Day 1 -- Friday, August 21

Something is rotten in the state of Encore! Encore!

I returned to Stage 32 on the Paramount lot today to reshoot scenes from the pilot of Encore!, now titled Encore! Encore! (as a result of some sort of legal issues with the cable station Encore). The original pilot contained cast members Molly Price and Evan Matthews, who were both quite good in their roles from what I could tell, but who will only be footnotes to the grand adventure that is Encore! Encore! They have since been replaced by Glenne Headly and Trevor Fehrman, respectively. Any and all scenes in which either one of them appeared have to be reshot and edited into the pilot.

What that means for me is three more days of work as the harried limo driver schlepping Nathan Lane back and forth from the airport to his family's vineyard/winery. What that means for everyone else is apparently four days in hell.

Upon arriving on the set this morning, however, everything seemed rosy. Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane both remembered me and gave me big hellos as well as hearty congratulations for the ABC deal they had heard about. That got my day off to a joyous start. And it was good to see Sarah and Kim and the director, David. It was a first for me, arriving on a set knowing people prior to my first day of work. Usually it takes me a few days to warm up to people, so having friendly, familiar faces was very cool.

Add to that the fact that I don't really have to do very much and it's just a fun place to hang out. While I am in four different scenes in the pilot, the longest two of them do not need to be reshot. The remaining two only include snippets of me. I bring in luggage in one and have two lines and then continue the theme by bringing in luggage in the second and tossing in one more line.

So here's the whole package... I get to make more money, I have low pressure on me because I don't have to do much, I am well-respected because of the previous taping and rumors of my success, people like me and it's only the first day, all the scenes will be shown to the studio audience, so they'll think I've been working hard all week, and I get to show my face again as their season gets under way in the hopes of being used somewhere down the road (literally) in future episodes. Pretty nice set up.

But while I lay back and enjoy the good life, all around me things seem to be falling apart. Just prior to entering the house for his first scene, Nathan Lane turns to me and says, "I'm about to enter the 'House of Tension.'" At one point during rehearsal, Joan Plowright says as she walks off the set, "I'm going back to England." Nathan Lane jokes to me later, "I have a film career. What am I doing? Why did a sitcom seem like a good idea?" Whatever glorious camaraderie was present four months ago when the pilot was first created has now basically been recast as an uncertain, uncomfortable gloom.

What actually happened yesterday is just hearsay, of course, but as it was related to me, Glenne had a lot of questions and concerns with her character. From what I could see today, it seemed to boil down to a discomfort with the whole sitcom style. Add to that the extra burden of being the "new kid," and the pressures of a new show and even having to learn lines in scenes that everyone else already seems to know, and you can end up with what I guess was a lot of confusion and frustration. Also, Joan Plowright has never been a fan of the rewriting process that goes on during the week and her comment about fleeing the country was because she had lost what she felt was an important line. So no one was chipper as they rolled into work on their second day.

I changed all that.

OK, that's anywhere from an exaggeration to an absurdity, but I do think in some small way, at least, that I helped. Yesterday, you had Glenne, who was upset, Joan, who was frustrated, Nathan, who was probably overwhelmed and exhausted, and Trevor, who was brand new to this half of the country, let alone high-profile network television sitcoms. No one was making any effort to rally the troops. Today, however, there was the fresh, familiar face of the driver, and at different times, both on the set and off, having an extra person with a happy disposition may have helped tip the scales back toward tolerable. So, it didn't really have as much to do with me personally as it did with there being an optimistic goofball on the set. (The other possibility is that these are all professionals and they are making adjustments as they get more used to the people and demands of the project. But let's credit me instead.) Either way, though, there were some fun moments for all and honestly nothing but fun moments for me. I really did have a blast.

The run-through for network and producers went pretty well, but it was then most obvious the level of frustration Glenne is feeling. When the scene got a little out of control and silly, no amount of joking could crack Glenne's facade. She looked pained and lost. I don't know what her sitcom experience is, but she needs a little more time to settle into this one. It's a different art form than stage or film or hour-long dramas, and it would have been helpful for her to have been around for the original pilot shoot, which was a 7-day process instead of four.

But that's all water under the bridge now and the show is moving forward. The cast is intact with two replacements and one new character. The crew is assembled. The time slot is set. The commercials are running. And the driver is back. It's all systems go. The show needs to find its legs and with the pressure and expectations laden on the show, they better do it fast.

Go on to Day 2

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