Gaslamp Quarter: Fliering with ‘Michael Jackson’

I soon realised when in Edinburgh, doing my one man show a couple of years ago, that one needs some kind of strong visual quirk of costume or trademark, to make one stand out from the crowd and every other precocious performer vying for attention. And let me assure you, at a Fringe Festival, there are plenty of them! Short of donning an oversize animal suit, a la Disney, or walking on four foot stilts or going around sporting a cabbage leaf as a beard… as I witnessed, there is little that springs immediately to mind for a writer!

One is in competition with professionally trained performers who tend to be naturally, larger than life with a voice and presence to match. Whilst I am by no means a shrinking violet, I do have to turn on the more extrovert side of me.

In contemplating what to wear in America, I decided to take my 50’s straw hat that I had bought especially from a vintage gentleman’s outfitters in Greenwich to wear in my Edinburgh show, Message In a Bottle, which was my tribute to the 70^th anniversary of the popular Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs.

In something of a doff to that show and as a kind of novelty trademark, I decided wherever I ventured in the US, I would always be seen to be wearing the hat. I’m not entirely sure this is a good thing as it seems to age me in respect of those middle aged guys who take to wearing hats to hide their receding hairlines or baldness. But it becomes a kind of friend by the end of my time here. It has literally followed me everywhere, or accompanied me I should say. Perhaps it has even kept a little sun off me, which is an added bonus, though not much since it doesn’t have a broad brim. Today I am also wearing the official purple ‘San Diego International Fringe’ tee shirt that was kindly presented to me by Kevin, the Festival Organiser.

In San Diego, I have something of the same feelings of being an isolated performer, a one-man band, despite the fact I am not performing; I am the writer of a three-hander play. But because they are American actors and have day jobs or other pursuits to follow in the case of Loie, I am usually to be found on my own. I think this is why I am enjoying the camaraderie of the other British and American performing acts. It means I’m not isolated and alone.

Another lone performer is Devra, the San Diego based dancer and Michael Jackson impersonator. I first see her on the Tenth Avenue Rooftop perform an uncanny rendition in full gold jacket, shades and black pants costume. Facially and physically she embodies his character and as a dancer she has the moves off and since he was so androgynous and slight, it is very plausible that a woman should portray him.

The first Public Previews of the San Diego International Fringe Festival are at Sprecklels Theatre on 2^nd July at 7pm. It will take the same format as the Rooftop event at Tenth Avenue Theatre a couple of nights previously, each company presenting a two-minute extract. But Bryant decides that in view of this and the present state of our show, we need to utilise this valuable time for another rehearsal.

By means of compensation, it occurs to me that I shall need to give my show an extra boost of publicity. I need to be there as the audience files into the theatre to flier them if I am to stand any chance of competing.

Now a note about the gentle art of fliering: I also learnt at Edinburgh the necessity of self-promotion, of having to flier the public and actively engage with them about your show. It is something that everyone feels obliged to do in order to build up a decent audience to the thing you have devoted a large part of your life to. Nobody who hasn’t created their own show will understand the kind of fanatical grip that overpowers you, lending superhuman powers of endurance whilst you seize every conceivable opportunity to thrust a flier into the hands of the least aggressive looking passer by and bore them with a list of reasons why on earth they should pay to come and see your show over all the others. It is an art form. Avoiding the brush of rejection to befriend, then engage your prey. And if an affable Englishman can’t charm a few American ladies into coming to see a show about Marilyn Monroe, then what can he do?

Having got a lift downtown with Ryan, I pop in to see my cast then walk up Broadway to cross over the many blocks between Tenth Avenue and First Avenue where Spreckels is situated.

I naturally assume every other company will also be there like an assembled scrum of paparazzi press photographers, swarming around a red carpet premiere, vying for attention and waiting to pounce on unsuspecting members of the public. I arrive to take up my position and am gobsmacked to find I am a lone ranger. The place is deserted.

I begin to wonder if I have the wrong night or venue when I am joined by Devra, who, as a seasoned performer obviously knows the importance of fliering and doesn’t miss a trick in this respect, loitering outside most theatres pre and post shows handing out her fliers. We chat and she tells me she will be fliering the ‘Gaslamp District’ later on as she doesn’t want to waste time watching the second half of the Preview since she is done in the first half! Would I like to join her? Again, in my spirit of saying yes to everything, I happily consent as I want to explore more of down town San Diego away from the familiar beaten path of the theatres and experience what it would be like to flier with ‘Michael Jackson’.

We agree to meet up in the interval.

There are very few members of the public entering the theatre and I begin to be concerned I have somehow missed them.

I step though the mini doorway cut out from one of the huge double barn stage doors and walk to the wings of the theatre. There is a hive of activity behind the flats and I find myself staring at the darkly lit, back stage magic of a Laura Knight painting. There are ballerinas flexing and en point, gracefully dipping like swans breaking the surface of water and rising again. On one particular ballerina I am transfixed. Unusually tall and graceful, wearing a black bodice and tutu with white tights, she has more the appearance of an elegant ostrich, only with far shapelier, powerful legs that completely captivate my attention. I see the Haste Theatre girls in their unusual costumes and the Tin Shed Theatre guys and Doctor Smochter cast as I make my way onto the stage to find a seat. I am astounded to see a fairly full house of around 150 seats- some obviously made up of performers but I realise the audience must have entered the theatre via a different route- from the front perhaps? And I sneak up stairs to the back row as the previews have already started and the stage is in pitch darkness!

It is again a revelation seeing short clips from this year’s fare. A sensational black and red costumed troupe that are magnificently Spanish looking with a great flair for dance and theatre and a very strong cabaret type musical troupe who are performing a Kurt Weil Opera with great aplomb! A New Yorker called Dacyl, acts her balsy comic one-woman show, Will Work For, about her increasingly desperate attempts to find work and survive redundancy in post recession New York City.

The variety is stunning. Then the ballerinas make their debut and the one I was captivated by is on my side of the stage spinning and dipping seemingly in front of me with that long perfect poised neck and flashing dark Eastern eyes.

I am handed a programme with the companies performing listed in Two Acts and am dismayed to read that we are down on the list to perform tonight in Act 2, despite not being here. I mention to someone that we wouldn’t be performing but I was told later that my name was called out and everyone waited but nobody appeared.

At the interval, Devra comes over and asks if I am ready? We hit the road.

It is a real eye opener accompanying someone who is the reincarnation of Michael Jackson and particularly in America, the kind of blind adulation that he still engenders from beyond the grave.

“Michael” people call out transfixed, questioning their knowledge of his death when he is clearly re-embodied in front of them.

“We thought you were dead, Michael,” the more daring add, as if in humour.

“We love you Michael” others chant. People stare in star struck wonder and want to come and talk and Devra is ready for this.

Then she hands them a flier for her show.

“Is it a Michael Jackson Show”? They enquire.

“No, it’s a show about my life” she responds honestly “but it starts with me doing Michael”.

“Do you sing”? They ask?

“No”

“Do you dance?”

“Yes. I’m a dancer so that not exactly difficult for me”.

She explains to me the contrary nature of this business of her duality in that

”They think they’re getting a Michael Jackson impersonator. That’s all they want you to do! But this is obviously about my life, which is when the real die hard fans lose interest.”

“There is a Michael Jackson Tribute Show coming up in San Diego a week on Sunday which is going to be massive. I was thinking of fliering it post show and see if I can capture a few that way.”

I feel for her because in a way she is trapped by the huge following of his fans that are blind to a show about anything other than Michael. Who after all wants to hear about your life?

“Can we get a picture with you?”

“Okay”, she sighs, “Well I usually say for a tip. Otherwise I’d be doing it all night.”

So she patiently stands by while these fans arrange themselves around her grinning like they’ve just been reunited with the dead!

“Michael” and in that one name there is the recognition, the lament, and the question that they could possibly be seeing their hero resurrected before them as real as life. “Are you a ghost?”

I suppose Devra has heard them all by now. Yet its part of her show, part of her.

“I never intended to become a Michael Jackson Impersonator,” she confesses in her show, Woman In the Mirror: A Dancer’s Journey. And in fact she has been a lot of other things in her time. A brave, woman of integrity who, in trying to stay loyal to her roots and love of dance has had to move sideways, crab like, to cover a lot of the seedier sides of the business in order to continue her love of movement, exercise and mastery of her chosen profession she trained so hard for.

Seeing her show made me humbled for the hoops she has had to jump through, for the way she has reinvented herself time and again, moulded herself to the economic vagaries of her profession and lived to triumph over the verisimilitudes life can throw at a dancer, at such a transient career.

Now in her fifties, she seems to celebrate the flexibility and pliancy of her figure as a testament to her life story and journey. It is a poignant show, which seems to me to express a woman at a crossroads in her life, uncertain of the next route to take. As if she is balanced on the threshold of the next period when the body must, by definition, start to lose its perfection and the finely tuned machine starts the inevitable slow journey towards decline.

As with all these one person shows what one marvels at, in the end, is the sheer confessional honesty with which they are told, and the fact here is a snap shot of a person’s life.

She tells me that she hired the Tenth Avenue Theatre to put on her show before the Fringe at considerable expense and is reprising her show at the same venue to be included as part of the Fringe.

As we go round she graciously introduces me to the crowds and says I have a show about Marilyn Monroe for me to flier too. There is a glimmer of recognition on their faces before focus pulls back to Michael. Image peddling two of the greatest icons of all time through the restaurant and café littered streets of Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Avenue to seated diners and booking hostesses at lecterns is one of the more unusual of my American adventures.

I am never going to experience this again I tell myself and see it as a unique insight into the kind of surreal fanatical celebrity fan worship here.

One black girl leaves her friends and comes trotting out of a restaurant to get Devra’s number for a private party- her birthday. It’s all about her. She’s not interested in Devra as a person only the image she represents in front of her and the power of that lingering icon continues to play in the minds and hearts of black America out of proportion to what kind of man he was and his dubious private life, which could so easily have been found to be suspect, had he lived to be investigated properly.

“Hey Michael! I want to hire you for my Birthday! Yeah, I’m gonna get you to come on over and entertain me and my friends. Do you sing? Can you sing? Oh my God, I want you to sing for me! I’m going to book you for a private party. Oh, you don’t sing? Oh, that’s too bad! So… what do you do exactly?”

I’d be surprised if she got one person or couple to attend her show through those exchanges. And I realised I was no competition when faced with her and though it was a real eye opener and a chance to check out the Gaslamp District café’s nightlife, it was a futile exercise as most people just wanted to eat and indulge in a little free diversionary restaurant entertainment as they hoofed their steak, beef burgers or Mexican tacos in the warm open air.

It was like feeding time at the zoo. This is the tourist area of San Diego, the place to hang out and be seen. Each Avenue from the Fourth to the Sixth, sixteen and a half blocks of café’s, bars and restaurants, largely created in the 1980’s ‘historical gaslamp’ themed redevelopment, to sit and eat outside and watch the world go by. Originally this area was know as ‘New Town’ when it started to be developed in the 1860’s by Alonzo Horton, the real estate developer who arrived in San Diego in 1867 and purchased 800 acres of land to build on.

The sprawling modern shopping mall, Horton Plaza commemorates his name and the part he played in developing modern downtown San Diego. By building the wharf directly at the harbour end of Fifth Avenue, Horton opened up the immediate area to visiting sailors on leave.

By the 1880’s to 1916, the area became known as the Stingaree, a derivation of “stingray” and was notorious as the contained or “restricted” vice district, home to drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes and gamblers in the many saloons, gambling halls and bordellos. Between 1887 and around 1896, the famous former lawman, Wyatt Earp owned four saloons and gambling halls in Stingaree, one on Fifth, one on Fourth Street, and two others near Sixth and E. During the height of San Diego’s real estate boom, Earp was said to earn up to $1,000 a night in profit.

The Oyster Bar on Fifth Avenue was one of the more popular saloons in the Stingaree district. One of the reasons it drew such a dedicated clientele was perhaps the brothel upstairs named the ‘Golden Poppy’. Apparently each room was painted a different colour and each prostitute wore a matching dress.

By the 1950s-1970s the decaying Gaslamp Quarter became known as a “Sailor’s Entertainment” district, with a high concentration of pornographic theaters, bookshops and massage parlours. I suppose it was the equivalent of London’s Soho district in the same period.

Devra and I are literally trawling the empty streets for punters. She explains at 8pm or 9pm we are a little early. The area really doesn’t start to get busy until 10pm and it is a Wednesday night after all!

In fact she even changes pace to a slow-motion meander, giving people a chance to register her and react. Then she gently approaches them in Jackson’s quiet manner. I am feeling increasingly like her bodyguard.

“Hi, how are you guys doing?”

She gets a polite “Good, thank you” and then “Oh my God, it’s Michael.”

The occasional “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come back to haunt you” she retorts.

“Can we get a picture?” they ask. It was as if she was one of those performing monkey’s one used to have one’s photograph taken with at fairs.

We wouldn’t get any of these people interested in attending some fringe show about someone’s life or a play about Marilyn Monroe. They are here to have fun and food. It gets a bit much when we encounter a wedding party outside the columned canopy of a hotel taking photos of the various guests and happy couple. When two older guys spot Devra, its imperative ‘Michael Jackson’ should form part of the Wedding pictures. So although obliging and mentioning a tip, Devra is pressed into every conceivable coupling in this photo shoot while I stand on the sidelines with a stupefied grin on my face. When it’s over they shove a dollar or two at her and don’t want to listen to her about her show. She has fulfilled her purpose.

I suspect that under all this is the simple overwhelming desire for Devra to be loved for who she is, not for what she has disguised herself as in order to be accepted or appreciated? In this respect it is like selling out to the common denominator, popular culture versus high art of ballet and dance? Every American knows who Michael Jackson is but how many of them go to ballet? It’s another example of a woman hiding behind a façade in order to be accepted or compete in her field, like Sitwell or Monroe. Devra has chosen to adopt a recognisable shell through which she can articulate her life, resonate with others and give it meaning.

Talking to her later I suspected that she got most work while he was still alive? “Actually the best months were those following his death” she said “and since then a steady falling off of bookings”.

As we walk back to her car we bump into Jon, the young, fast-talking Australian comic, another sole performer, who is apparently on tour with his show. He has an agent and is making ends meet, like Devra, earning a living through it. I was intrigued, what a fascinating life. He asks if I might be interested in a road trip to Mexico? It sounds like a great idea as I want to travel after the Fringe and I regret not pursuing it. But I think he is after an adventure with border control culminating in getting locked up in jail so he can write about it in his next show. He is one of those loud, personality types that you encounter on the Fringe that you definitely have to ensure you have a strong presence to match up to, lest you are drowned by their overwhelming bravado. By this time of night I am tired and almost ready to switch off.

Talking of common denominator, he has hit on an incredibly popular novelty that he’s turned into a world touring show, Pretending Things Are a Cock, which just goes to show how far a simple knob gag can take you! An entertaining evening closes as Devra kindly drops us both off at our respective lodgings.

The next day exiting the Tenth Avenue Theatre after my show, an older red haired lady with a face full of freckles and piercing pale eyes is stood to the right of the door fliering.

“Hello David” she says. I look distractedly blank at her. “You don’t recognise me, do you?”

“Er… no” I reply.

“It’s Devra,” she says with a knowing grin, completely transformed.

Tenth Ave Theatre: Tech Rehearsal and Ghosts

The next day, July 1^st we are scheduled a Tech Rehearsal at Tenth Avenue Theatre at 8pm -10.30pm. Bryant calculates if we can get all the lighting and sound cues sorted in the first hour we have time for a full run through afterwards.

We are called to meet again upstairs at 6.30pm in the rehearsal space just outside the office and Bryant is delivering the settee, side tables and props so we can have a dress run through with set before the tech.

Earlier in the day I email Ryan to see if he wouldn’t mind giving me a lift in to town later as he lives out near to me. “Oh, sure, of course, no that’s like, totally fine.”

In fact, knowing it will be a late night at the theatre I suggest he might like to join me for a late lunch at the local Italian place on the corner of Adams Ave, which calls itself Antique Café. He says he’d be delighted and in fact it’s a nice opportunity to get to know him a little better as there is little time to chat in rehearsals. He never hangs out in this area he tells me and assumed, like me, that Antique Café was, in fact, an antique store!

I have one of their specials; a wonderful stir-fry chicken dish on rice while he orders a burger in a bap when he arrives. We sit outside on the corner boardwalk in the welcome shade of trees, enjoying a perfect Californian afternoon relaxing in the lull before driving into town for a full evening of rehearsals and Tech run.

Since relocating from San Francisco, Ryan appears to have done extremely well establishing himself in professional stage management in theatres in California at the tender age of twenty-three. He was recent stage manager on The Mother Fucker With a Hat at Cygnet Theatre and got his big break work training at the Old Globe Theatre after pestering the Artistic Director with daily emails and phone calls till he finally caved in. Persistence pays off being the moral of this particular tale! He then worked at another San Diego theatre and has news of just getting another show after mine so he is certainly on the right track!

Tenth Avenue Arts Center exterior is painted a curious dung colour, and seems to be similarly rendered the texture of an old cigar. Art Deco in style, it is reminiscent of cinema architecture. It’s symmetrical sleek lines and large multi-pane windows, set between four tapering squared columns running the full height of the building are redolent of a Mondrian painting.

I believe it’s an old 1920’s chapel that was converted into a theatre some years ago. The building next door was originally The First Baptist Church where the faithful worshipped since the 1800’s. I’m going to quote directly from the website since it tells the curious history most succinctly.

“In the mid-1920’s, a generous member of the congregation donated money so that the church could build a chapel. The benefactor’s intent was to provide a 24-hour place of worship for the military personnel of San Diego arriving home from a long stint at sea. The thought was that if sailors arrived in port at three in the morning, they should be able to come to a house of worship for comfort, prayer and motivation.”

It also cites the story of the ghosts that are said to haunt the building and again I shall let the website regail the stories.

“Ghost 1- The British Lieutenant

During World War II, a Navy doctor had a special tradition upon returning to the United States, he would go to a nearby church and pray for the men he treated, but could not save. One particular soldier had suffered a gruesome chest wound. The doctor desperately worked to save the man’s life to no avail. The doctor was cupping the soldier’s heart when he felt the heart give its final beat. The doctor simultaneously felt some odd sensation throughout his body.

When the doctor returned to port in San Diego he set out to fulfil his solemn tradition of praying for the souls of his fallen comrades. He did this at the chapel of the First Baptist church. He reported that he entered the sanctuary and sat down in a pew at the back row. He knelt to pray and was suddenly rocked backwards against the pew. As he gazed to the ceiling with his eyes and mouth wide open, he felt that same odd sensation that he experienced back at the field hospital on Okinawa. A church official found him slumped to the floor and unconscious where he had been kneeling. It seems as though the spirit of the British Lieutenant had entered the doctor’s body back in that hospital and was now free and had taken up residence at 930 Tenth Avenue.

Following this doctor’s visit to the chapel, the eerie echo of a British officer’s voice has been heard throughout the building. At times, it sounds like the officer is barking out orders as if in battle. Other times, the voice seems to be keeping soldiers marching in unison with a staccato march cadence. He has even been heard singing pub songs as if celebrating the victory in the Pacific over Japan.”

Ghost 2- Missy

When the building was occupied by the First Baptist Church the rooftop was used for a variety of outdoor activities. The church youth took advantage of the great downtown playground for such games as basketball, badminton, volleyball, and shuffleboard. On one particularly hot day in October, a girl named Missy had had enough fun on the roof and wanted to go back downstairs to get out of the heat. The pastor supervising the handful of kids on the rooftop reassured Missy that right after the current basketball game ended the group would be going down to the social hall on the second floor for refreshments but impatient, she bolted for the staircase.

The pastor excused himself from his referee duties and ran after Missy. In the stairwell, Missy had made it down the first flight of stairs. When she heard the pastor calling her name, she turned the episode into a game and yelled out to “Catch me if you can!” The pastor quickened his pace down the stairs and as he rounded the landing between the third and second floor, he heard the last words of Missy’s young life. All she was able to shout was “Catch me…” before the pastor heard a small shriek, then a series of dull thumps.

Missy’s body was found at the bottom of the stairs on the second floor, her head split open and leaking blood. The horror-stuck pastor scrambled down the stairs to the twisted body of the dead girl. He would never be the same.

Missy has been known to only roam the stairwell. The thought is that she is playing in that vertical playground for eternity. While travelling the building’s stairwell, a person might have the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the little girl peering around the corner of a landing. She’s easy to recognize. She had mid-length dark hair with straight bangs across her forehead. She also sports a white headband. She’s wearing a green and white striped dress and will draw attention with her whimsical smile.

Ghost 3- The Baptist Pastor

The pastor who ran after Missy never recovered from the idea that he had caused Missy’s death. After the tragic accident, “Catch me…” echoed in the pastor’s brain, just as it had echoed off the smooth, plaster stairwell walls. Eventually the pain and guilt reached a level that was intolerable for the pastor.

On the morning of Monday, November 25, 1963, the church secretary unlocked the front door to the church and proceeded up the stairs to her mezzanine floor office. She was still thinking about the inspirational sermon the pastor had given the day before. He spoke beautifully about the need to be strong after the horrible assassination of President John F. Kennedy that had occurred on Friday.

The secretary knocked on the pastor’s door. There was no response. She walked back down to the first floor and entered the sanctuary and called out for the pastor. She noticed a dim light glowing from a cloakroom on the side of the altar. Thinking that the pastor was organizing the choir robes from the day before, the secretary walked down the side aisle of the large chapel and called out to him. She entered the small room and uttered the pastor’s name again. Suddenly she recoiled in horror as she stared up at the dead body of the pastor hanging from a storage loft access ladder.”

As we arrive we decide to ascend the fourth floor in the small period 1930’s wooden lift, the type one first has to slide open the panelled door of, then the metal safety grill, and close again after you before it can ascend. It’s like a leap of faith and a prayer and not something I would wish to be stuck in for any length of time!

When we reach the fourth floor, Loie and Rhianna are changing into costume in the office and Ryan gets a message that Bryant has arrived downstairs. I offer to go down with him and help with the props.

He has a small settee on the back of his open truck, an impressive American affair he has borrowed from his father to transport the furniture. The settee is a small two-seater lightweight metal frame of a summerhouse style with lift off padded seating that is the perfect solution for transporting around. And by sheer luck or design it just fits within an inch or two into the tiny lift to take it upstairs. While we are negotiating it through the sliding door and concertinaed metal trellis Bryant suddenly regails us with ghost stories about the theatre. He has seen something more than once on the stairs; the figure of a little girl and whenever he arrives or leaves the building he greets them! He has worked here several times on his own accord and had to lock up last thing at night.

He has customised the settee with an attractive embroidered patchwork throw that we are instructed to tie on properly by Loie after she gets her cane caught up in one corner and nearly goes flying when her foot does likewise. A trick of fate is the two random golden damask cushions I picked up in the thrift store on a whim match perfectly with the cover!

Not only that but Bryant has very kindly lent his very own mahogany ‘Campaign style’ occasional table from home to lend a touch of class to the set design. He has also mustered a cut glass vase complete with fake flowers.

“The one thing with me is I have this almost obsessional attention to detail” he confides. It looks as though everything is coming together like a dream. What could possibly go wrong now?

I hear the scenes run for the first time since Saturday and the marked development that has taken place since I was absent all day on Sunday and I am thrilled to get a glimpse of the magic that might finally be achieved. I am sat upstairs with Ryan who is deputising whilst Bryant decamps downstairs to start setting up the tech sound and lighting cues. I tell Bryant I can see the way its come on while I was away and saw a glimpse upstairs of something special, by way of encouragement. It seemed we were finally on target for a coming of age for this show.

When finally we get onto the main stage at Tenth Avenue it is a huge cavernous space with the recognisable proportions of a church and one in which my actors are clearly going to have to play “bigger” and throw their voices far. They appear slightly overwhelmed on first impression by the available space after that of our rehearsals.

Tech runs can be extremely dull but I enjoy being involved in all the processes of a show to understand how directors work with lighting and sound to weave magic around a script.

So for the first time I get to hear the sound effects that Bryant envisages for my piece. I have been slightly alarmed by his verbal imitation of clocks ticking in rehearsals as Sitwell waits impatiently for Monroe to arrive at the top of the play. But I like the fact he is bringing something different to the mix and I understand that it is there to represent the passing of time, while Sitwell waits for longer than any real time we can afford on stage. I also like the Hollywood score he has found to open the show, it strikes the right flavour and period for the piece.

Seeing the different lighting moods is an eye opener. We choose a very sexy half lit pre- set when the audience come in where the set is just illuminated. Bryant selects an unusual backlit dark transition zone between scenes, that don’t go to blackout as I had stipulated in the script but an intriguing semi-darkness. He then works out a dumb play drama between scenes where there is an element of silent film acting as Cukor serves the two ladies champagne after scene one then collects glasses from them after scene two but Marilyn refuses to part with hers until Cukor seizes it, which then gives her motive to storm off set ready for her locking herself in the ladies before scene three. It works beautifully and I love this element that is added. It seems to happen so naturally and organically. The music matches and underpins these inter-scenes with great aplomb.

Everything was coming together to make a sophisticated show and I was really looking forward to see how it would play on this wide, generous stage.

Then came time for the run through. It was as though a different cast had been asked to learn a new script that night. It was like watching a slow motion car crash as they lumbered through, forgetting lines and cues so slow it was like a different piece. It creaked, it limped, it apologised for what it might have been. Loie was particularly thrown by the novelty of the large stage, nervous and forgot lines. Rhianna’s words were lost when she turned to face Loie and Randy still fished for the correct sequence of his lines. It was dreadful and we all knew it.

I wasn’t hopelessly worried. I knew there was always a bad dress run before the opening night by law of averages and nerves. It was good to get the bad one out of the way to scare the actors a little into giving a storming performance at the first night in two days time.

What was to be done? Luckily there is one more rehearsal tomorrow night before first night the day after. Do you trust the moment and the actors to do their work on their own until it reaches the arc of perfection.

Bryant, a little shell shocked and distracted like me seems inclined to leave the production to fate trusting that the hard work had been done and now it is just a matter of polishing the fine surface of their toil. It’s late at night and the cast are all tired and anxious after a very disappointing run through and the toll of a full week of daily rehearsals.

Rhianna, usually self contained and smiling, is clearly upset and dashes away in tears explaining that she is so tired and just needs to get home to bed and get some rest before tomorrow. Whether it was sheer frustration at her own or others performance or a dawning realisation that she really isn’t quite sure what she has let herself in for and is now too far committed to extricate herself, I’ll never know. But it is a lot to ask of anyone to perfect such a complicated role in a week.

Loie, quiet and crestfallen surprises me most of all when I offer to walk her to her car. As we reach it, she turns round and asks me, matter of factly, “Could I have a hug, please”? Of course I oblige and I suddenly feel humbled as I realise for the first time behind the formidable façade here is an insecure, isolated human being, just like Sitwell or Monroe herself, wanting to do good and just like all of us, made aware of our own shortcomings and vulnerability, alone in our struggle to resonate with power and ambition in our chosen environment.

I return to the Theatre. They are storing away the settee and side table behind the seating area. We are the last one’s left in the building. As we walk back out to the hallway we turn out the lights and are plunged into darkness, an eerie silence befalls the place. “Goodnight” Bryant calls out to no one as he closes the large double doors, locking them behind him. “Thank you for having us”. “Oh, I always talk to the ghosts” he tells us. “They’re friendly. But you have to respect them.” He laughs at the novelty of his actions, as only someone who has been left to lock up a haunted building on his own in the dead of night knows.

I suppose in a way we are all of us ghosts too, passing through this brief dimension, leaving footprints, sounds and echoes behind us, some of us more strongly than others. I’m  evoking the ghosts of Sitwell, Monroe and Cukor in my play. There is perhaps something strange in bringing the dead back to life on stage and making them interact with each other for a certain dramatic effect. But I hope, in so doing, I have managed to remain faithful to their personalities and to have captured their true spirit.

When Bryant first offered his personal stories of ghosts at the theatre, knowing I was to be working here for the next week and a half, I said tell me later. I never did hear them from him so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind writing down his experiences and so I give him the last word.

“In March, while in rehearsal for Tricks, we were rehearsing up on the 4th floor. Present in the room was the director, Sandra Ruiz, Devon Hollingsworth, her assistant director, Gail Phillips the stage manager, Jacob Cruz, an actor and myself. Right at the entrance (which are double doors with faded windows,) I noticed a shadow constantly peeking through the window. I walked over there and opened the door and nobody was present. It was as if a curious child wanted to know what was happening. I knew that was the little girl who died in that building. That wasn’t the only time we would see the little shadow girl peek through the window.

Downstairs while putting up the panels, the stage manager’s son, Jimmy Phillips saw a man standing near the entrance to the stage. He mentioned that he was a tall man that disappeared.

That same day, we noticed a shadow figure pacing up in the technical booth of the theatre. There was a blue light that would be covered every time he would pace near there.

During our tech/dress rehearsal, as Jacob and I were running Act I, in a moment of an emotional scene, just up stage left of us we heard a sound and all of a sudden, a cable of a stage light just came dangling down almost like the shape of a noose.”

Press Preview Night on Tenth Ave Rooftop

Monday 30^th June

So, after giving up on the APA Studios last Wednesday night, intensive rehearsals ensue for the remainder of the week courtesy of Loie, at her house, a few blocks away from me on The Boulevard. This proves more convenient for all of us to reach by car than driving out to the studios.

Loie has lived here since 1978 when she came from Chicago and was deciding between San Diego or San Francisco. It is painted a mauve hue throughout inside with some artwork, most noticeably an Art Deco style mural on her kitchen wall.

“I commissioned it from an ex- lover of mine, an artist whom I was seeing at the time… before I showed them the door!” she adds dryly with a wistful smirk. Her kitchen is not a room she spends any time in, except to make drinks, preferring the messy and time-consuming business of cooking to be catered for by arranging dinner dates at the many restaurants and eateries of San Diego. Loie and I have already shared a couple of meals out together socially after shopping expeditions in search for costume and jewellery for her stage character of Dr. Edith SItwell in my play.

Bryant, Ryan and I set up on one side of her circular dining table, which seems to take up most of the living room, laptops in front of us, looking, I imagine, like an all male CNN TV news desk team waiting to go on air. I jest “Good evening and thank you for joining us. We’re now able to go over live via satellite to our roving reporter on location to bring you this special report. Ryan, are you there? Can you tell us exactly what is happening in rehearsals, on the ground right now”?

The remaining part of the room with her couch directly in front of us is used as the set. The only thing it doesn’t leave room for is any movement work around it for Cukor, which, as we shall see, was to have fatal consequences for scene 3 of the production.

Ryan’s daily call emails with scene breakdowns seem to come thick and fast. We tackle the third scene on the Thursday evening. I leave it rather late to message Randy if he wouldn’t mind giving me a lift to Loie’s. Unfortunately he has already arrived and kindly comes back for me. I happen to mention that Bryant and I have spotted a great pair of pin striped trousers with turn ups for him in a thrift shop but they are just too small and I wonder, could he perhaps be persuaded to wear them for the duration of an hours show with the top button unfastened? Size 38. “Oh no, they’ll fit me” he said. “I am a size 38”.

“But your resume said 42” I say. Having carefully written down all his measurements from the list he gave me.

“Oh, its wrong”. The next day Bryant and I go back and buy the trousers triumphantly and he finds a perfect 50’s style tie to match, a belt and “suspenders” (braces). Randy already has a white short sleeve shirt and so Cukor’s costume finally falls into place.

During rehearsals I make notes in my journal both for the actors and on lines that may need tweaking or editing. I make notes on pronunciation for Sitwell who is Americanising “bawdy romp”, “book”, “Laughing stock”.

I hear Randy tripping over lines and realise its my fault “ruthless, scheming Queen of England” and cut “scheming” to make it flow better, which it does immediately.

I notice a stage direction that was suggested to me in our rehearsed reading in London of Edith having her legs up on the chaise at the top of Scene 3, while waiting for Marilyn as simply wrong for Sitwell. It just doesn’t look right. Not the kind of thing a woman of her breeding or disability would do in public, so I scrap it.

With Loie and Randy still struggling to remember their lines after having the script a month and Rhianna still on book, we limp along slowly and painfully like an injured pride of wildebeest roaming over vast tracts of empty desert. There is a distinct lack of pace and each night it stubbornly refuses to take flight the way I envisage it. It requires a deft, lightness of touch and I feel part of the problem is perhaps Loie struggling with the enormity of the task of Sitwell’s English accent and the sheer verbal dexterity of the text, which is unusually rich for stage dialogue! I am also made aware that her lines are too long. She often has quotes of three sentences to say rather than a single line. And whilst it is a rich and idiosyncratic texture for a poet, it is also fatal to the rhythm of a play.

Since the play is currently running around an hour and twenty minutes there are clearly going to have to be some judicial cuts made to the script. It’s an intensive learning curve. It’s making me rethink speeches and every word is now having to earn its keep. I’ll do anything to trim time and speed flow of rhythm in the script.

On Friday Bryant collects me around noon. I have spent the best part of the previous afternoon and this morning researching cone or bullet bras on the internet. I check out and show him three websites selling new ones but they seem expensive and could take a few days to arrive, which we don’t have. We return to the vintage clothes store with the black and white German expressionist chap to find him superseded by his partner, a busty platinum blonde in her sixties, owner and Queen bee. She must have caught my English accent on my entrance judging from the disdainful look she shoots me, whilst clearly engaged conversing with her previous customer. I mention we had messaged before about the Marilyn Monroe dress and she assumes the haughty air of a jilted lover. As proud as a parakeet on her perch, pecking at this and that around the gilded cage of her emporium. She eyes us suspiciously when we dare enquire about bullet bras. She pulls out a drawer of laundered and pressed white vintage underwear, brings it to the counter to look through. This is highly specialist. She has made underwear the subject of her exhaustive study.

“What sort of size are you after”? She asks. I tell her. “Well, they didn’t have double D’s in those days” she corrects me, “but I can work out which ones will fit. You’re not going to get an exact size. The whole measuring system has changed since then. You mustn’t expect her to be comfortable in it. It’s going to feel strange! We’re simply not used to wearing bullet bras these days”!

I’m beginning to wish we had just ordered the one on-line with exact bra size to fit. We buy a 1960’s one for $50 after haggling the price down from $55 but she’s really not happy since they are rare to find. I suddenly have the foresight to ask if it shouldn’t fit would it be possible to return it?

“As long as it’s returned by tomorrow morning,” she concedes.

We humour her and she finally defrosts enough to show us the pride of her collection. A rare padded push up bra from late 19^th century Paris. The earliest one she has ever known, a real museum piece and one she wouldn’t sell if she were offered three thousand dollars!

Bryant is delighted to have finally sorted the bra situation but I wonder how effective it will look?

That day too we finally find a suitable size period looking black handbag in the last thrift store we try for Sitwell, big enough to hold a book of her poetry. Everything was falling into place like a dream!

That night we get Rhianna to try on the bullet bra in case we need to return it tomorrow and she says it feels very strange. I see what she means as her breasts are squeezed into narrow pointy cotton cones that seem the wrong size, making them look smaller if anything and most uncomfortable! I decide we must return it! Bryant shudders at the thought of having to go back again to try to get a refund from our friendly, vintage platinum parakeet.

Bryant and I head out for a well-earned post rehearsal drink around 11pm at the trendy bar, ‘Polite Provisions’ to take stock of the situation. Over a beer or two we get down to details editing the play and ensuring he has all the cuts we have implemented so he can email them to the actors that evening. I meet a charming group of blonde Californian girls at the adjacent table on a girl’s night out who berate us for working so late on a Friday night. I explain that we have just come from rehearsals and this is urgent script editing work. I talk to the nearest one next to me, a tall dark-eyed beauty who tells me she is an artist and that her last relationship was with an Englishman, long distance but she is now single. She takes an interest in the play and I give them all fliers, hoping they can make it and to see them again. Sadly this proves not to be the case.

On Saturday we rehearse 12- 5pm. Randy gives me a lift since he is perhaps nearest to me out of everyone. He seems more rested after looking pretty shattered last night after the week’s rehearsals. He is working full-time, up early each morning around six and into the office and rehearsing this play evenings and I learn that he is also busy working on another fringe play at the same time to be performed at the same theatre, thankfully not on the same days. In fact it is miraculous how the other performance dates don’t clash with mine in any way. It turns out it is another 1950’s Hollywood play, Ray’s Last Case by Tim West, about Raymond Chandler and his last great work, The Long Goodbye, apparently written while he lived in San Diego, in a house overlooking the ocean at La Jolla.

He is playing Christopher Marlowe, Chandler’s fictional detective, a shadowy Humphrey Bogart figure. The only problem is his tech rehearsal is on Monday night when we are due to give our Press Preview on the Tenth Avenue Arts Center Rooftop.

This is a blow since I feel the best section to show off the play is that in scene 3 where Cukor makes a fool of himself pretending to be a film star running round the couch as Sitwell and Monroe seek revenge in making fun of him. Doubly disappointing since this is the very scene that was to remain stubbornly flat in the final production and somehow missed being tackled properly and so never achieved its full potential or made sense for that matter. Instead we chose an extract from scene 2 between the two women, where Monroe effectively unmasks Sitwell by stealing her hat from her and demanding her trademark rings to try on.

I miss Sunday’s rehearsal to go to Ocean Beach and as they are still taking over the sixty minutes time slot to get through the play, Bryant is forced to make further cuts to the script. Monday morning I am sent the edited version of the script for my approval.

It is not easy selecting any part to lose and the edits they have made are on the whole excellent, which I accept graciously, though I am a little wounded that we have to sacrifice some nice comedic moments.

The Press Preview is taking place on Monday evening on the rooftop of Tenth Avenue Theatre where my play is to be staged in the main stage during the run of the Festival. It starts at 6.30pm and we are told to be there by 5.30pm in order to get ready. Each company has a strict two-minute time slot in which to perform an extract from their upcoming shows to give a flavour and whet the appetite of the critics and the other performers.

Two minutes sounded Draconian at first and almost impossible to convey the complexities and sweep of one’s piece within such a tight parameter. Whereas for some of the acts, like dance and clowning, it is perfect. But in fact it was the ideal length to indicate whether one wanted to expose oneself to any further torment of the potential full show or not.

Bryant had sent me an image of a rather cheap looking blonde wig for Monroe the other day and I replied as much asking if there was much of a choice as I would be happy to advise. But with time running out, he is sourcing a wig in Chula Vista this morning then meeting Loie at 1.30pm to run lines with her and he suggests I ask her if she wouldn’t mind giving me a lift downtown with her for the Preview around 5pm, which is clearly a mistake. Loie is surprisingly flustered and nervous, when she arrives around 5.15pm dressed in full black costume and make-up and tells me she doesn’t like leaving late as it just has a knock on effect. This translates into her driving and I’m glad when we safely reach our destination and can be free of her palpable agitation.

She is concerned about finding somewhere to park when we get there. She needn’t have worried. We get a place opposite just before the theatre and park up.

As we climb the stairs to the fourth floor we enter a large room, with every available space taken with other performers and their props, all busy getting changed and made up into their costumes for the roof top preview. I see the Haste Theatre girls in different costumes and many others I’ve yet to meet. For the first time I am made aware we are part of a much larger festival and the atmosphere is bustling and exciting.

Luckily Bryant had the foresight to rent an office space at the theatre to store our couch and costumes in and I feel a great sense of privilege to step over the groundlings on the floor, open the office door and disappear, closing it behind us on the din.

Bryant arrives with Monroe’s costume freshly laundered and pressed and with the biggest crinoline so that when worn, her dress now resembles something found on the top of an iced wedding cake. In his other hand he proudly carries his morning’s trophy, the platinum Monroe wig held aloft by the neck of its model head like an Olympic torch. Strangely un-giving in its construction, rather than flames, it resembles more of a giant whipped vanilla ice cream cone. It is so immense it almost feels like it ought to have separate billing.

When I climb to the top of the stairs up five floors the door opens out onto a large rooftop. There are chairs put out in rows and it is clear it is not going to be easy to make one’s voice heard over the open air without microphones.

I see the attractive blonde, who I first spotted on-line when I was looking for actresses to play Marilyn Monroe, but was told that she would be too busy working at the fringe festival. We didn’t get off to the best start. I asked what time we were down to perform only to be told our company was not down on her long list of artists that night.

“What do you mean, we are not down”? I asked pointedly.

“You’re not down on the list”.

“Well, why not? We filled out the on-line form that was sent round”

I was incensed, having spent the best part of a day on the Internet last week meticulously filling out preview and admin listings for my play, posting on every site.

“Oh yes, we’ve talked before haven’t we”? She said.

“No. I’ve not heard a thing from you,” I say.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ve emailed each other.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we haven’t” I say.

I go and get my laptop out of my bag to prove it.

Another example of my lines come back to haunt me, when Cukor says in scene 3,

“I’m a very patient man, believe me, but you just crossed the line”.

I show her my email list. “Nothing whatsoever from you. Look,” I say. “What’s your email? I type in her name, nothing comes up.

I am in no mood to have any last-minute bureaucracy fuck ups over this one. I have an anxious seventy-six year old actress who has spent the last two weeks learning lines, rehearsing most evenings and driving me around searching for costume and props in her spare time, who has climbed five flights of stairs and is waiting patiently to perform. An actress who has bravely and graciously stepped in to the role of Marilyn at the last moment with less than a week to learn it and no Randy, since he is busy having his technical run with the other play he is performing in during the Festival. I have a stoic director who is giving up his time, driving in from Chula Vista every day and running round to hunt for costumes and props, taking all obstacles in his stride, who has hired a professional Stage Manager, Ryan, to oversee the smooth running of the show. I have flown over specially from the other side of the world in order to have my play receive its world première at the festival and here I am now faced with some stony faced, officious admin assistant telling me I’m not on the list! There is nothing she can do. Sorry.

I stare confounded at the sheer immovability of the woman and rather than waste my breath, go straight to seek out someone with more authority and a brain in charge, in order to solve the problem. I learn it should be quite possible to go on first or conversely last. I return and put this to her but she doesn’t think it possible to go first because she doubts they’ll be ready to start before the allotted time, despite slots being only two minutes long, meaning we would start just two minutes earlier! So she makes us wait right until the end of everyone else’s extracts some two and a half hours later.

It is down to me to convey this news to the actors and rest of the company and they take it in far better spirit than I received it. They sensibly see it as an opportunity to run lines in the office until nearer their slot. I am relieved but annoyed to have to make both my actors wait around unnecessarily for over three hours for a two-minute performance. Thank goodness we had the office where they could sit comfortably and relax. I suppose I feel responsible for the entire company and want them to have the best experience alongside me. I didn’t want to let anyone down.

Bryant, Ryan and I return to the roof to witness all the acts to get an overview of the competition and diversity of the fringe programme. It’s a lovely evening and there are some striking acts, noticeably the contemporary dance pieces, which work well in that large, open space because there are a lot of them.

The Haste Theatre girls, being firm favourites, are asked to MC and regulate any acts that dare drift over their two-minute time slot by dragging them off.

One of the first things I see is Victor Charlie a very strong dance troop with a theatre piece about a soldier separated from his wife in the Vietnam War. Six male dancers slow march on bearing a body on their shoulders wrapped in an American flag. This they then unfold and tighten as the dancer unfurls out of it to dance.

Another dance troupe all female tap dancers make a large loop around the space and put wooden crates down to tap dance on. I spot a small-wizened old man with wild white hair like Einstein pass in front of me who is Ray Jessle, a veteran Broadway songwriter who has recently caused an unlikely TV sensation with his comic songs on America’s Got Talent.

The Tin Shed Theatre from Wales are striking in costumes and voice with their show, Dr Frankenstein’s Travelling Freak Show, a wonderful dark Victorian style Music Hall take on the story with Justin, the mad white-faced despot, a cross between The Joker and something from the League of Gentlemen, asked to MC the second half of the evening.

There is a female Michael Jackson impersonator, in a gold jacket, who does an impressive dance to Thriller soundtrack to promote her one-woman show. A couple of acrobatic clowning acts, Beau and Aero, a charming swashbuckling airman and airwoman from the infancy of aviation with leather flying helmets with flaps and cream scarves who do wonderful physical gymnastics and Gene and Audrey, a strong thighed couple of gals who get lodged in folding chairs and balance on each other. I do remember thinking, I’m not quite sure where mine fits in to all this. There doesn’t appear to be too many plays!

When the other acts start asking me when we are going to be on, I tell them last, adding with a smirk, “We’re headlining”!

It occurs to me to ensure that she has in fact added us not just to her list but the actual running list. I ask to see one of the other assistants typed sheets. There in pencil, in handwritten swirls right at the end of the three-page list she has added the title of our show as ‘The Peacock and the Nightmare’.

By the time it is our turn after 8.30pm, the critics have thinned out and most of the audience of other performers, having done their previews, have long gone and darkness has descended.

As Loie and Rhianna come on to perform under the lights, they look wonderful in their costumes. They take their place and although it is difficult to cast their voices in the breezy summer air, they can be heard towards the front. It is over as soon as it’s begun, all that waiting for those two tantalising minutes.

I had given Ryan and Bryant a clutch of fliers to ensure we distribute them to everyone left on the roof. I shoot round as many Press and critics as I can. We can only hope that it has given a sufficient glimpse of the show to come.

Photo by Sue Brenner

Finest City Improv, El Cajon Boulevard and the Lafayette Hotel

Sunday 29th June

Dino is from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay and has only been in San Diego for a year and a half but has already ingratiated himself into the social and performing arts community in the city. He kindly offers me a lift back from Ocean Beach to North Park. As I step into his car, he removes the set of boulle from the seat and what looks to me like a tall hand drum, but is in fact a novelty water flask for his tea, which he calls tereré. The tea, yerba mate is a traditional Paraguay drink made of green herbs that he drinks from an ornamental animal horn cup called a guampa that he keeps in front of the gear stick.

As Technical Director and a teacher at Finest City Improv, Dino has to get back in time for the improv show at 8.30pm. Afterwards they are all going out for Birthday drinks to Arcade Bar Coin-Op which he tells me is free play on the last Sunday of each month.  He invites me to come along and see what its all about. As part of my saying yes to everything, I calculate this is the only last Sunday of the month I shall be here, and how silly I would be to pass on such a perfect opportunity, so accept his invitation.

He shows me into the office where I meet two of his associates, Chris and Kat. Chris is a quiet, unassuming, bearded chap who tells me he deals with the IT side of the business, but who actually turns out to be Assistant Artistic Director and a long time improv performer himself. I later discover he has a very interesting blog where he expostulates on the rules and practise of improv through his vast experience. http://www.00george.blogspot.com

He’s celebrating his 30^th Birthday that evening and asks if I’ll be joining them for a beer later?

Kat is sat typing in front of a large computer screen and is one of those big personalities, with, I sense, a quieter soul underneath. An attractive girl in her twenties and unmistakably Irish to look at, with pale freckled skin, large green eyes, wide smile and long black hair framing her face. I assume she is the office administrator but turns out to be Community Manager of the Training Programme and again an improv performer in her own right.

She amazes me later, caught up in conversation with us, suddenly sensing she has missed her cue, she flies from her swivel desk chair and charges behind a curtain to suddenly appear on stage as MC announcing unflustered with great projection “Whaa- hey! Ladies and gentlemen would you please put your hands together for the improvisation class the ………. “

A round of applause. She then reappears as if nothing had happened, sits back on her swivel chair and resumes typing!

I am taken through to the front of the new theatre that Dino tells me he helped to design and build in reclaimed wooden packing crates. I buy Dino and myself a beer at the little bar in the reception before the show starts and he gives me a quick guided tour of the Lafayette Hotel that the theatre has been built onto. It’s a surprising place with considerable connections to Hollywood. I am captivated by the framed magazine articles giving the history of the place on the walls and don’t quite have the time to read them all, much as I would like to.

Built in 1946 in the grand colonial style as Imig Manor by former Chevrolet dealer, entrepreneur and property developer, Larry Imig.

It was an expensive gamble due to cost $250, 000 that actually rose to $3 million as his ambitions and plans grew, built in North Park on the El Cajon Boulevard, the last leg of the old Highway 80, the trans continental roadway running from Savannah, Georgia on the East coast to San Diego on the West.

Originally the site occupied 2.5 acres and boasted 24 shops, 4 restaurants, a nightclub, an Olympic swimming pool and 250 guest rooms, suites, and apartments.

Advertised as “Southern Style on the Miracle Mile”. It attracted some of the top Hollywood stars of the day with its salubrious accommodation and setting, becoming a popular vacation resort and hideaway to stars like Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Ava Gardner. Bob Hope was the first person to sign the guest register.

However it failed to recoup its costs or make a profit and by 1949 hotelier, Conrad Hilton purchased the hotel paying off Imig’s outstanding debts. It continued to flourish in the 50’s but suffered a sharp decrease in occupancy by the 60’s when a new freeway, Interstate 8 was completed, redirecting traffic away from The Boulevard and the novelty soon faded.

Today the Lafayette Hotel, Swim Club and Bungalows is redesigned as a Californian boutique hotel, with a more relaxed contemporary feel but one that still conjures the same glamour as in the glory days of its historical past. http://www.lafayettehotelsd.com

A large neon gateway sign, “the BOULEVARD” was erected on a streamlined ‘T’ bar across the dual carriageway of El Cajon Boulevard in 1989 to celebrate the glory years of neon signage once to be found on businesses along this route from it’s heyday 1940’s to 1960’s.

It almost looks like it could have been a giant name badge from a 50’s Chevy and has acted as a rallying call for the revitalisation of the area’s local businesses ever since. This is exemplified in the work of El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association which has done much to develop and promote the image of the area and where much of this information can be found on their fascinating website. http://www.theboulevard.org/index.html

We go through a warren of corridors past rooms to the basement where there is a huge ballroom behind locked doors where Dino talks about the famous large clam shell that forms part of the original band stand for the big band dances of the 1940’s and there are black and white pictures of bands playing in front of it.

The ‘Mississippi Room’ as it was named, after a nearby street, was a big draw and continued to be popular after the hotel waned. It reinvented itself entirely as a DJ underground club the ‘ID Club’ in the 1980’s, when queues regularly formed round the block on a Monday night to dance to international new wave and house music records and many rare imports from Britain. Dino tells me it was here where a scene from the movie, Top Gun was filmed, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” around the famous circular bar.

It crosses my mind how wonderful it would be to open up this original basement ballroom and use it for the improv comedy nights but I suspect it’s too large and unwelcoming for intimate gigs.

I have an unfailing nostalgia for places that no longer exist to entertain the masses like old cinemas and theatres that never quite lose the magic of their original purpose. One of the most fascinating of these was the old State Theatre which was a futuristic designed cinema built on the Boulevard in 1940 with a distinctive neon pylon like ariel and curved pod box office, which would have been the jewel in the crown of San Diego’s historic theatres had it not been wantonly demolished as late as 1987! More pictures and background can be found on the website above.

I also learn the pioneering lady who used to manage this cinema also ran the Adams Theatre on Adams Avenue which has a similar Art Deco frontage with terazzo patterned sidewalk and curved box office entrance but is now home to a fabric store where I bought some voile during my first week for Sitwell’s medieval style hat!

Upstairs we go through a wonderful open palm court style dining room with a piano through the French windows on to the terrace.

It is just falling dusk as I take a photograph of the beautiful swimming pool and surrounding bungalows. It turns out this Olympic pool was designed by former Tarzan and five-time gold medal winner, Johnny Weissmuller. In the 1940’s San Diego native, Florence Chadwick trained here for her then record breaking swim across the English Channel.

We head back into the Improv Theatre for the start of the Sunday show. The room is set out cabaret style with tall circular tables and bar stools towards the back and lower tables and chairs towards the front. A glass framed door to enter. There are a few punters dotted around and we take our place towards the back of the room perched at one of the high tables.

Kat comes on to rouse the crowd and welcome to the stage a large mixed age group of fairly new improv students presenting their show, ‘About Science’. Their subjects are sourced from science journals, asking the audience to pick from a list of titles from which to improvise around. They gather for a chat, then perform a fairly rapid succession of sketches around the theme. It is quite addictive watching how the group manage to engage with one another, swap roles and hop so swiftly between mini scenarios. One girl in particular I notice is a little trigger happy and jumps in prematurely to most sketches that don’t yet feature her or ends them. This is a shame since the real art of improv, it seems to me, is judging that perfect moment when to cut short and when to leave well alone in order to allow something organic the opportunity to develop in front of you as it shifts and builds into an arc of a living drama.

It was fascinating to observe live improv like this having just run a special workshop on Improv at the Jack Studio Theatre earlier in the summer for part of our Write Now 5 new writing festival in London. I had found myself with the same difficult predicament of “playing God” and the difference it made to not rush the improvisers but allow space and time around the interactions to “frame” the drama. I had asked the participants to think up interesting questions to ask of the other characters so they were not reliant on building a scene from scratch as such but allowed a narrative to be drawn out or emerge from answers and subsequent questioning.

I decided to split the group into performers and observers. This proved invaluable in allowing those watching the chance to observe and interpret how the participants interacted not only through words but body posture, tone, volume, speed, and status on stage.

Then later, a given situation into which participants were slowly allowed to enter the scene in staggered times to allow relationships to establish before introducing more characters. A similar template was being played out in front of me here.

I suddenly had thoughts of how interesting it would be if I lived in San Diego to be a part of Finest City Improv and run some character improv workshops in tackling a simple scene and the myriad ways it could be reinterpreted by the variant choices made.

Of course, it’s a different situation and pressure in front of a live audience as they are essentially looking for light entertainment and expecting laughs, therefore that is what participants naturally tend to cater for. But if you can try and tell a story underneath the laughter, then drama is born.

This was achieved so brilliantly by the next double act. It was such a joy watching the chemistry between two consummate, polished performers, Matt Harris and Tommy Galan, who are obviously experienced in working closely together. Dino informs me one of them is a lawyer and both are relative newcomers to San Diego. Tommy is from Brooklyn and Matt from North Carolina and in fact they have only been performing together for about a year in their group, ‘Bicoastal’.

They were wonderfully intuitive with one another and committed to strong physical performances and rather than going straight for the obvious would constantly surprise the audience with a considered anarchic approach, even linking sketches by referencing characters and situations established earlier on with a though line arc of drama.

This to me was improv at its best with two thinking performers on their feet responding intelligently to one another in rapid characterisations and scenes growing out of their own drama, both completely in control of their technique but flexible enough to circumnavigate it to arrive at fearless and daring comedy theatre.

Finest City Improv was the brain child of Amy Lisewski in 2011, born out of years of study with The Second City and iO West in Los Angeles. During her regular commute from San Diego to Los Angeles for classes, it suddenly dawned on her instead of driving to another city why not start an improv studio in her own city open to everyone to learn the art of improv?

Working with influential performers and coaches, she began teaching all levels improv classes out of four different spaces in and around San Diego before the new theatre space was officially opened in December 2013.

They now have a current roster of over 80 students, 34 ensemble members, eight house teams, and countless guest teams and visiting artists. Shows are from Thursday to Sunday evenings and are well worth catching for an alternative comedy night out in this backdrop of San Diego history, where individuals and generations have left their mark as a glamorous playground location for public entertainment. http://www.finestcityimprov.com

After the show I accompany Dino, Chris and Kat to the Coin Slot Arcade in North Park which is a bar with an amusement arcade and computer games. Not a fan of computer games per sey, nevertheless as part of my saying yes to everything, I go along and actually really enjoy having a go on some of the games.

Kat sits at the bar and I offer to keep her company and have a drink while she eats and the others start gaming. I didn’t envy her choice from the menu of the least of American evils. But the redeeming feature is the wonderful selection of craft beers chalked up on the board. I ask a little background information on each before making my selection. I told Kat how I always go for the strangest sounding ones as a general rule of thumb and start with a dark red ale followed by an ‘Old Witches Brew’ which promises dark chocolate, coffee and smoke. I am not disappointed!

Kat tells me she’s only been at ‘City Improv’ a year and a bit but she loves it. It’s really changed her life round. She’s made so many new friends and its just a great place to hang out and has given her a ready social life.

She asks me about my plans after the Fringe is over and I mention the idea of going on to see San Francisco or the Santa Cruz Fringe Festival, though people tell me not to waste my time because there’s nothing there!

“Oh”, she says, “Well, I may be biased because I studied there, but it is a really pretty place with some nice old buildings and very picturesque”.

She is the first person to speak in praise of Santa Cruz, and makes me think perhaps I ought to see it!

I do love how drinking in America is not regulated by the stupid outdated drinking laws of Britain where you are shoved out onto the cold streets after 11pm with the post pub pall without so much as a “Thank you kindly, Sir” before they shut up shop in your face and lock the doors for another night!

Many regulars from the Improv place call in to wish Chris a Happy Birthday throughout the night and I see what a vital, warm community of performing artists it is and wish I were local enough to be a part of it on a regular basis.

Dino has been busy conquering an electronic hunting game where you have to shoot bison and wildlife in the Grand Canyon at the screen with dummy rifles but are out of the game soon as you shoot anything female! He encourages me to have a go, which is fun but laughable how quickly I am out after Dino’s long run. Then I have a go at a car race one but I’m really drawn to the old fashioned all American pinball machines where you flick levers as ball bearings are flung around flashing lights and bounce. Engrossed in my own distraction on the outskirts, slightly apart from the rest of the crowd, gathered round the central table, now the worse for wear.

It somehow chimes with the nostalgic feel of a daytrip back to the Fifties. With a juke box beat and the journey to Ocean Beach, serenaded by the Haste Girls in old fashioned bathing costumes singing “Lollipop” to the romance of the 40’s Hollywood set at the Lafayette Hotel and the good humour and energy of the Finest City Improv. To new friends made and the flashing coloured lights and sound effects, bleeping of machines and rolling balls of steel as they are repeatedly fired around an obstacle course of wire and pins before always returning back to glide through the arms of the two goal levers like gatekeepers to life itself.

It’s like I’m playing the game of my own life, mapped out before me. I can watch myself faring as a solo player, flicking those levers, keeping the ball animated and alive, jostled and bounced between smooth chrome nipples and wire tracked holes, for as long as possible before that bias slope inevitability calls time, sending your own ball drunkenly back towards you, swifter than you could plan to stop, as you watch it roll and drop through the gaping hole left undefended into the bowels of the unknown void in front of you as it disappears out of sight for the last time.

It is too late for buses and Dino walks out with me to ensure I can find the way back. I start to walk home following 30^th Avenue from North Park which I know intersects with Adams Ave by the ‘Polite Provisions’ bar near to my home. Of course, I naturally select the wrong way with my intuitive sense of no direction and after checking to ask people, turn and head back in the opposite direction! I pass unfamiliar shops and bars and follow the straight road home. I suddenly spot a black woman in her fifties, sat on the opposite side of the road, with what appears to be an entire stock of a charity shop or wardrobe set out on the sidewalk. It’s a surreal sight, nonchalantly surrounded by all her worldly goods, set out like a jumble stall. I continue on my path, before starting to berate myself for not taking the opportunity to go and speak with her and find out what her story is and what she is doing there.

I walk back and cross over the road but she is now oblivious to the world. Busy vigorously brushing out her long blonde wig with definite repeat strokes, like a proud mermaid, perched upon a rock in the perfect privacy of her nocturnal, moonlit idyll. It seems impolite to interrupt. It is as though I am being led by my subconscious through a dream I am only meant to observe. To break the spell by speaking would surely be wrong, yet the scene curiously captivates me. Is this her temporary abode or is this an outdoor clothes market?

“Is this a shop”? I ask.

“What”?

“Is this for sale”? I ask.

“What’s it to ya”? She challenges.

“I’m intrigued” I reply.

“Where’s that accent from?” she enquires.

“Can’t you guess”? I tease.

“I don’t know… somewhere foreign… China” she tries.

“No, try again”, I say, a little wounded.

“Britain?” She asks?

“Correct” I say.

“I knew it had to be one of those. Not from here, anyway”!

“What are you doing here”? I ask.

“I live here” she stated as if it were the stupidest question in the world.

“I mean, is this all yours?”

“Aha”.

“Is it for sale”?

“No, it’s mine”

“What do you do”?

“I’m a jewellery designer”!

“Really, what type of jewellery”? I ask in disbelief.

“African beads mostly. I used to sell them in Vegas. Las Vegas”.

I guess the Las Vegas jewellery trade is not what it once was.

I think if I remember she was wearing many layers of colourful beads around her neck and rings on all her fingers as a kind of model advertisement for her trade. It was as if she couldn’t have loaded any more decoration upon her. Vain and proud she sat like a cat, preening herself, content in her company in contempt of the outside world. And I suppose in her splendid isolation she was only as proud of her own individual appearance as was Sitwell or Monroe in their time and worlds. Indeed, it was perhaps all that she had left.

I realise now I must have been an unwanted threat. I should have sat down with her as her equal and talked openly rather than loitering guarded and apprehensive in front of her as though she were some exotic exhibit on display. In my naivety I saw a story and wanted to know all about why she was setting out her stall in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the night. It was as though she were a sooth sayer, one of those fictional characters that wouldn’t be there when you returned to find her. And I was left with a feeling that she might have held the key to some secret strange journey into another magical realist dimension that would open up through stepping over the threshold and passing through her coat rails or by trying on one of her garments.

However, it had been a long day of adventures and whatever world I missed by not pursuing this particular act, was tempered by my desire to enter another dimension by the more conventional means of sleep. I bade her goodnight and left her to her hairbrush, jewellery and clothes.

I was lucky enough to be able to leave the public domain and walk away to find the private sanctuary of my own room in my temporary home of my host American family.

Ocean Beach and the Haste Theatre Girls

Sunday 29th June

I finally manage to break free from the demands of the rehearsal room on Sunday when I decide I want to see Oyster Boy by Haste Theatre Company playing out in Ocean Beach on the north west coast of San Diego.

Sophie, I had contacted via email and then Skyped earlier in spring to find out about performing at the San Diego Fringe Festival, which she had done last year with her company to great acclaim. We had messaged each other and tried to meet during rehearsals as they were also at APA Studios but our times hadn’t coincided.

I set out at 10.30am and just miss a bus as it turns the corner as I emerge onto the main street and in my usual London mode, start to run for it. But being America, it is on the other side of the road and of course it departs before I can board. When I read the timetable I am appalled to discover the next one isn’t for a half hour. I decide to go and get a smoothie or fruit juice at Senor Mango’s to relax and calm down. Today is a special ‘Taste of Adams Avenue’ food fair and I am tempted to just stay in the area and treat myself to a wonderful culinary extravaganza! A beautiful blonde American girl in hot pants with the slimmest possible toned figure arrives with her floppy haired boyfriend. I ask if they are taking part in the ‘Taste of Adams Avenue’ and she says no but she wishes they were. I tell her I am here for the Fringe Festival and mention my show and ask if they are fans of Marilyn Monroe? “She is,” he says. “She’s got posters of her all over her bedroom!” I hand them a flier and hope I have at least two audience members interested in seeing my show.

We sit and watch as a guy starts to drive off having left his smoothie on the roof of his car until someone spoils the fun by alerting him through his open window.

At 11am I walk back over to catch the 11.05 bus and wait for at least ten minutes then as I board and ask for Broadway I’m told he is heading the other way, I’m on the wrong side of the road! I cross over to the other bus stop to find I’ve missed that bus as it left around 10.50am and the next one is not for another half hour. I suddenly lose the will to live and seriously contemplate staying put and doing the food fest. I walk to a different number bus stop and find there is a twenty-minute wait for the bus.

I am cursing and pacing when a large, jovial road sweeper in florescent orange waistcoat and trousers with a baseball cap starts sweeping up around me. “Service not too good on a Sunday, ha?”

“No shit” I replied.

“Yes, kind of feels like the Twilight Zone, doesn’t it?”

I tell him I missed a bus by thirty seconds then wait half an hour for the next one only to find its going in the wrong direction and then come here to find I missed the bus by fifteen minutes. He says “Look over there” I look, “Wave, you’re on Candid Camera” he laughs. “Are you in a hurry”? He asks.

“I was” I tell him, “But now I’m kind of loosing the will to live!”

“ Why don’t you just stay here”? he asks. “There’s the Taste of Adams Avenue food fair on today”

“I’m seriously considering it” I tell him.

The call of all those restaurants and taking the little trolley bus between them and the people I might meet here sounds very tempting. Yet I did tell Sophie from Haste Theatre that I would make their last show today at Ocean Beach Playhouse at 2pm.

“It could be worse” he says, “It could be raining. You’ve got a beautiful day to gather your thoughts.”

All my thoughts are on how my morning is fast disappearing!

“Well, have a good day“ he says, cheerfully.

“Yes, you too” I reply. He finishes sweeping up the litter and deposits his shovel and broom upside down on the back of his funny little refuse van and with a wave climbs in and pulls away.

Here’s a guy who clearly loves his job and has the right attitude to life. I do regret now not asking if I could take his photograph. He was a kindly character and cheered my spirits, turning round my frame of mind, for that I shall be most grateful.

Eventually a bus turns up and I head into town getting off outside Spreckels Theatre and pop in to see Todd who is busy working away fixing sixty five year old Art Deco style seats found in the basement onto raised platforms to make tears for the audience in the new Raw Space. “Get my haversack from the office” he tells me. I’ve come down without much idea where to get the 35 bus from. He takes out his laptop and googles bus travel for me.

“You’re going to have to get the trolley to Old Town in order to catch the 35 bus from there to get over to Ocean Beach. You’ll have to hurry! It could take you an hour and a half! There’s one leaving at 1pm. Go, now”, he shouts. Thank goodness I did. I take directions to find the trolley then get lost and ask someone. At the other end of Broadway is a station but it’s quite a wait and the trolley of course is late. Time is ticking and suddenly I feel like Harold Lloyd, caught up in a crazy race against the clock to get across town in one of his old black and white movies.

The first tram to arrive is not the one I want but I get it anyway since it goes to a station over the road from the Santa Fe Depot. I dash across to this wonderful old colonial style, imposing train station. It is built to last; an Arts and Craft cathedral of travel. It has oak arched doors and windows, parquetry floor, Edwardian Moorish style tiling and a vast double height vaulted arched ceiling, suspended with double rows of circular bronze ceiling lights on chains. It’s like something out of India and another era altogether.

It originally opened in 1915 to accomodate passengers to the Panama-California Exposition. Designed by San Francisco architects Bakewell and Brown as a “Monumental reminder” of California’s Spanish heritage to match the grand Colonial Revival architecture of the Exposition.

Santa Fe Depot

I run along to find the right platform and swipe in with my newly charged day pass. As the trolley arrives I climb aboard. It’s high up and I’m amazed to find it has an old fashioned air about it too, even thought they must be very new.

I’m clock watching with every stop as it’s ten to 1pm. After a while it trundles into the Old Town and I run off to try and find the bus station to catch a 35 bus to Ocean Beach. The bus station is divided either side of the tram lines and of course the bus stop I want is on the other side of the tracks. How on earth do I get there? I’m looking for a footbridge to get across without having to go right into the station. I ask a few random people. Luckily someone points out there is an underpass. It is now 1pm. I decide to run. I see the bus and dash for it, ensuring it doesn’t depart without me. “Is this the bus to Ocean Beach”? “Yes”. “What time do you leave”? “1pm”. It is that now. I swipe and sit. It’s quite busy with a real mix of passengers some old and chatty.

A loud-mouthed cynical old American is shouting across at someone about landlords and living in hostels, about how bad the beds are and making political swipes. Eventually I am compelled to look round and see it is actually a big Indian looking guy in the back seat shouting into a mobile. I wonder if there is actually anyone on the other end or whether he just uses this to vent off into. Quite clever as people wouldn’t immediately judge him to be quite the nutter I suspect he might be at first.

After about fifteen minutes of putting the world to rights I notice the call is ended. He must simply have been offloading to some poor mate of his. He gets off the bus at the next stop, turns back, looking furious.

The road takes me through outer city suburban sprawl, sand and ochre coloured villas perched high on hills, tall palms, then modest apartment blocks, small prefabs, a seaside community of yellow painted shacks and retail areas, all rather pedestrian and unprepossessing. Finally a glimpse of the ‘Ocean Playhouse’ sign and I know where to alight.

I walk down a street behind the theatre, which leads to the sea to get an overview of the place. No sooner do I get half way down, when I suddenly spot Sophie with the other Haste Theatre girls dressed in their distinctive old fashioned blue and white striped bathing costumes, lined up in front of what appears to be the other side of the theatre. A loud American blonde shrieks in a foghorn voice in front of me, and dashes over to greet Sophie, introducing her friends just as I am about to cross the street and meet her for the first time, ruining my entrance! I wait, then go over to say hello for the first time since we Skyped one another a few weeks back. She is charming and tiny with a head of wild red hair. She introduces me to Elly, a lovely tall blonde who stares into my eyes and smiles warmly as I shake her by the hand and wave at the others who are lined up fliering passers by. “How many of you are there”? I ask, a little overwhelmed. “Six” she says proudly. “Blimey”, I say. “That’s quite a troupe”!

They start singing acapella in harmony and I film them on my iphone. It is like being serenaded back in time to another more innocent and charming era with the smiles and hopes of six pretty, beguiling young women confidently setting out on the sea of life together. Who could fail but to be seduced by their brand of nostalgic charm?

I say I’ll see them later and walk further down towards the sea when I see a great long line of people queuing up along the pavement to buy beef burgers at a café. I dash back to inform the girls they would be better off targeting the queue than waiting for the odd random passer by to capture with their singing and marketing. They have vanished. I go inside and catch Elly, who gives me that amazing smile as I relay my findings. “Oh, I’ll tell the others but I think we’ve run out of time and are getting ready now, but thanks for telling us. They’ve always got a big queue there”. I tell her I’ll see her later. Another Haste girl, Jesse, with pretty eyes, asks if I’ll be staying around for a drink later?

I walk down to the seafront and hear an extraordinarily angry rendition from a young busker sat on the seawall putting his heart and soul into singing and attacking the strings of his guitar. I decide to video this too and am delighted when a string of beach goers start to pass between us. So there is a steady traffic of surfers with their boards, walkers, cyclists, skate boarders and runners etc but the cacophony of noise builds as the wind, motorbikes, cars and aircraft nearly drowned him out. Afterwards, he switches off, hangs his head down as though nothing had happened. But I know differently. I ask his name. “Patrick” he says disinterestedly, as he drops a few CD’s he’s recorded from his hands onto the floor. A guy sat next to him in a brown leather hoodie had tried to keep up on ukulele and another guy is laid out on his back asleep on the seawall. Perhaps they are travellers or locals. I was thrilled to be able to catch this on video.

The soft white sand is punctuated here and there by the highlight of red umbrellas and traffic cones, sun-bathers, seagulls and surfers in bikinis or shorts with their boards. It has a kind of shabby, hippy, drop out atmosphere about it not unlike Margate I suspect, though much less grand. I wish I had more time to assimilate the place before the show. I notice antique shops and centres along the high street along with the eateries, gift shops and bars. But I head back to buy a $10 ticket to see Oyster Boy. The Ocean Playhouse Theatre was probably built in the early 20^th century and has a faded splendour about it. The sort of seaside theatre that feels like it might once have been at the end of a pier and crawled back up the high street for safety. It is a good size auditorium with a raised stage swathed in black cloth and large Turkish carpets on the floor with fold away chairs in rows, draped in black. There are side wall benches with Indian silk cushions and small circular cabaret style tables. I decide to sit on here and catch up writing my journal. There is an audience of about thirty; not bad at all for a Sunday matinee in a hard to reach out of town venue. Music is playing while we are kept waiting some time for Haste Theatre.

When the lights come up and they enter it is like watching something that one’s grandparents may have enjoyed at a Vaudeville end of the pier show. Much charm and simplicity in physical movement and use of blue cloth for the sea and model boats on top, hiding behind red and white striped seaside tents, puppetry, singing and a child like sense of fun and frolics mixed with poignancy.

After the show I wait around and flier and meet a few of their acolytes, some of whom caught the troupe last year. A group of girls wait for them to emerge which takes an age. When they do they drift straight into the nearest pub, which is the pretty awful Irish pub directly opposite. It’s the usual barn of a place with sport TV’s and some World Cup match playing live where a cheer breaks out occasionally throughout the afternoon. I chat with Sophie and the others arrange themselves around a large central table so we join them.

I am convinced that two of the girls, Jesse and Elena, almost identical to one another on stage, wearing their hair in matching pig tails, must not only be sisters but perhaps twins?

“Well, one is British and the other is Italian!” I am informed. Now I see her off stage, Elena is obviously Italian with her raven mane of hair and those dark, soulful Italian eyes. Though she is perhaps the quietest and self contained of the girls. Valeria is more typically Italian, gregarious and gesturally warm offering hugs and voluptuous embraces. She is more completely transformed than anyone off stage, playing the father in Oyster Boy with short floppy black hair which must have been a wig. Her own hair is dyed a brilliant scarlet that is shocking in its wild vividness. My next guess is that Jesse must have Portuguese blood with her perfect almond eyes and strong curved nose very much a give away. Wrong again. She’s the English one!

Eventually we emerge and finally I get chatting to Elly and flirt as we make our way to the beach. She is sun kissed with freckles, has gold spun hair and sparkling sapphire blue eyes. She seems to have this curious hypnotic way of staring deep into one’s eyes where to look away would be an act of sabotage. She speaks with a beautiful cut glass English accent and is warm and engaging. “You must be a northerner?” I ask after her convincing northern accent in the play. “I used to live in Manchester and studied in Lancaster” she confesses. I tell her I’m from Whitby, which she reacts to with fondness as most people tend to do having holidayed there at one time or another. We get ahead of everyone and suddenly find ourselves on our own as we turn around to look for them.

Paul is the mysterious seventh member of Haste who is there in the background to keep them all in order. He is the roadie or their technical manager who deals with all their troubleshooting. Tall and lanky with a beard, in shorts and baseball cap, he feels like their slightly surly older brother who must have a tough job as the only male of the company keeping them all in line. I tease Elly that they must take turns in flirting with him to keep his interest.

Dino is a friendly, Latino looking improvisation performer who wears his long hair in a pony tail under his blue bandana and knows the girls from last year. He has a thick Hispanic accent, which the girls tease him over. He hangs out after the show like me and suggests a game of boulle on the beach, which he has in his car but then someone else suggests a game of Frisbee, which I leap at. I remove my shoes and socks and roll my trouser legs up “like a true Englishman” I say. This is my first step on an American beach and it feels great to finally have soft sand beneath my feet.

Elly takes out a red Frisbee from her bag and a small group of us are soon spread out over the beach throwing it to one another and enjoying the beach atmosphere. There is a pier of sorts which juts straight out into the sea. “Come on Whitby” Elly shouts when I miss the Frisbee embarrassingly and the only time I make the sea all holiday is when I have to retrieve someone’s  throw from the waves!

The sky becomes dramatic with a gathering cloud subduing the Californian sun over the sea. Our Frisbee group dwindles as others drift to the seawall and I go over to see who fancies something to eat. We agree it might be a good idea though no one is looking to spend much money. Pizza and beer are mentioned but having had the best pizza and beer two days running this week I really fancy some seafood, being by the sea. We split into two as some go to a pizza place and others a Mexican where I order an octopus seafood taco. I sit outside on a table with Jesse who is sweet and attentive and Anna, the last of the group I have yet to talk to. She is a petite blonde with a child like cheekiness and smile and speaks with a lilting Scottish accent as a song you don’t ever want to end. She strikes me as being a gentle peacekeeper type, though of course, I could be wrong! As I emerge from ordering I end by chance sitting opposite Elly.

As she emerges from ordering I solve something with a gesture to her ringed fourth finger and ask if she’s married? “Oh, yes”, she says “Many times!”

“No”, she admits “I just like wearing silver rings on my fingers”.

“Just stopping guys from hitting on you”? I ask, inquisitively.

She smiles. I really can’t explain my sudden elation.

Afterwards we find the others and split again to go in search of some frozen yogurt. We call in at some of the eclectic shops along the way selling all sorts of clothes and gifts and start trying on hats with Jesse and recommending which one’s I think would suit her. It has been lovely getting to meet and chat with all of the Haste Company in turn today and I feel like I know each of them a little.

As it approaches half past seven I begin to get slightly concerned about getting back since it was such a marathon by public transport and feel I should start to leave. But Dino says he is driving back to Adams Avenue as he has an Improvisation Show tonight at ‘Finest City Improv’ would I like a lift? That’s fantastic as it means I can relax and enjoy the natural end to one of those days that will possibly stay with me forever; spent in such delightful company by the seaside of a little eccentric Californian beach town as the day slowly makes way for dusk.

Bar Fly Meets the Locals

Saturday 28^th June

I’m in the very hipster bar, ‘Polite Provisions’ on my own. I have my trusty notebook with me and now I’ve secured myself one of the premium marble topped tables, I feel no longer ‘Billy no mates’, stood hanging around the bar like a spare part. It is exactly as I thought it would be on my own when I contemplated coming in here again last night. I have just watched a pretty brunette barmaid or should I say, Cocktail waitress with immense skill and panache mix cocktails and serve them in front of me at the bar. Two cocktails of the same pink concoction in tall tapered glasses and something green in a shorter glass. Three shakers, two at first, one in each hand, shaking simultaneously! These people have to be ambidextrous! It is sheer joy to witness the efficiency and style of her actions. Having mixed and poured out into two glasses over ice, she places the steel shakers upside down while they are automatically rinsed. Taking black straws she withdraws them from the drink and sucks to taste for subtle quality control in a seamless act. She cuts and ducks slices of lime into her works of art and hands them over.

A man in a great polyester 70’s vintage shirt of burnt terracotta and yellow triangles sits at the bar awaiting a friend who joins him. Small groups stand around raised circular marble tables in the centre beside huge cast metal street lights of standing females in togas holding aloft glass globe lights with winged sphinks below. All the bar staff are dressed in 1920’s prohibition style costumes. The men in white shirts, waistcoats and flat caps with manicured moustaches the ladies in fitted black shirts and waistcoats, no moustaches. The atmosphere is buzzing. This is simply one of the coolest places I have ever hung out in. It is the type of place I dreamed of being in when I was a teenager, obsessed with the Edwardian era and the 1920’s.

Three beautiful girls who were stood at one of the circular tables have just joined me on the next table that became vacant. One, a stunning black girl with her mid-rift showing gossips in a squeaky American voice without ever once drawing breath!

“And I’m like, I’m standing right in front of you, how can you like, be saying that to me, you know? That was like, you know, I’m working on, blah, blah, blah, but now…”

She is so involved in blabbering with the other two that it seems fairly clear she is not interested in being hit on.

I seem to be causing more interest amongst the bar staff.

“Is everything okay here”? One bearded chap approaches me in his 20’s.

“What are you writing about”?

“It’s just a journal” I tell him.

“You prefer to write longhand”? he questions.

“When I don’t want to bring my laptop out with me” I answer.

“I know what you mean. I’ve started writing letters by hand” he says.

“Wow”! I find myself saying, “Good for you! It’s died out. You could be responsible for single handedly bringing it back!”

“I’ll do that” he promises. Someone needs to.

I’m considering leaving here after this drink. I’ve not managed to talk to anyone other than the barman and am feeling rather isolated. It’s Saturday night 11pm and I certainly don’t wish to return to my room until I’ve tried at least another drinking hole or two in the area whilst I’m here.

I cross over the road to ‘The Air Conditioned Lounge’ a bar with a large open window in the wall by day to hear thumping music inside and all boarded up so you can’t see in. Two attractive women just arriving get out of their car and walk towards it. I should have asked them what it was like inside but I had already decided to move on. I wander further up Adam’s Avenue to find other bars in the area. I pass a large pool place bar and some other dives and cafes before stumbling upon an open door pitch-dark room with a black curtain stage at the end. A melancholic young brunette in her twenties is singing folk, blue-grass country style songs of great beauty in an extraordinary voice. Three bearded guys playing guitars and a cello accompany the great vocal sound. I am compelled inside.

A fat guy in black shorts and T- shirt is sat on a folding stool outside facing the door, hunched over his Apple laptop. I loiter in case I was charged entry but no one spoke-up so I wander in to this dark room with an audience of perhaps twenty at most. You could hear a pin drop, they are respectable and receptive. The band starts harmonising with great skill. After two songs it’s all over and I hang around to find out what I’d just witnessed. It’s a small live music venue called Le Stats. I chat to the band at the front desk where there are CD’S for sale and mailing lists. I ask the young singer, Heather if she is playing the Fringe Festival? No, she hasn’t heard about it. I said it would be great for her to play there and to check it out for next year. I tell her about my play and she wishes me luck with it.

It turns out this was a special collaboration between the band, ‘Darlingside’ and Heather Maloney. She has started touring with them but recorded her own solo album and has been touring America since March. Heather is from Massachusetts and wants to tour Europe and Britain. I refrain from purchasing their many CD’s but I sign up for both emailing lists and as she said she’ll keep me in touch if she tours Europe.

I am suddenly reminded of the two blonde singer songwriter girls I met in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival at a talent show upstairs in the Pear Tree pub who were touring in a camper van and who’s CD I bought. I wander further.

There is a brightly lit café next door with people on laptops at separate tables.

I carry on further and cross the road to take a look at the Irish pub; Rosie O’Grady’s, which I’d heard, was rough. I couldn’t see clearly inside, as it was dark, crowded and loud. It didn’t immediately grab me, so I went next door to find a large windowed open wooden floor bar with bare tables, a good range of ales on tap and a more civilised clientele sat at tables. I made to go in but was met by a bartender who informed me they had already called last orders. I was genuinely disappointed, as this looked the best bet of the bunch.

Crossing back over the road I peer into a crowded small bar with a guy sat on the door who asks if I have any ID? I said “No. What sort of ID? I don’t carry any”.

“Passport?” he said.

“Passport!” I guffawed. “What makes you think I’d carry my passport round with me?”

“You’ll need ID if you try to go into any of the downtown bars to prove you’re over twenty one.”

“You’re very kind, “ I said, somewhat bewildered.

“I’ll let you in this one time” he said.

As I walked inside I saw he was not exactly doing me a huge favour. It was full of drunken idiots, people turning to stare at the over dressed outsider, music blaring and bar tenders ignoring me. Not exactly my kind of place. I surveyed the awful scene and decided I wasn’t interested in spending any money or time in here. “See you next time” I lied to the bouncer on the way out. Merely confirming my conviction that the only venues with a bouncer are never worthy of one’s patronage.

I walked back and found the pool place. The minute I walk in I’m approached by the straight talking barman who points at me and asks me what I’m drinking? “A beer!” I say, taken aback. “What kind of beer? ‘ he asks. “What do you have on tap?” I enquired. He lists quite a few. I ask for something ale like. I chose one and it’s excellent. I like the way he runs the place. A glass breaks and he’s there sweeping it up. A Mexican chant breaks out at the back and the place is in uproar. “Before me, above me, below me” is the rough translation. It’s the World Cup live and Mexico is playing. There are six TV’s in one wall behind the bar and one at either end in case you missed any sport. But still it doesn’t really feel like your typical ‘Sports bar’ somehow.

I take up position central stage at the bar, take out my notebook and continue writing in my journal. This time it causes more attention.

I meet a voluptuous Hispanic girl who works for the Navy full time and is at College studying PR in her spare time. She asks me what I’m writing about. I tell her it’s my journal I’m keeping as I’m bringing a play to the San Diego Fringe Festival. Has she heard about it? No. She doesn’t go out, always busy working then studying. But she likes theatre and takes a flier and says she might make it.

An older couple slightly the worse for wear, arguing, sit down to my right and before long he takes one look at my notebook and says “I think that’s incredible”

“What is”? I ask.

“That you can write like that”

“Oh, thank you very much,” I say.

I talk to a stunning brown-eyed blonde with great legs and lips, sat to my left. I ask if she’s heard of the Fringe? No she hasn’t but she’s grown up round here. She’s twenty-five and has been smoking marijuana for ten years since she was fifteen! “You know, the stereotype Californian culture?” She tells me she’s unemployed, between jobs right now and not proud of that fact. She’s unhappy right now and wants to get to the stage where she’s happy again. She is with a short Hispanic guy who is sat on her other side. She tells me who he is to her but I didn’t hear. She takes my flier with interest, reads it and puts it in her bag. I ask her if she’s artistic?

“You should have been here at the beginning of the month. All the street for two miles, every shop and café was given over to displaying art and music from artists”. She tells me.

She turns to inform her Hispanic friend about our conversation and he asks to see the flier, which she takes out of her bag to show him. He glances at it and puts it down. It is left on the bar.

I ask if she takes marijuana for relaxation, sexual or creative intentions. She thinks for a moment before replying “All of the above at different times”. She suddenly turns to me “Can I ask you something of a personal nature?” I thought she was about to ask my orientation or relationship status, “Have you smoked marijuana before?” She asks. “Why”? I ask, “Are you inviting me”? She smiles and confesses without actually closing the deal. I ask what her line is? She says promotion.

“I thought you might be a dancer” I find myself saying.

“I am a dancer of sorts,”… she confesses, “But a girl has to pay the bills, right?

I didn’t quite follow where this might be leading.

“I wasn’t sure what type of dancer you were asking?” she says. Suddenly a whole seedier side opens up as I think her bleached peroxide hair may be a clue to another type of dancing that involves a pole perhaps? What is the subtext in our exchange? Is this just some male fantasy conjecture?

She disappears for a long while.

A tall guy comes and orders a drink at the bar and asks me what I’m writing. He introduces himself as Simon from San Diego who is a teacher. What do you teach I ask?

“Maths and Spanish”.

“Quite a combo” I say.

“Yes” he said. “I know”.

“My brain is differently wired,” I tell him. “Programmed not to compute things like mathematics”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. I think everyone is capable of learning about anything given the right amount of application”. “I wish I was able to write like you,” he says.

“Well you can.” I say. “You just start and see where it takes you”.

A short girl comes up to me, introduces herself and asks most politely. “Hello. I was sat on the other side of you earlier at the bar and I could see you were busy writing so I daren’t interrupt you. But would it be all right if I asked you what you are writing about”?

“Of course” I say, touched by her sweet courtesy. “I’m writing my journal about my time here. I’ve brought a play over from London to the San Diego Fringe Festival.

“Really”? She says. “That’s amazing. What’s it about?”

It’s about Marilyn Monroe meeting with an eccentric English poet, Dr Edith Sitwell in Hollywood in 1953” I tell her.” Do you like theatre?”

“Oh yes”, she says “I love going to theatre and dance”.

I give her a flier and she appears delighted. I start to fear she may be hitting on me but she mentions something about her husband.

“Can I ask you for a hug?” She says out of the blue.

“Of course” I say, somewhat flabbergasted. We hug, she says goodbye and she is gone.

The brown-eyed blonde re enters with the short Hispanic sidekick and stands next to me. We exchange eye contact for a little too long and I fantasise there may be something between us. But before long she disappears again.

Another local, Steve, wanders up to the bar, swaying slightly in his drunken bliss. He asks me what I’m writing. Turns out he sells things. “What kind of things?” I ask, not prepared to let it rest there.

“Gardening equipment and such like” he says before drifting off.

The wily barman finally asks me if I’ve managed to write down everything that’s happened tonight and I say “Just about”. I tell him what I’m doing in San Diego. He picks up the postcard flier to read I gave to the blonde earlier, now stuck to the bar with beer. Without warning he starts quoting Shakespeare speeches from Julius Caesar to me. He is word perfect and flows as naturally as everyday conversation. He is captivatingly good and I strain to savour every word of this impromptu performance.

“I majored in Performing Arts about thirty five years ago. But you know, very few of the greatest actors are making a living from their art. I have responsibilities. I’m married with a family. I own and run this place.” He then quotes Macbeth speeches. “Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle turned toward mine hand?” He has clearly missed his vocation.

Who would have imagined when I walked through that door this no nonsense bar tender would end the evening by giving one of the best performances I’d see all Fringe in America. “I’m Ken by the way,” he says shaking me warmly by the hand as closing time comes at 2am and all the stragglers leave. I thank him for a great night and tell him I like the way he runs the place. I am the last one out.

Outside I meet the brown-eyed blonde waiting, still with her Hispanic sidekick in tow. I really should have asked if they were together. We exchange more small talk and I wait to see if anything is going to happen between us. But after a while we bid each other a fair goodnight, I kiss her on both cheeks, give her my card and tell her to drop me an email. I never hear from her again.

Rehearsals and Finding the Marilyn Dress

Tuesday 24^th June

The next day Rhianna arrives, the epitome of style in her navy open-topped coupe. She is like a breath of fresh air, a broad smile with dark, enquiring eyes. She is warm and engaging and has that old-fashioned kind of elegance that speaks of another era.

She says she has only read the play once but she can see there are a lot of layers to it and that its interesting being about the process of film making.

I say it’s going to be about finding the moments when she is acting as Marilyn Monroe and when she is revealing herself as Norma Jean. It’s about the gear changes between the two as well as capturing the iconic voice and physical movement.

She says she was discussing with a friend how playing Marilyn is like the equivalent of playing Hamlet. It’s the one great iconic role that every woman would like to play but there are so many layers to uncovering her. Because everybody thinks they know who she was. But she is different to every body. What she doesn’t tell me until much later in the run is that she has already played her twice before.

I ask her if she knows about the fringe and she says she played a French wife in a new short play last year and went to see a lot of other shows.

She seems happy to take part on the basis of Fringe ans I tell her that she’ll need to give as good as she gets with Loie and hold her own.

She strikes me as being quite English in her manner and in her accent at moments, one would be forgiven for thinking she wasn’t American at all.

I’ve finished telling her all about the script and asking if she had any questions and as k her if she has any? Bryant has failed to materialise but then the door bell rings and in he comes brandishing a box of sugary and pink iced donuts!

I sense a hiatus in proceedings so decide to relay to Bryant what we had just been discussing to alleviate the need for starting over repeating questions so we get straight down to brass tacks.

I ask her to write down her measurements for me on my little notepad since we shall be shopping for the dress and shoes soon as possible now she has confirmed she is on board.

There is a rehearsal the same evening at APA Studios and Rhianna agrees to attend. When we get there Bryant is informed that we are not in the usual room he has had for a few days but a smaller ”Office” space today. When we open the red door a broom falls out and a pile of mops and cleaning equipment are there. It is a deep tapered room full of equipment and a quick calculation tells me it would take more trouble to clear it than walk away. It was like a gym with weights, metal poles, racks, bars, filing cabinets, chairs, desks, clutter. We closed the door on it and felt immediately better. Knowing this was going to be Rhianna’s first encounter with the company, what would she think if she turned up to her first rehearsal and was faced with the prospect of rehearsing in a walk in broom cupboard?

We went back to the front desk and the young girls on there and asked if there was anything else available? No, the studios are pretty busy tonight.

There was nothing for it but to go outside to the loading bay at the back of the building where there was a raised concrete platform about four metres by two and set up there. But I could see there wasn’t room for the actors and us with our trestle table and laptop but the lower area below which backed onto an access road from the car park with the roar of the freeway we had come off below that. It was going to be an interesting first rehearsal. The young girls from the front desk helped us carry out chairs and tables, probably more out of pity than anything. What on earth was Rhianna going to think?

“What, you’re reduced to rehearsing in the parking lot”? Someone asked. “Oh no”, I said, defiantly, “We are in the loading bay, if you don’t mind”!

Rhianna was a good sport and soon we were blocking and going through scene one. I had tried to get the actors off book on Sunday so they could concentrate on moves and reaction and I prompted where necessary. Of course Rhianna was going to be script in hand but it was evident that Randy really hadn’t retained his lines and was cursing himself with “Fuck” every time he stumbled or forgot a line. Loie, who claimed to now have scenes one and two off book started to falter and blame the distraction of the constant din of traffic on the freeway below.

Word must have got round because it wasn’t long before Kevin appeared on the scene with his camera to take shots of his artists having to rehearse outside his Studios because they were so busy. The sun was sinking, lending that golden glow and the photos came out looking like a location shoot for a low-budget American indie movie. That night was our first meeting with our Stage Manager, Ryan who Bryant had met on a previous job. An angular, geeky young choirboy who I can see in collar and ruff! He has an angel face and is as camp as anyone I had ever met. He has the habit of twisting his arms around his elbows in front of him like a pair of ungainly wings. With sparkling blue eyes, a beaming smile and a nasal voice so garbled and fast, he gives the impression of being stuck in fast forward mode. He said he could be on book to prompt the actors if I liked to relieve me of the role. I agreed, only his voice is so slight and quick that he couldn’t make Loie hear her lines as he shouted them out to her over the noise of the traffic in the open air. He circled words on the script the actors struggled with using one of his many pencils that he carried around in a case with him for the purpose. He is friendly, diligent, business like and obliging. Apart from the constant distraction of traffic it was lovely to be outside rehearsing in the evening warmth of a San Diego summer’s night. We stumbled through scene one a couple of times before dusk descended.

A female security guard patrolled the car park and grounds around the studios. She passed by a couple of times then seemed to loiter behind us as she watched our rehearsal before summoning the nerve to speak. “I’m not too sure about this”. She stated.

We ignored her and carried on. “You know. I’m really not too sure about this. Have you got permission to be here?”

“Yes Kevin has cleared it”, replied Bryant defiantly!

I looked round with incredulity at her. “Why don’t you have a word with Kevin if it worries you?” I asked.

“I mean this kind of thing is better done inside maybe. You could be a threat out here”.

“The studios are full! There’s no room. That’s why we are out here”! Said Bryant.

“I mean it doesn’t look like you’re about to kill anyone”… she surmises, “but I’m not too sure.”

“Only the script” remarked Loie in perfect Sitwell mode.

“Kevin was just here taking photos, you could clear it with him” suggested Bryant.

“Well he’s not here anymore” She states.

“I guess you’re not doing any harm to no one.” “Maybe it’s okay. You carry on” she says and finally leaves one of the most dangerous group of thespians to run riot while rehearsing in the back loading bay of a car park this side of southern California.

We call it a night early around nine as it gets progressively dark.

Wed 25^th June

The next morning I have had the pleasure of thoroughly researching where we might obtain authentic ‘conical’ or ‘bullet bras’ on the internet to try to get the authentic Monroe busty look for our actress. Bryant picks me up again in his two door red sports type car with a broken wing mirror and doors that don’t lock. We go shopping round the thrift shops of North Park and Hillcrest district.

I’d researched a vintage shop on Facebook and messaged them about a Marilyn Monroe white dress. They said they’d be happy to loan us the dress for a hire fee thinking it was for my actress to wear to the première of a film and they would be prepared to show publicity for the film in their window.

But of course I was after a more formal white day dress for her to wear during the run of my play for her 1953 meeting with Sitwell. This was before she became famous for The Seven Year Itch (1955) scene with the iconic ivory halterneck Travilla cocktail dress flying up from warm draughts from a subway grate.

The owner is a tall, imposing European with a thick dramatic accent and manicured moustache, dressed from head to toe in black, like a lead in one of those early German Expressionist films.

“You will find it almost impossible to source a vintage white dress from the 50’s that has survived. In all the years I have been dealing I see very few. You see, being white they always get stained and show the dirt so everyone threw them away. You will be very lucky indeed! Why do you want a shirt dress anyway? It’s Marilyn Monroe she was always provocative.” The shop is a real treasure trove of all types of periods of dresses, hats, shoes and accessories, including handbags lined up in glossy lines on shelves. But they are all too expensive to contemplate for Sitwell in the show. We ask if we might leave a few fliers for the show in the shop?

We found another great vintage shop with an excellent collection of clothes and bags all rather expensive on our modest budget. The owner was a smartly dressed man in his fifties with one of those strange spun hairdos and a ready smile that reminded me of a 1950’s black and white TV quiz show host. His wife was an off stage voice from the back of the store through the magical bead curtain and would not be making an appearance today. When I enquired about a white period 1950’s shirt dress there was the usual drawing of breath and how difficult that was going to be to find before a “you might well be in luck” and the voice called her husband who disappeared momentarily to emerge carrying forth a white-ish dress for Marilyn. It was the first period shirt style dress we had seen but they wanted around $80 for it. It actually looked a little large anyway.

We asked if we might put up a poster for the show? “We get hit on all the time here because the area is so popular but we just can’t otherwise we’d be swamped” He said. “But I don’t mind if you’d like to leave some fliers over by the door”. We thank him and depart.

In another store we find two packets of new retro white arm gloves along with a lot of clothes for women and accessories including handbags but no white dress for Marilyn or black handbag for Edith. We called in new fashion shops to enquire about a white dress but they were all off the shoulder slinky numbers, very sexy and far too short.

We then drive to Hilllcrest and find one of the largest and untidiest of thrift shops with clothes hung on long rows of rungs covering much of the entire floor. We are searching for wide seamed turn up tweed style trousers for Cukor too. Suddenly Bryant finds an almost identical 50’s style ivory shirt dress like the one in the vintage shop but with an embroidered front with small pink flowers showing behind the cut out petals on the chest and a pleated full knee-length skirt. It’s perfect, looks like a good size and best of all is $6. “Let’s get it and let Rhianna try it on to see if it fits. We’re never going to find anything better than that” I said. I couldn’t believe our luck! I searched for a pair of size 7 white semi stilettos in vain. Upstairs I find a pair of old-fashioned yellow damask silk style cushions that might be of use on the sofa to give Cukor a bit of business playing with them. Bryant also finds a belt and “suspenders” or braces for Cukor. As we are about to pay for the items at the till, Bryant spots a wonderful large oval black cabochon white metal ring in the desk cabinet, absolutely perfect for Sitwell and says we’ll take that too. Still no black 50’s handbag for Sitwell despite searching carefully through the row of ones hung high above our heads from the ceiling.

It is, however a major victory to have scored finding the Marilyn’s dress. Let’s just hope it fits.

We drive on further to the most beautifully set out thrift store where everything is displayed in colour co-ordinated sections. So if you want something white you know where to go. It turns out to be the same store where Loie brought me to buy her black velvet top and I found two pairs of white shoes that are perfect in style but in size 8 and 8.5. I negotiate to return a pair if they don’t fit and hope we may be able to pad them with insets. So we leave with two pairs of white stilettos. It is gone six and we are due to meet for rehearsal at APA Studios at 7pm but we are in dire need of food and refreshment. We return to the LGBT pizza place on the corner where I had an amazing pizza yesterday with Bryant. It suddenly dawns on me the irony of a straight man, sat in a gay restaurant, carrying a bag bearing two pairs of women’s white stilettos, wearing a 50’s style panama hat, talking to a gay man about how delighted he is that he has finally found a dress for Marilyn, one of the biggest gay icons in the world and costume for Edith while our bearded waiter touches me reassuringly each time he takes an order. I marvel at the comfort I take in feminine things being a fish out of water in such surroundings. It must rank amongst the very best pizza I’ve ever had and amazing handcrafted beer! We just about have time to chill out and enjoy a great meal before we must race back onto the freeway for the second night of rehearsal with the new cast.

When we reach the studio Loie and Rhianna are already going through Scene 2 together under the supervision of Ryan. We are in an end studio room with a thudding pop soundtrack coming through from the dancers next door. The actors soldier on but it is distracting and noisy and not easy to concentrate on an emotional scene.

I am eager to see if Marilyn’s dress fits so she tries it on and it looks almost perfect. There is an open cut out section showing her back which doesn’t feel quite right for the period but I am not going to worry about this as it looks great. The shoes however are quite a bit bigger than her feet and I can get my finger between her back ankle and the back of the shoes proving there is too much gap to do anything about. Both pairs will have to be returned.

Loie is instantly delighted with her new shades and promptly hands me the old ones back in their case in jubilation. “Oh, I do like these” she says. “I quite fancy them myself, actually!”

We are told that unfortunately the room we are in has been booked at 8pm for a tap dancing class and we must vacate. So we decide to set up the tressle table in the common space between studios in front of the dispensing machine and do a table reading. We are now able to hear a loud bass coming from the opposite room which sounds like the door is left open its so loud. Not so.

Then the ladies, chatting loudly to one another outside their room finally enter and start tap dancing and click around making a din as they enter the hard studio floor. They continue to tap dance and make a racket for an hour, which combined with the music thumping out from the opposite studio which makes for another surreally farcical rehearsal and Loie kindly offers to continue rehearsals at her place which is nearer for all of us and not nearly so damn noisy and distracting. It is to be our last night at the Studios and Bryant cancels all the future bookings he made here.