In the meantime, the work on the "Conversations in a Cafe" project for October continues rapidly. I am in the middle of a number of searches for proper licensing techniques in order to use certain popular songs as part of the soundtrack, legally. This is a one-time production; the venue doesn't have any kind of musical license (nor does it need one); and the use of a recording in a performing-arts environment falls into a kinky area of music licensing anyway. The easiest ones, I have found, have one performer, the same writer and one publisher. Get much beyond that, and boy howdy, does it get complex.
The soundtrack I had in my head at the beginning, back in 2006, is going to change somewhat, both for simplicity and for financial reasons. I originally had 11 songs I wanted to use, but if you have to pay upwards of $70 per song to use 'em, well, public domain songs sound better and better.
Then we're starting discussions about set, set pieces, furniture, lighting, window designs, and of course, casting. A lot to think about, but oddly enough, we open in nine months, and that doesn't sound like a long time away any more. I actually ordered the first piece of the prop furniture yesterday.
I'd quote a Steve Miller song about time keeping ticking, ticking ... but they'd probably want a fee to quote it. So let's just say I'm trying to keep up with show prep along with everything else.
But we have filled in a lot of blanks in terms of casting the show, and with each commitment (well, tentative commitment - we'll ask for firm commitments on July 1), I get a little more excited about the show being something special. Most of the time, I'm glad we made this decision to jump off the cliff. And as I told someone the other day, we'll see how we feel about that when the run ends!
