Oh good. It's Miscellany. I can tell my tangential story.

When I worked for the Portland Opera, we were mounting a new production of Sweeney Todd (just for variety). Patrick Stewart got wind of this, and personally called the Opera's head honcho. To make a long story slightly shorter, he had no idea who Patrick Stewart is (!) and made him go into "Well, I've done some work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, I do this TV show, ..." Still nothing resembling recognition. Somebody random was offered the part, and they tried to leverage the name of Bruce Beresford as director in order to sell tickets. Now, don't get me wrong, Driving Miss Daisy is a lovely film. But consider the potential revenue from a name like Bruce Beresford (Eh.) as compared to the potential revenue from a name like Patrick Stewart (Aaa-OOOOO-gah!!!). If you're reading, Mr. Beresford, no offense intended. You did a fine job on the Portland production of Sweeney. But here's the kicker... the play dates happened to coincide with Portland's worst flooding within living memory, so the attendance was mediocre at best. Due to the lower-than-expected revenue generated by the production, the Opera applied for (and was granted) disaster relief loan funds to help make up for the shortfall. From an insider's perspective, I see it as poor decision-making, plain and simple. Flood or no flood, they could have had Trekkies (and Trekkers) crawling into town on their hands and knees from Tualatin if they had simply seen the Patrick Stewart opportunity for what it was worth!

Plus, I might have had the chance to measure his inseam...