Day 2 -- Thursday January 15

Everything by the book. The entire cast was present by about 9:15am and the rehearsal began. We ran through all five scenes, figuring out blocking, trying to make the jokes funny, the usual stuff. My one big scene (in which I have three little scenes) is the entire second half of the show, so it's quite an undertaking. It went remarkably smoothly, though, aided I'm sure by the professionalism of the guest actors, and maybe also a little because of the well-oiled machine the cast has become after six seasons together, but most likely the professional guest actor thing. My deliveries and timing seemed to go over well. I got a couple of laughs from the group I was working with, which included Kelsey Grammar, David Hyde Pierce, and Bebe Neuwirth, plus the director, David Lee. No one really yelled at me, which I always consider to be a successful day.

We then broke for lunch. I sat at the table in the conference room with my Pad Thai and David Hyde Pierce was nice enough to sit down with me and chat. The director joined us for a bit, too, which was cool. It turns out David went to Yale so I had to stop talking to him, but I think he understood.

After lunch we ran through the show for the writers/producers. There was dialogue after each scene between the writers and performers regarding what could be better, didn't work, felt funny, etc. Everyone was very relaxed and open and the discussions were productive. It seemed a little too open of a discussion in my opinion because they would be trying to figure out a problem and five or six different ideas would get suggested and then the focus would shift and then ideas would be forgotten. But perhaps it seemed more open than it actually was. As the run-through continued, there was an obvious discussion "leader" and the other writers were merely offering ideas. The bottom line, however, is a general respect between the writers and performers, which is probably not the norm on television. But when you're the Emmy Award-winning best sitcom on television for three years, you probably start to trust your team.

My three little bits went fine. I got a punch line stepped on, which is dangerous, because the lines that aren't funny are cut. Now if you're playing Frasier, it's not that big a deal to lose a line or two. But when you only have a dozen, you don't want to be stripped of any of them. And my very last line, which is the last line of the entire episode, did not get as strong a reaction as you would expect from the closing line of the episode. We'll see what happens to it over the next few days. Perhaps the director will have an idea or two for it.

Regarding the "ohh-kays" that have been the centerpiece of this adventure since the beginning: I don't think I have ever said my own lines to myself as often as I have said "ohh-kay" in the last 8 hours. The line just keeps pounding through my head. I don't want to smother it with overthinking it, but I don't want to miss the boat on it either if there's some angle I haven't thought of yet. It's a bit nerve-racking.

Go on to Day 3

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