Hentzau's Farewell Tour 2018!!!

[hentzau]

Yep, it's time for me to retire.

From the stage. Not work. Jeez. I'll be doing this shit for another 15 years probably.

Anyway. Time and life have conspired to bring me to a point where I'm ready to retire from doing musicals. Lead roles for 50-something dudes are few and far between, and I've taken over Scoutmaster duties for my son's troop, so that is going to chew up any kind of free time I may have had for rehearsals. But right at the time that I had mentally made up my mind to stop auditioning for shows, I was contacted by two different groups asking me to be in shows for them this summer. And not just shows, two of my favorite shows. So, in a sudden gust of insanity, I said "Sure. I can do this. Two last shows."

Show the first: The Music Man. I did this show with most of this cast 3 years ago, then reprised the show a year later at a little dinner theater in a state park. I absolutely love this show, and I love singing in the Barbershop Quartet. The director contacted the quartet first, asking if we could do the show again this summer, and we all jumped on it immediately. Such a great cast, such a great show...one of the best shows I've ever been in. And it's recent enough re-learning has been pretty durn easy.

We're going to be doing the show out at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL, July 13-15. Tickets are available here.

Show the second: Like about 2 hours after I accepted the job to do The Music Man (paying gig, BTW! Bonus!) I was contacted by a good friend that I made doing shows,Tony. He asked if I would be up for doing Forever Plaid again this summer (another paying gig! Woo!) Now, Plaid is my all-time favorite show, and I have such good memories doing this show with these guys...he was getting the original quartet back together. The first time we did Plaid was back in 2008, then a follow up show in 2009 at the previously mentioned dinner theater at the state park. It's those shows at the state park that I have the best memories of, because it's a very small venue (like 150 seats), perfect for Plaid, and they put us up in a really nice cabin overnight. So we get up, eat breakfast, hang out at the cabin, go do the show, done by 3, back at the cabin drinking and eating and playing games and laughing until we were crying. Some of the best times of my life were performing this show at this venue.

The biggest problems with Plaid: 1) it's been 10 years since most of us had done it, so it's going to be a big learning curve. 2) the show opens a week and a half after Music Man closes, so I am out of pocket for most of the rehearsals. 3) Quite honestly, we're all too old to be doing this show. But it's such a good show, and it's so fun, that I couldn't say no. (And after a few rehearsals, yeah. I'm too old for this shit. But, no point in steering now!)

So my final series of shows will be Forever Plaid out at White Pines Lodge July 25, 26 and August 7, 8, and 9.

Know it's a long shot that any of you Chicago area peeps could make it, but I guarantee you a great time if you can!

[Jeff V]

I looked up Mount Morris on Google Maps and the pin sits in a vacant area captioned "There be monsters." I'm on the west edge of the known universe, and this place is apparently 1.5 hours further west than that!

I can't believe you're retiring. I thought you were going play Peter Pan once my daughter is old enough to appreciate you flying around in green tights?

Music Man might not be unpossible. St. Chuck is close and my wife is actually off that weekend. I'll ask her tonight.

[Kraken]

Like about 2 hours after I accepted the job to do The Music Man (paying gig, BTW! Bonus!) I was contacted by a good friend that I made doing shows,Tony. He asked if I would be up for doing Forever Plaid again this summer (another paying gig! Woo!)

Well, you can hardly refuse if there's a Tony in it right up front.

[Jeff V]

Looks like wife and I will go on 7/13. It's been many years since I've been at Pheasant Run...is the front row below the stage in a manner that obstructs the view? There are seats front and center open and my legs would likely appreciate it, but if I'm going to be eye level with the orchestra pit, that means I'll be looking up your skirt...

[hentzau]

Looks like wife and I will go on 7/13. It's been many years since I've been at Pheasant Run...is the front row below the stage in a manner that obstructs the view? There are seats front and center open and my legs would likely appreciate it, but if I'm going to be eye level with the orchestra pit, that means I'll be looking up your skirt...

I've never actually been in the theater before, so I have no clue how high the stage is.

And no orchestra...we're going to be using tracks (which will be exciting.)

[Jeff V]

The last time I was there, I saw Gallagher, so that was reason enough not to sit too close. I guess I'll get something further back then because I seem to recall there being no pit but a rather high stage (it was a long time ago, and it was NYE and for other reasons I've spent more than 20 years purging memories of that evening).

[Jeff V]

Ok Hentzau, we are here, front and center. You better not suck because you know what else is going on here? A pole dancing competition, that's what!

[hentzau]

Well, one down.

[Jeff V]

Fun show (Music Man, not the pole dancing competition/convention which my wife wouldn't let me check out ) Hard to believe you're actually going to retire...your voice was one of the most consistent on stage!

However, you did violate that old show-biz maxim about not appearing stage with a kid. That little boy kind of stole the show!

[hentzau]

Well, River City is behind me now. We had a disastrous Saturday matinee, with tech problems and people dropping lines and just being slow/lagging. Saturday night show we were pretty much perfect, and Sunday was comparable with Friday. I think we were just all pretty much exhausted, what with rehearsals pretty much doing the whole damn show 9 times in 8 days.

And Jeff, that kid was a royal pain in the ass. He may be cute as hell on the stage, but backstage, as annoying as a mosquito in your bedroom that you can't swat.

I have tonight off, and then I start up rehearsals for Forever Plaid. Those of you that are into prayer, I could use a few spare ones sent our way...we're going to have 5 rehearsals before we open this puppy.

[Zarathud]

Best wishes. No kid, so that's an improvement, right?

Wish we could see your last show.

[hentzau]

Well, four rehearsals away from our Forever Plaid opening, and we are is SUCH bad shape it's scary.

[Jeff V]

You know who could distract the audience? The kid, that's who.

[hentzau]

First performance of Forever Plaid down. It wasn't great. I'm going to be somewhat petty here and blame the guy that we brought in that didn't know the show. He had the script for months, and a video of the performance, but never got around to actually learning anything until about a week and a half ago. And our pianist is kind of...well, odd. He's decent, but not precise. And the audience never really warmed up to us...we usually have great audiences for Plaid, but this one was asleep through the first half of the show.

Anyway. Glad we got the first one done. Hopefully the new guy studies his lines a bit more tonight. Well, now it's music more than lines. Onward and upward.

[hentzau]

Second performance was worse than the first.

I mean, it was the worst performance I have ever been a part of. Our problem actor, Mark, decided he wasn't going to spend the night out at the resort, so he went home after our first performance, and I'm sure did not study at all, thinking he had it down pat. Then morning of the performance he texts us and says he would be at the resort at noon (performance at 1) so we had no time to run/review anything.

There are so many things that happened wrong in this production, I can't even begin to lay them all out. But I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Mark. He has the opening monologue, and he fumbled it after about the 3rd line. Stammered, deer in headlights, dumped about 10 lines out of the monologue. Caught us all off guard, screwed up our next lines. OK, buckle up boys, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

So from that moment in the production, we all start watching out for him, knowing he's going to be dropping lines, and because we are concentrating so much on what HE should be doing, we start screwing up. And then we started having tech problems, one of the lavaliere mics started shorting out, and that messed us up as well, because it was one more distraction. Then there was the pianist. He kept getting lost, and just stopped playing.

Mark didn't even know all of the words to his solo numbers!!!

To be honest, there were a few fun moments in the production. Calypso Plaid and The Ed Sullivan Show got great laughs from the audience. And the audience was a good audience, they seemed to enjoy the show.

But after the show, our new guy came up to us and said "Well, I thought that went pretty well, didn't you?" I thought Tony was going to kill him. He said "I'm sorry, but in my 35 years of performing, that was the worst show I have ever been in" and walked away. So we packed up our stuff, and Mark retreated pretty quickly from the resort, along with the pianist. Tony, Scott and I found a bar and had a good old fashioned bitch fest.

Unfortunately, we have no options. We can't fire the guy, we can't get anyone to replace him in a week. Tony called him up and had a come to Jesus meeting with him, and he's assured us he will know all of his stuff next week. I have my doubts.

[Kraken]

On the plus side, this should validate your decision to retire.

[hentzau]

Final AAR.

Our final week of shows went well. We had a come to Jesus meeting with Mark, and there may have been a drunken text sent to Mark bitching him out for making us look bad. Anyway, he had everything down and memorized by our first performance, and we finally started having fun. Our Wednesday performance was by far our best (which I was happy for, because I had several friends that made the trip out to see the show.) Our final show on Thursday we were all tired, and vocally it was probably one of our weaker shows, but still it all went well.

Overall, glad I did it again...I don't get to hang out with Tony and Scott nearly enough, and I really enjoy spending time with them, so being able to do the show again let me reconnect with them. My character has a line in the show "Well, I guess it's like what Thomas Wolf said, 'You can't go back to your house again.'" Kind of fitting for trying to recapture what we did 10 years ago.