Japanadu

As the week comes to a close I realize that a hell of a lot has happened just in terms of personal growth. It is, after all, nearly the end of the year and I’m reflecting back on just everything that happened in 2008. From watching Sara go to Peru to working on My Friend Dahmer and Our Mother, Staten Island, getting in hot water with the Lafayette higher-ups right before graduation, moving out to San Diego and working on 5 shows in 7 months with all the craziness that surrounded them.

This past week was merely an interesting study about how one community’s pink-striped roller-disco musical is poorly received (sorry, La Jolla, it’s just not your type of show) while in another community it is strictly Japanese.

That’s right, XANADU, in case I haven’t already mentioned is going to Tokyo and I for one think its brilliant. The tour manager for XANADU hired me this week for a nice sum to drive around the Japanese production team and management and I learned a lot. I learned that you should aim for an audience and know where that audience lies otherwise you have a lot of explaining to do when returns are not met. Japan will soak up this show, as I saw from the two women and Mister Shima at the student matinee on Tuesday. That might have been the best audience that XANADU will ever have—the cheers and screams of young theater-geeks getting treated to all the glits and glamour of Broadway. And that probably was a big factor in the Japanese sealing the deal.

I also learned that when in Rome, be like the Romans. When with the Japanese, be attuned to their customs. And when in California, take them to an exotic, fancy restaurant of high cuisine known as P.F. Chang’s. Yes, that’s right. On orders, I took the Japanese for Chinese at P.F. Chang’s. Not only did they insist that I join them (“that way I’ll know where you are!” cooed the one woman who seemed to lead the group) but I force fed myself the leftovers that they had ordered, claiming that I was the growing young man. I felt so flattered and simultaneously awkward because they’d answer my questions in quick, short responses followed by a little laughter and then having two questions for my one thrown back at me. Not intrusive, not invasive, but I wanted to know about them. Not so much an open book.

Anyways, I felt big time, even as I dropped them off and escorted them into the theater for the show that night. I, the lowly little company management assistant had dined on inauthentic Chinese food with some bigwigs at the Tokyo Broadcasting Company. Look out world, here I come…some day…to Japan.