It’s Wednesday, November 29th, and that means it’s time for Your Daily Lex.

Basically because it’s a day, and any day means it could be time for Your Daily Lex.

Quick changes, man.

Quick changes.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week.

We’re in tech rehearsals for Avenue…

Nope, not Avenue Q.

That show was long gone.

But I’ve been chatting with the Avenue Q cast all day.

But we’ve been in tech rehearsals all week for Elf because the show opens this Saturday.

And that’ll be the first of 11 shows.

But, man oh man, I have some quick costume changes.

That’s the first thing I’m thinking about.

And near the end of the show, I’ve got, you know, about 40 seconds to go from being in a suit and tie and winter coat and scarf into an Elf costume.

Because at the end of the show, we all celebrate Christmas at the North Pole with Buddy the Elf while dressed as Elves ourselves.

Because we like to dress in the style, I guess, of the North Pole Elf community.

It’s when in Rome, but Rome is the North Pole.

So there’s a very quick change there, and the first time I totally failed.

I’m the first one to come out post-changing.

And I did not get it done.

And so we tried it again with some tweaks, and now I’m pretty good at that change.

And can go from full suit to full Elf pretty quickly.

It’s a little bit like a magic trick, and I’m pleased with it.

There’s a change in Act 1, which we’re running again tonight, that I have not yet mastered, that I’m very stressed about.

It’s from one suit to a different suit.

And everything changes, right?

The full suits change, and the shirts change, and the ties change.

And you can pre-tie the tie, but you can’t leave the pre-tied tie around the shirt because then it’s too hard to put the shirt on.

And you’ve got to do all the unbuttoning and then all the rebuttoning.

And that’s a lot of work.

It’s hard.

It’s a lot to do in a very short amount of time.

A very short amount of time.

And when we tried it a couple nights ago, because this show is doing…

I think I’ve seen other shows do it, but it’s foreign to me of rehearsing different acts by night versus running the whole show by night.

But when we tried to do it a couple nights ago, I did not get that change done at all.

I came on with suspenders dangling in the wind, and my shirt misbuttoned, and missing large parts of it.

And it was hilarious, but it was not the change.

And we didn’t run the change again at that time.

I would have liked to, but that wasn’t in the cards at that time.

So I have given lots of thought to ways we’re going to speed up that change and things I can do to try to help speed it along.

Can you have some buttons on your shirt unbuttoned under your tie because the audience maybe can’t see it?

That can get risky because it can get a little too flappy.

The shirt, I mean.

And what can I do to fake getting the new suit on?

I am wearing two suit pants at the same time so I can just drop one and I’m already wearing the other one.

But man, unbuttoning, rebuttoning, getting the tie on in a very short time is hard as heck.

So we’ll see how it goes tonight.

I’m guessing I’ll need more than one try to figure it out still.

But man, I really want to get it.

I never want to be the problem.

And I love doing quick changes because when the audience notices that a quick change happens, that’s cool.

I had to do one in School of Rock where I went from being this crazy rock and roll dude with this enormous wig and ridiculous outfit to suit wearing guy.

And I learned how to do that one really fast with some help.

And that was fun.

But man, oh man.

This, yikes.

It’s yikes.

This is a yikes change.

So we’ll see.

It’s just from one suit to another.

It’s being the same person each time.

But like a night has passed.

It’s just that in theater time, it’s lights out and lights come up.

Buddy and his new younger brother, Michael, exchanged some lines.

But then, boom, we’re done.

There’s time for Dad to show up.

Aye, aye, aye.

So we’ll see.

Hold a good thought.

Also, changing clothes really fast is a great way, one, to get hot and sweaty and two, for my hair to go insane.

Like when I’m pulling stuff off and on, man, oh man, my hair just gets wacky.

And I have learned that in theater.

So I know to always have a water bottle in my dressing room, a spray bottle.

And I can take that spray bottle and just wetting my hair helps it to calm down again.

It’s not like a question of how much product is in there.

It’s just it gets poofy when I get stressed and sweaty and running around and, you know, taking shirts on and off.

It’s going to get poofy.

That’s what’s going to happen.

But that spray bottle tames the savage wild beast that is my hair.

Great birthday yesterday, by the way.

I know you were very concerned and curious about how it went.

I think my favorite thing so far is this Aura frame.

This is not an ad for Aura frames, although I think they are a pretty big podcast advertiser.

But, yeah, I got this frame, digital picture frame that’s on my desk.

And, man, loving it.

Cycling through some photos for me.

Right now it’s changing slower than I would have thought to have it change.

But the default behavior is like once every 10 minutes.

And I think I actually do like that because it lets one stay up for a while.

It’s cool.

Anyway, hope you’re having a wonderful Wednesday, November 29th.

And, yeah, we’ll talk soon.

Lex.

Bye.