diet
(A Latter Day Eccentric's Soup)

Just throw in anything

Be creative! - Be eccentric! - Slumgullion

I eat on it all week

like a monk

For breakfast, I ladle in soup

add extra sunflower and pumpkin seeds

for fiber . . . then crack an egg

and cover till done.

Sometimes I add olives

Or go crazy to lighten up my day!

 serve up in a cup

 

or spread toasted seeded bread

with mustard and raw onions

Oh, Yes!  A Retro Breakfast

from a Latter Day Eccentric.

Being eccentric means 
being creative.
I made a video out of the
monk soup photos
added music I composed
Jobim Beguine

(silk art design I made and photographed for album cover)

 ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Diary,

I always wanted to be in

the movies!

And now I can lie in bed

and make movies on my lap top.

Even make up a new production LOGO -- SuperCrone

CLICK HERE FOR MUSIC VIDEO

~ ~ ~ ~

Hey! What would be Your Perfect Day??

Scroll down for 

My Perfect Day Description

DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DAY

Have you ever done the Perfect Day Exercise?

Here's the prompt:

On a magical day,

you can live it exactly as in a dream

or a movie.

Choose where would you be.

Describe your surroundings.

Choose what activity you'd be doing.

Who would you be with?

Maybe friends, family, or alone

on a beach?

Write it like it's scenes from

a movie entitled

MY PERFECT DAY

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MY PERFECT DAY BEGINS . . .

Scene 1)  An alarm goes off in the Times Square Marriott Hotel.

It’s 4:00 a.m.

A limousine is picking me up at 5:00 to take me to 30 Rockefeller Plaza for my brief appearance on the Today Show to talk about my two books Girdled and Gloved:From Radio to YouTube and All Poems Considered, and the upcoming Silent Dreams: The Musical I composed. 

Cindy, my personal assistant is brewing coffee in the small dinette area.

The familiar aroma of coffee smells wonderful.

“Bagels or muffins?” she asks.

A banana nut muffin,” I say, “and a little butter and cream cheese, and orange juice. 

I’m all dressed and Cindy has taken care of styling my hair — she’s great at using the right amount of mousse and hairspray.

Scene 2) The limosine driver holds open the door. I exit in a stunning black and white outfit with patterned leggings, boots, and silk tunic top made especially for me by Margaret Agner.
It’s called Black Orchid and is in shades of black, white and gray.

We stare at the beautiful golden statue in Rockefeller Plaza.
The Today Show studio is just inside on the first floor with windows looking out onto 7th Avenue.

In the Green Room there’s a bouquet of flowers and Savannah Guthrie whisks in and says, “Hello, glad you’re here, I’ll be back in a little while.” 

The interview is hot under the lights and is all it needs to be.
They’re more interested in who’s been cast in the musical.
I don’t think anyone has read either book.

Scene 3. After the Today show we take a taxi to meet with a rental agent for the small apartment I will sublet for six months in a modest section near Union Square. 

I’ve always wanted to live in New York and now that my musical, Silent Dreams is in rehearsals Off Broadway, I want to be available.
There’s a desk clerk who watches the entranceway.
No elevator, but I have a first floor sublet,
$1,850/month -- all I can afford for now.

(Reader: In my Perfect Day, I have to use Practical Magic, things that could happen. I cannot wish for a Million Bucks, but you can on your Perfect Day!)

Back to that small apartment I'm renting:
It has twin beds a tiny bathroom and kitchenette.
I frown, a little worried.
“Hey, it’ll be like college,” says Cindy. “We’ll get along fine.”

I could not do any of this alone.

Scene 4) Lunch is at the Russian Tea Room: While we wait, Cindy answers a dozen emails.
She knows me better than I know myself, and is good at P.R.

She shows me an e-photo of the garden and driveway on my house back in Athens, Ga., part of the renovation the Athens Restoration Crew is making.

“And we’ve made an offer for that home on Meadowview Dr. you said you always wanted.” reports Cindy. 

After 2 Bloody Mary’s, clams casino and a salad, Cindy pays the bill and puts it on the special “Show Business” account.
Cindy was an accountant for R.E.M. earlier.

Scene 5) We take a taxi back to the hotel where I rest for an hour and then we take a cab to MOMA.
Yesterday we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tomorrow, the Guggenheim.

Scene 6) After MOMA I rest again and we take a cab to the Roundabout Theater on W. 46th., where a small choral ensemble is rehearsing, “Hold On To Your Dreams!” just as we open the door.

Then the band plays the Overture I composed!!
So thrilling hearing this little Broadway band playing it just as I recorded it fifteen years ago.

We sit quietly in the back and just watch and listen.
I don’t want to be disruptive.
The director Anna Westfeld comes on stage with John Leguizamo who plays Leonard and Angela Lansbury as Vera Marlowe, (a character in the musical who played piano in the Silent Movies), and Gale Harold as Emil the waiter.
I hold my breath with this unexpected joy.

“Let’s take it from your entrance Miss Lansbury, with the new blocking,” says Anna. 

“Places.”
The stage is bare as no stairs have been built for the brownstone boarding house Miss Lansbury will descend from for her lovely entrance.
I hope the audience will applaud when they first see her. 

Now they’re reading from the script - My script - My words — I don’t know if I can stand it.

(Scene 7) As we leave the little theater for our next appointment, an elderly man who’s been sitting in the back of the theater follows us to the lobby- 
He says he’s the grandfather of Jonah, one of the musicians and says, “I read about you - I read your book — I had this mysterious feeling when I first saw you.
 - A message came to me at that moment which said, "You must tell her that she will continue to be healthy and live to be a 100 or more, and see all her dreams come true.”

Scene 8) We go back to the Marriott.
Cindy gives me a massage.
(Cindy is also a registered Massage Therapist).
Then I take a long Epsom salts bath in the jacuzzi tub, and sip a pina colata.

While soaking, and sipping, I hear Cindy negotiating with movie director,
Todd Haines’ agent about a screen play and/or buying the rights for my book.

Next, I get a text from my son, a guitarist in a group  The Reluctant Crows.
He’s excited that they’re to be featured in a popular Austin, Texas venue.
I’m thrilled.

Then Cindy’s on the phone with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Director who has choral arrangements for three of my songs to add to their next secular concert:  Hold On to Your Dreams, I Am the Music, and The Great Circle of Love.

I change into a white outfit, white faux leather leggings, a long-sleeved silky white pullover and a pinkish chiffon tunic, low heeled white patent boots, and my Judy Garland white hat.

Scene 9) Just before dinner at Sardi’s we swing by The St. Luke’s Theater on 46th St., to pick up their manager to discuss plans for my:

 One Woman Cabaret Show.

“Confessions of a Blue Tomato.”

Cindy is arranging for my piano keyboard and Blue Tomato Band Stand to be shipped to NYC along my 42 vinyl album covers Exhibit.

They will be part of the set for this intimate theater setting which seats only 175.

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a book signing at Brentano’s Bookstore on 5th Avenue.

 Oops It’s Gone!

I’ll be at a Barnes and Noble!

Maybe not,

because

My Perfect Day is Over.

             Stay tuned for the Musical . . .

Now, What's Your Perfect Day?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 Scroll down for more 

exciting posts!

A Woman's Touch

THINKING OF MOTHER'S DAY

Some inspiring poems I heard

during April

National Poetry Month

led me to write:

A WOMEN’S TOUCH

I love the poems that women write.

Poems about white sheets 

drying on a clothes line in the sun.

I can hear the children running

through those starchy white tunnels

squealing with laughter.

All those Mothers, delicate and moist

from earnest scrubbing and finishing touches.

Hands that soothed fevered brows,

or slapped the beJesus

out of a backtalking teenager.

A woman’s touch is a fine art in itself,

deftly turning a page 

in the middle of Polonaise, 

or smooth and sultry, 

a hand sliding down a satin slip,

sleek and soft,

smelling of lavender

or White Gardenia.

Where are those dust-powdery teachers, now?

What were their names?

Mrs. Angel or Mrs. Cotton,

with glasses hanging on a thin chain

a handkerchief tucked in the bosom

of a dark green gabardine dress.

Where is that soft voice 

asking us eight-year-old girls, 

“What is grace?”

“The unmerited gift from God,”

we replied in unison.

Me and Mrs. Armstrong, 

one of those dust-powery teachers

Gordon Street Baptist Church 

Easter Egg Hunt (c. 1941)