If He Were Talking about The Perfect Pitch...

It's a good thing The Great Plotnik stopped talking about his musical, because if he were talking about it he could bore you with the fact that his partner D-Blue was just up here for two days and they finally finished the book. The music was easy, the book is something else again. What is left is formatting and minimal stage directions. Should only take a few more (choose one: days __ months__decades__eons__).

Plotnik likes the fact that they eliminated one of their characters and combined two others into one. The bad part is that Brother Virgil, who was the Cosmic Philosophunker, has disappeared into history because his role had diminished down to almost nothing. The good part is that Plotnik gets to now add some of Brother Virgil's lines (and one song) to his own character The Duke of Earl. Plus, The Duke of Earl has taken over the role of BlueTooth, the intergalactic computer repairman.

Does this sound complicated? Oh, pshaw.

The reason is even simpler -- new shows have to be as small as possible. The fewer characters the better, because that means less actors to hire. And shows are also shorter than they used to be, as audience attention spans shrink. PP got around 10 minutes shorter and did away with two actors. Plotnik could tell you all about it, but he's not talking.