August 2006: Catalina, Curtains, Cabaret and Casting

Hello again.
I hope your Labor Day Weekend was fun. Here’s a quick look at August 2006 in the Cameron/Utt household.

CATALINA ISLAND
Linda Kirwin, Daryl and I made the trip to Catalina Island to celebrate our June, July and August birthdays, respectively. Linda gets full credit for making this trip happen. Thank you, Linda!

Santa Catalina Island a.k.a. Catalina Island, a.k.a Catalina is one of California’s Channel Islands and sits about 25 miles across the water from Long Beach. We arrived by ferry about 9:00 a.m and were greeted by the usual seaside resort stuff: salt water taffy, fudge, and souvenir shoppes; bikes, kayaks, and golf carts for rent; stores with names like “Buoys and Gulls.” There was an island museum and glass-bottom boat excursions. Some of the cruise ships stop here too, but it wasn‘t crowded the day we went.

Anchoring the harbor is a beautiful building called The Casino which most visitors expect to be filled with slot machines and roulette wheels. The ornate structure has no gambling but instead houses a theater and the world‘s largest circular ballroom. The name comes from the Italian word meaning “place to gather.“ [Sometimes “casino” translates as “whorehouse” too, but no one mentioned that during our visit.] Whatever the meaning, here’s a picture of The Casino. http://www.pbase.com/markwp/image/25047085]

1% of Catalina Island is privately-owned land; 11% is owned by the Santa Catalina company; The remaining 88% is owned by the Santa Catalina Conservancy. We got to experience all three by taking some tours. The first one was a tram tour through the only town on the island, Avalon, which encompasses the square mile of developed land surrounding the harbor. We went by the post office, the golf course, the K-12 school, the pet cemetery, and the gas station. After that, we took a ninety-minute shuttle tour through Conservancy-owned land to the small airport located at the highest point on the island. The views were amazing. The sky and the sea were so blue, it was difficult to tell where one stopped and the other started.

We could’ve easily spent another two days exploring the island and I suspect we will be back one day to do so. In the meantime here a few more facts about the island:

Ÿ The offspring of buffalo imported for a movie shoot back in the 30’s still roam free on the island’s interior.
Ÿ Santa Catalina Island was owned by Chicago’s William Wrigley Jr. and played host to the Cub’s Spring Training for more than twenty years.
Ÿ The restaurant we ate lunch at had no Catalina dressing.

Read more about the island here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_Island

MUSICAL FOOTNOTE
We couldn’t visit a town called Avalon without breaking into song. Daryl was singing the Nat King Cole standard “Avalon” which begins with the line “I found my love in Avalon beside the bay…“ I was humming “Avalon” by Roxy Music and Linda got us singing David Gray’s recent hit “Avalon.”

Our favorite Catalina Island song has to be the 1958 hit by The Four Preps called “26 Miles (Santa Catalina).” Go here and click on Track 2 for a sample:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000008ZG/sr=8-1/qid=1155411935/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5801397-4043222?ie=UTF8

Random fact. “26 Miles” was written by Glen A. Larson, a Prep that went on to create Magnum P.I., Knight Rider and Battlestar Galatica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_A._Larson

NORTON SIMON MUSEUM
Our friend Cynthia invited us to Pasadena to check out the Norton Simon one night after work. While it was still light out, the three of us walked through the sculpture garden before proceeding to the interior galleries which featured works by Picasso, Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Klee, Rembrandt and many more.

Daryl and I had driven by the unassuming exterior of the Norton Simon many times without realizing how large the museum was. After a few hours, they were closing up and we still had the Asian garden and an entire second floor to visit. The three of us plan to return on one of the First Fridays when evening admission is free. In the meantime, highlights from the permanent collection are online at http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/ Thank you, Cynthia!

CURTAINS--A NEW MUSCIAL FROM KANDER & EBB
David Hyde Pierce is a 1950's Boston detective who has to find out who murdered the famous leading lady during the opening night curtain call of "Rob Hood." He locks the entire cast in the theater for questioning and a marathon rehearsal to fix their high-energy cowboy musical. Filled with lots of in-jokes about show business, Curtains was clever almost to the point of cynicism and relied more on spectacle than emotion. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the production and expect it to have a healthy Broadway run, especially since it is the final show from the team that brought us Chicago and Cabaret. http://www.taperahmanson.com/show.asp?id=313

LINDA PURL
Speaking of cabaret, a few days later we went with friends, Shawn, Rob and Diana to see Linda Purl. You might not know her name but you’ll recognize Linda’s face. She played Richie Cunningham’s girlfriend during the first year of Happy Days and then came back during the final season to play Fonzie’s girlfriend. She played Claire on Port Charles and Charlene on Matlock. I knew her from the TV movie Like Normal People in which she and Shaun Cassidy played a mentally challenged couple trying to marry.

Active in theater and TV, and mother to a 10-year-old, Linda Purl somehow finds time to tour as a cabaret singer. She put on a terrific show performing standards like “Come Rain or Come Shine,” show tunes like “Loverly” and a funny medley of novelty country songs she learned from Andy Griffith. She did a song called “Movie of the Week” where she poked fun at some of the woman-in-danger and not-without-my-baby! scenes she’s had to play. It was a high point of the show. http://www.lindapurl.net/

“NEW WORDS”
After the show, Ms. Purl and her husband joined us for dinner where Daryl complimented Linda on the great job she did with "New Words," a strangely-familiar song he couldn't place. No one at the table could remember what musical the song originated from either, so back at home Daryl researched the song on the internet. “New Words” was written by Broadway veteran Maury Yeston and performed in a 1998 show called In The Beginning. As promised, Daryl emailed this info to a grateful Linda Purl.

Unfortunately, Daryl didn’t recognize the show and didn’t see any recordings of “New Words” listed on Amazon. He was stumped as to where he had heard the song until 1:30 a.m., when he picked up his iPod and searched through the 4000+ songs and found “New Words” performed by Christine Ebersole. Our friend Shephard had recorded it off of the Rosie O‘Donnell Show and included it on a mix CD about six years ago. Mystery solved.

BACKGROUND WORK
Although not as impressive as Ms. Purl‘s resume, my TV credits increased this month when I spent three weeks as a TV extra. It’s usually called ‘background’ work because we are basically set dressing added to make the foreground action more believable. The skill and pay level are similar to those at any fast food joint, but you don’t normally bump into Matthew Perry or Gary Sinise during your shift at McDonald’s.

Because I’m over forty, clean-shaven and have my own suit, Central Casting thinks I make a great doctor, lawyer, detective, and senator. Here’s a typical work week:

Ÿ For Monk, I stood in Natalie’s apartment singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” about ten times. Half the extras didn’t know the words.
Ÿ On CSI:NY I was a detective working in the morgue--corpses and all.
Ÿ During The Nine, I got to play the defense attorney in a brief courtroom scene.
Ÿ I taped the sitcom The War at Home in front of a “live studio audience.”
Ÿ For a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial, I spent the graveyard shift at the LA Coliseum sitting in front of a green screen reacting to an imaginary football game.

I worked on a different show every day including 24, House, Ghost Whisperer, What About Brian, Daybreak, Crossing Jordan, Vanished, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Office alongside Keifer Sutherland, Jerry O’Connell, Camryn Mannheim, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Barry Watson, Matthew Davis, Taye Diggs, Timothy Busfield, Melina Kanakaredes, Steve Carell and Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis.

I was cast in fourteen productions, starting with this year’s Emmy winner for best drama 24 and ending with best comedy winner The Office. Nice bookends. [The last two days were spent roaming an office supplies convention and getting in a quick game of “Flonkerton.”]

I’ll be lucky if these fifteen days of background work yield fifteen seconds of airtime. More important to me was seeing the production process and the challenges posed to the writer, producer, set designer, director, actor, sound technician and lighting guy. Even though there is a legitimate decision-making hierarchy, everyone’s role seems equally important.

STAR SIGHTINGS--TEEN CHOICE AWARDS EDITION
As if seeing celebrities at my day job wasn’t enough, Daryl and I got to see lots more at The Teen Choice Awards. Yes, the program was a train wreck, but what else could we expect from a show whose big finish was the premiere of Kevin Federline’s single "Lose Control?" Judging by the audience’s response, he should change the song’s title to "Lose Interest."

The fun part of the evening was just listening to the kids go crazy as people like Reese Witherspoon, David Spade, Tom Welling, Chad Michael Murray and Snoop Dogg took the stage at the Gibson Amphitheater. You cannot imagine the deafening roar following the announcements of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and the cast of High School Musical. If only we could harness that power! If you'd like a list of attendees and winners go here: http://www.fox.com/teenchoice

NEXT MONTH
The heat returned over the last two weeks with temperatures in the 100‘s in the San Fernando Valley. With luck, September will bring back the cooler temperatures we enjoyed so much last year.

Until next month,
James & Daryl