Granite is selected!

My submission from the 31 plays in 31 days contest, Granite, has been selected for publication in an anthology and an Internet staged reading! Very pleased and honored that my play was chosen, and looking forward to hearing more details about the reading.

www.31plays31days.com

scenes for Christmas

So, I'm working on a couple of short scenes for a Christmas program for a church here in Jackson.  (More details on the performance as it comes together and gets closer...)

I yet again find myself in the situation of writing scenes that have already been cast.  Not sure why it takes the pressure of impending rehearsals to force me to write, but it works every time.

I've got one sentimental scene, one a bit heart-wrenching, and one shaping up to be very comedic.  It will be in a evening full of music and poetry, so should be a fun time for the holidays.  Hopefully, we'll be able to do it more than once...

A Birthday Present

Today is my birthday.  And for my birthday, I get to watch my play The Mayfair Affair performed at The Wesleyan School's Wolf Players!  I did get to see the show last night, so I know that it will be a great performance, and I will laugh at all of my own stupid jokes that make me laugh no matter how often I hear them.  And I'm spending part of the day on campus here, so I get to be a sort-of celebrity for a day (which always feels good).  Then I'll get to go to dinner with my family, and some friends.  There are worse ways to spend a birthday.

Worse ways to spend a birthday that I can think of right now:

• Russian gulag
• trapped in a mine
• space jump
• public flogging (either real or metaphoric)
• Chuck E Cheese

I actually went to a Chuck E Cheese birthday for a non-child and it was a lot of fun - on a Tuesday; today is a Friday, which would be insane.

I'll stick with watching my play be performed.

Granite - a rewrite

Granite

Here is the rewritten version of Granite - play #31 of my submissions to the 31 Plays in 31 Days project.  I just submitted this rewrite for consideration for the project's Internet Staged Reading and for publication in the ensuing Anthology.

Since this was yet another play where I started writing not having much idea of exactly where I was going, the chance to consider rewrites and really dig back through the script was really helpful.  Since the main image of the script turned out to be the block of granite, I made some adjustments to the placement of Litha's speeches, so that she starts the play now.  I was able to expand and complete more of the stories of the other three, and put some more touches into the scene descriptions to clarify what it is we see on stage.  I definitely like this more after the rewrite.  Might almost be worth staging...

Rewrites. And Writes.

So, I'm working on a rewrite of one of the 31 Plays- due by Oct 15, but I can only turn in one, so I need to pick which one to send. This resubmission will be considered for an "Internet staged reading" and possible publication.

I'm also trying to pull together a couple scenes for a short play for December. I have a start, and think it could come together soon enough to have a workable draft in time to move forward with that project.

1 tweet play

Here's a link to this week's One tweet Plays via the New York neoFuturists...

(I am Atticscripts, if you didn't know...)

http://nyneofuturists.tumblr.com/post/31404427532/twitter-plays-part-clxxx

Talking about a play

On Thursday, I was blessed to go and visit with the cast of the new production of The Mayfair Affair - a dedicated group of high school students at The Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA, under the direction of my good friend Steve Broyles.  I got to see the set under construction and the first scene being rehearsed.

But most of our time was spent having the actors ask me questions about the play, what something meant, what I had in mind regarding a particular action or character.  What I found was that some of those questions I had answers to, others less so.  Good questions, all, but some of them I really had to dig into the recesses of "what DID i mean by that..." to come up with an answer.  I think eventually I did come up with answers, and reasonable ones at that.  I was happy that a number of questions I was able to divert to the director - it's about what he thinks will play best opposite what other people are also playing.

But I'm continuing to understand the idea of farce as a comedy machine - the difficulty in playing it is turning off the improv impulse after rehearsals are over in favor of supporting the big laughs as you've rehearsed them.  You can get an extra laugh at just about any time in a production - but it will hurt the overall work unless the laughs help an audience carry through.  They have to get the information they need (exposition and development) and the rhythm of the play must be maintained in order to connect the info to the big surprises and revelations later in the script.  And in the climactic moment of the play, realistic character response and processing of new information (revelation) only slows down the rhythm of the machine.

I can't wait to go back and see the production in October.

The drawing board

I've been churning over ideas for a new play for a couple of months as I often do - usually hoping that they go away, and if they don't then I move forward.  

Well, they didn't go away...

I'm not going to get into specifics until I have a little more, but it is a play that will be highly structured - so I'm working out the plot and characters, and then I'll start the sharpening process.  I feel as though I may have settled on a title, which always sets me in the right direction.

But coming off of this past month, I'm feeling very positive that I can get some solid work done on this and fairly quickly.  I'll share more if it develops...

Reflecting on 31 plays

113 people finished by the deadline.  31 plays, one for each day of the month of August.  Total: 4,599 plays were submitted.  I finished all 31.  232 pages.

I'm just glad that I made it through.

I learned a couple of things during this month.

1) Yes, I do have time to write.  I am as good as anyone about lying to myself (and believing it) that I don't have time to write.  Yes, there were some days where I was deliriously typing away at my computer at all hours of the night - but even on those days it was because I had chosen to not write at times that I could have.  And this is without neglecting other important parts of my life (family, job).  The time is there, I just have to decide to use it.

2) Somewhere in the middle of this month, because of the pressure of needing to crank scripts out, I started to get past the idea of 'being inspired'.  Some of the scripts suffer from that.  More of them do not.  (Most suffer from lack of rewrites...)  I came to the point of realizing that I could, in fact, find an inspiration in just about anything - a piece of dialogue, a picture, a song, an old lady on the street, a piece of historical fact.  And maybe my second most-used excuse of "waiting for inspiration" is just as invalid as the time excuse.

3) And I mentioned this before in posts about the individual scripts.  When I moved 8 years ago, I set up a writing space in a small shed behind our house.  I put in an AC unit, did some insulation, put in a table a wrote.  For a while.  Then I didn't write out there anymore, I switched to coffee shops.  But I'm now accepting that I CAN write at home, even during the daytime, with my two year old eating his lunch right next to me.  I've done it.  It can happen.  But I have to get more comfortable dining room chairs.

I woke up this morning, and I had the urge to write.  Not because I had to for a deadline.  Or because I had a fear that I would lose an inspiration.  I just wanted to do it.  Because I like to do it.

Someone asked me if I was going to keep going and do a 365 project a-la Suzan Lori Parks.  I think I'd like to, at some point, but I'd want it to be more purposeful - either do a calendar year (like 2013) or from birthday to birthday.  But all other writing kind of stops while this is going on, so I think I'll hold off on it for a bit.  I have a couple ideas I want to start working.

About... Granite - Play 31

Granite - script

Play #31.  Completed.  I will do a recap of the whole month in a later post, but for now...

I do actually kind of like where this one is going.  I was a little sad, though - I came up with a title off of the song I was listening to for this one ("Hold On" by Tom Waits), and I even started out by doing the title page with it; it was Bullet Needs a Gun - which I had no intention of that being literal.  But as I wrote and tried to tie these four people together, it became clear that Granite was a much more appropriate title.  Ah, well.

I had two images I found online - one of a European cobblestone street on a hill with storefronts and a large steeple-ish object at the top of the hill, the other an enormous carved stone block with a very tiny person looking at it; the roots of two of the stories.

About... Baling - play 30

Baling - script

This is the 30th play I've written this month.  There is one more and then it is over.
This is the hard part: being satisfied with having written this much, but not being satisfied with the writing.

This play felt awful to write.  It is not what I had in mind when I started - and I may need to take a good long look (psychologically) as to why I keep writing mobsters and Irish people.  At least it wasn't yet another love triangle.

I think this one came out Irish because I spent some of the day looking up information on a theatre festival in Ireland, then ended up looking at maps and images of the area.  (Visiting Ireland is on the bucket list)

And I won't lie.  I came up with a title because none of the other plays from this month started with B.

About... Leaving Circus Town - Day 29

Leaving Circus Town - script

29.

I did some web searching for images (I highly recommend Flickr's Most Interesting pics of the Last 7 Days).  I came upon a picture of a train, called The Circus Leaves Town - I twisted that around for a title.  I found a picture of two girls in a window, it was called Ines & Lisa.  I found a cool image of a wall of windows with colored panels, making the lobby area of this space brightly colored, and an image of paper lanterns on the ground.
I don't know exactly what Ines and Lisa are talking about (this happens to me a lot).  But somehow, Ines invents more drama than Lisa can tolerate any more, and if the circus is in town here, she'd rather be someplace else.

About... One to Ten - Play 28

One to Ten - script

28.  There's only 3 more scripts left to write.  I think I might actually miss doing this when it's over...

About... Loss of Faith - Play 27

Loss of Faith - script

Play 27, a day late.  Hoping to catch up tomorrow - but a lot of question marks about the next couple of days with Hurricane Isaac headed this way.  If we lose power, I may be switching to doing some writing long-hand.

Sitting in a class discussion, this idea came to me.  It turned out quite different from what I had in mind.

About... Wild Card - Day 26

Wild Card - script

Play 26.  Quick write.  listening to Bob Dylan's "Things Have Changed".

Just two dudes talking.  Really should have developed this more, but too tired.  Just having finished something is the accomplishment for the day.

There are now only 5 more plays to write.

About... Wake - Play 25

Wake - script

Play 25.  Sitting in the lounge chair, watching preseason football and listening to Radiohead's "15 Steps".  Gonna keep writing tonight -hopefully will catch up to pace.

About... Meant A Lot To Me - Play 24

Meant A Lot To Me - script

Play 24.

I had a really great idea.  I thought of it yesterday, I spent some time working it out in my head in the evening, went to bed thinking about it.  I even work up this morning, and I promise you that in my dreams I worked it out.  Then, as has been made necessary by my job, I read 5 short scripts.  and I took my son out this saturday morning for about 2 hours.  When i got back - you guessed it - gone.  So, the irony of the title is that this really didn't mean that much to me.  It took me a while to write this merely because I was fighting it the whole way - including stopping at least 3 times with the intention of dumping it entirely.  Despite all of that, this is not the worst script I've written this month.

I'll be trying to catch up to the schedule by writing again tonight.  Trying to clear my mind before then.

About... Forgiveness - Play 23

Forgiveness - script

Play 23.  Another mob thug.  This time, a different mark.  I like the scenario on this one; could be interesting with some more development - I don't like the title.
I started to write this one last night, but finished it today, writing during a little bit of down time in my office.

It is proving as hard as I thought it would be to keep up the pace now that school has started back up, but it is possible, so I'll keep moving forward.  Only one more week to go - 8 scripts by next friday.

About... The Heat - Play 22

The Heat - script

Play 22 done.  I actually wrote it last night, but waited to post it so I could make some tweaks.  It's ok - a little mobster/thug scene.

There are less than 10 plays left now.

About... Red Looking At Iris - Plays 21

Red Looking At Iris - script

Play 21.  Wrote this one a day late - yesterday was a long day...
Dining Room Table.  Listening to U2's "So Cruel".  I may have to try happier music.

To get back on schedule, I wrote this really quickly in the morning.  I'm planning to try to get back to something a little more realistic for #22, but who knows what will come out when I get there.

About... Jokes and Insults - Day 20

Jokes and Insults - script

Day 20.  Can't say that I'm wild about this one - not even the title.  I was trying to write something that included several lines of dialogue given to me by some friends.    Hey, I tried...

On a better note, I'm caught up.  We were informed that as of Sunday, only 41 people had turned in one play for each day - I'm happy to have been one of those 41.

About... One Thing I'm Sure Of - Play 19

One Thing I'm Sure Of - script

Play 19.  Just plugging along.

I really like writing in this style - a three person free-flowing scene.  I also enjoy attempting to stay away from questions of any kind - i find that trying to restate any question as a statement keeps the scenes much more energized.

This time, I'm downstairs on my lounge chair, sort of watching the movie Ronin.  Really has no impact on what I'm writing at all, as far as I can tell.  But I do think I'm going to try to write play number 20 before going to bed.  I missed a play yesterday, and with a busy schedule this next week, I want to get caught up in case I fall behind later.

About... Christmas Card - Day 18

Christmas Card - script

Day 18.  Today's script was following a suggestion from the 31 days 31 plays prompt - no stage directions.

About... The Three Sisters - Play 17

The Three Sisters - script

Play 17:  Not the Chekhov play.

This one came from an online image of a trio of peaks that were called "The Three Sisters."  I think they are in Australia.

I wanted the story to be dangerous, and I wanted to keep the end at least marginally surprising.  It's still a little sketchy, but a fun write for a Saturday afternoon in the dining room, listening to Coldplay's Prospekt's March.

About... All the Way Home - Day 16

All the Way Home - script

Day 16.  Did some recruiting for inspiration.  Invited people to send me images, phrases or songs that might inspire a play.

Got a photo of a young girl, maybe 7, sitting on a bench by a large window, holding a ceramic cup - which looks enormous in her tiny hands.  Chose the jazz tune "Tenderly" played by Chet Baker to go with it.

Back to the late night writing, and the dining room - which has quickly become the most creative room in the house, apparently.  Once upon a time, I had set up a 'writing studio' in a shack in my backyard - which is now full of storage and broken lawn equipment.  I did write there for a while, but that was now years ago.

Wasn't drawing on anything from my own experience for any of this play.  Other than that I always enjoy it when I come home and my kids are excited to see me.  Doesn't happen with the older ones much any more, but I can count on the two-year-old to just about explode with excitement every time I come into the same room with him.  Even if I was just in the next room

About... A Good Time - Day 15

A Good Time - script

Day 15.  Just at the halfway point of this endeavor.  Well, technically, halfway through tomorrow's script is half way, but you get the idea.  but I'm just happy to write something during the day this time, and not at 1am.

Had nothing going into this one - just had the time and sat down and did it.  "If These Are the Things" by Tracy Chapman was a big help.

About... Tout a L'Heure - Day 14

Tout a L'Heure - script

Day 14.  And now, I'm writing French people.

I had someone send me three pictures so I could have some inspiration for this script.  What came were an image of a woman with red hair and an ornately designed pattern on her sleeve; a woman with wings on a trapeze hanging high over a mostly empty room of wooden chairs, with one lone man watching; and an image of two women in a cafe eating a breakfast - French writing on the window next to them displaying the menu, all under the title A Toute Heure.  I looked up the meaning of the title, and it came up with "tout a l'heure" meaning in a general context "in a moment", but literally meaning "all the time" (thank you, internet).  Just trying to combine the images into a single story, and attempting to connect both the general and literal meanings of the phrase.

Today's writing location:  back to the dining room table.
Today's music: Bill Evans Trio

About... Commercial Break - Day 13

Commercial Break - script

Day 13 (the lucky one).  sitting on the sofa this time - mostly while my wife was watching LOST on netflix.  I've never watched the show other than catching moments as she's watching....

Not a lot of inspiration on this one - I'll try to do better.  Of everything in here, I think my favorite part of this one is the title.  Sure, it's a little on-the-nose, but it works for me.  Maybe the title could get a better play...

About... Find and Replace - Day 12

Find and Replace - script

Day 12.  Still writing in my dining room, late at night.  I'd really like to change that - time and place.  Today's song: One Headlight by The Wallflowers.

So I've been playing with this flowing scene form for a while - all characters occupying the stage and just easily flowing in and out of scene.  I've not actually gotten one staged, so I don't quite know yet if they work at all, but writing them is an enjoyable process.  Essentially micro-scenes, they force me to get right into the moment and don't let me linger too long - they demand to keep moving.

No forethought on this one - just started with the song and picked some starter dialogue.  Looking back, maybe the first scene ends up being the most disconnected from everything else going on, but working on that would take revision time that I don't have.

I generally try to avoid writing about writers anymore.  But in this quick-writing process, sometimes the discovery just kind of falls out.  Didn't set out for two of these three to be writers - and maybe in reality only one of them is.  Writing this really felt like scratching the surface of something a lot deeper.  I could have kept writing for hours - things kept occurring to me to add into the play, but it would have taken more time than I have allotted for it.  And, of course, tomorrow is another play.  I can imagine that trying to re-capture this story would be pretty hard, so I won't assume that I could come back to it next month.  Sorry, Khandi, Ed and Paul.  Your story just might have to stop here.

About... Gary's Family Photos - Day 11

Gary's Family Photos - script

Day 11, script 11, back on track (other than finishing after midnight)

So, yesterday, I was out having a first day of school milkshake with my family at a local restaurant where a friend was working, so we had a brief chat, and mentioned that she'd seen photos of my kids on facebook, but never actually seen them live.  We joked about how someone could just say they have a family, but not have one, just photoshop a bunch of pictures.  She laughed when I said I'd write a play about that.

No music this time.  Just me, sitting at the dining room table.  late at night.  typing away.

The submission confirmation email that I got back after I turned in this script pointed out that I'm now over a third of the way done with the 31 days.  I should feel pretty good about that - but I'm looking ahead at the calendar for the next 20 days; a lot of stuff is coming my way.  Just hoping I can keep up the pace.  Wisdom might say that I should write ahead a little bit while I can....

About... One of These Days - Play 10

One of These Days - script

Play 10, written on the morning of Day 11.  I'll be caught up by tonight.
Written sitting at the dining room table, no music this time - extra challenge: writing while the 2 year old is eating lunch.

It's another abstract little play - 3 men who may or may not be sitting on a bench all at the same time; may or may not be hearing each other, but are in counterpoint.

It's a balance - the desire to go, an attempt to divine the immediate future, the longing for the comfort of routine.  It reminds me of a time in my life, living in a rural area, having a plan to move away in a year. A fair amount of staring off into the sky, of grumbling about the todays, romanticizing both the tomorrows and the yesterdays in turn.  One of the many times where I know I didn't make as much of my time as I could have - when getting on the bus doesn't have to mean leaving, just living the today.

The reason that rewriting is important: the above paragraph, getting more of any that into the script, is what might make this play better.

About... June Leaving Mule put Galaxy in a Precarious Position - Day 09

June Leaving Mule put Galaxy in a Precarious Position - script.
*contains strong language

Day 09 - a two play day.  I got into this one.

I'm generally not a fan of writing really strong language - I usually avoid it if I can.  Often when doing a free-write (the way all of these plays are for me), I'll come across a moment where the language seems appropriate at the time, but it will rarely make it through any kind of revision - either by changing the dialogue or ultimately abandoning the play.  But without the time for much of an editing process on this project, there it is...

I am satisfied that it is within a story that has an overall understanding of the idea of grace, and the result of a failure to forgive.  After the month of August is over, this is a piece that I might try to do something with - a rewrite, or an expansion of the idea (and perhaps find another way to express the disgust that is intended by the language).

Names just kind of came to me.  I don't know if I like him being called Mule, but I couldn't think of any other name I liked for him.  Makes me pity him even more.

I'm more and more drawn to these kinds of scenarios - dealing with the past, characters who are there and not there/ versions of the way one person remembers them.  I think I'm going to lock into this style for the next couple of days...

This one was written at the dining room table - with the help of the song Give Me Strength by Over the Rhine.

About... Quixote - Play 08

Quixote script at scribd.com

Play 8.  Behind again.  Full days and so many things going on make it hard to keep up.  I'm actually intending to write another play tonight, then I'll be back on schedule.  This one wasn't hard to write (or come up with), but it amounts to just a little more than a skit.  It'd really like to do better.

I've always liked the idea of Quixote.  I've even just liked the word.  I've tried to name a band I was in Quixote - but it sounded like we might be a mariachi band.  We were not.  But still, the story of Quixote is one that is, for me, the right mix of heroic and idiotic, foolish and noble.  It has connection, for me, to the Absurdists, and to Ecclesiastes - other favorites of mine.  So when I sat down on my lounge chair with my laptop and looked for a song for inspiration, finding the Toad the Wet Sprocket song Windmills was a great fit.  Locked into having Quixote on stage - convincing someone to pick up the fight.

Not much more than that from me on this one.  Since I'm planning to write another one tonight, I'm just going to charge ahead.

About... Wannabe Fanboy - Day 07

Wannabe Fanboy script at Scribd.com

Day 7 proved to be difficult.  I've been staying up too late writing these things.  I had to go to bed early.  So I wrote script 7 on the morning of day 8 - unsure if I'll actually get to write script 8 today.

Also proving difficult was the lack of inspiration.  About the only thing I was going on was enjoying watching the web series called Comedians in Cars getting Coffee - Jerry Seinfeld picks up a comedian friend and they go get coffee.  It really is just them chatting and being conversationally funny as they sit in a car, then a coffee shop.  So I was going after that kind of flow of conversation; lighter and amusing.

I do often wonder about the fanboy impulse.  There are a lot of things that I really enjoy, but I would never get a tattoo of it, or dress up like a character at a convention or movie premiere.  I would never paint my body to attend a sporting event.  I do buy a fair amount of books about a subject I like (maybe a playwright, or director), but I'm not going to go out and re-enact something, or look on ebay for authentic Elvis paraphernalia.  There's something I admire, and maybe even slightly envy, about that kind of fan support - and maybe I wish I had it.  Not enough to paint my house the Pittsburgh Steelers colors.

About... Communication - Day 06

Communication

Day 06 and I'm back on track.  Except that it is far too late at night right now.  Seriously, the Olympics are killing me.  Maybe I have a shot at writing in the morning tomorrow...

So this play is another tough one - three characters all talking on phones but not necessarily to each other... or are they?  Not so far as I can tell at this point.  If I ever come back to this idea, I may try for that a little more.  But much like some of my other work, I'm intrigued by juxtaposing two halves of conversations next to each other to make an almost-connecting third conversation.  I'm also fond of making things I do at random sound like important exercises and research.

The names came from nowhere, just that when I'm writing a lot of short things like this, I hate to repeat names, so eventually the names become random collections of letters and punctuation symbols that approximate names.

These late night writing sessions seem to all happen at the dining room table.  And let me tell you, these chairs are not at all comfortable after about an hour and a half.

I was listening to The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails for a while during the writing.  I took a break and stopped the song, and when I came back to writing I forgot to restart it.  I don't know what it contributed to the play, perhaps nothing.

About... Silverware and the Strip - Day 05

Silverware and the Strip

Yeah - I'm catching up.

Straightforward little piece, writing by just following my nose.  I've always been a fan of the image of a table of silverware getting overturned - like in American Buffalo.  Didn't have much of anything else in mind in terms of images or symbols.  Like I said: straightforward on this one.

Still sitting in the same place from writing the last play, dining room table.  No music this time - but for some reason, I'm still wearing the earbuds.  (don't understand it myself)

Well now it's incredibly late, and I will definitely pay for this tomorrow.  Let's try not to get behind again, shall we?  (it's the Olympics.  too many interesting stories to be told there...)

About... Dead Wedding - Play 04

Dead Wedding

Right up front - I'm behind schedule.  And this one is really long for a one-day write.  This is why I say play 04 and not day 04...

So the idea of a dead wedding is something I got from theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor in his piece called Weidepole Weidepole, where is deceased parents (images he borrows from old photographs) are experiencing their wedding day.  I've rolled the idea of someone marrying someone else who is already dead round for a while.  thought I'd try it out here.

Some of the details in the play are vague - like exactly why this is all happening.

The idea of the priest as a former associate of the groom was something that just occurred to me as I was writing.  It became central to the play, oddly enough.

to write this one, I am in my usual spot, at the dining room table, headphones in.  Listened to the Swell Season song "I Have Loved You Wrong" on repeat - possibly about 30 times.

And I rushed the ending.  Just had to get done with it.  It's really late right now.  And, ideally, I was going to write #5 tonight as well and get caught up...

About... Pyramids - Day 03

Pyramids

It's hard to know what to say about this one.  I purposefully took abstract to the next level, perhaps past any measure of sense.  There's a couple of connections probably worth mentioning, so I'll give it a shot.

The jacket thing is something that's been rolling around in my head for a while, so I'm trying it out here - it came from sitting behind a kid in a long event in a room that was hard to temperature control, so it'd be really cold for a while, then it would get hot; but he took it to the extreme.  The domino thing is something that's from an activity of my day today - not too much to say about it, it was just what came to mind.  The names were the first words that came to mind; no idea why.

And yes, the pyramid speech is the first section of the Wikipedia article on pyramids.

Anyway, it's really late right now, and I wanted to finish this before I went to bed.  Bad idea?  Possibly.

About.... Cassiopeia's Story of Leo and Gemini - Day 02

Cassiopeia's Story of Leo and Gemini - a fable about searching for love on one's own terms.

OK, truth time.  This was supposed to be for day 2, but I wrote it on day 3 - first thing in the morning.  Day 2 was the first day of a teaching assignment I was doing (teaching drama to students from China) - and was too nervous about it and doing last minute prep to even think about writing even a short play.  but I got it written the next morning.

I wanted to write a more abstract play after writing a realistic scene yesterday.  I had a vision of a particular action to happen on stage (a strange stage kiss) - somehow it didn't actually get to happen in this play, but maybe it will still find its way in sometime this month.  but it led me down the path of thinking of this story of searching for love.  I like to keep staging simple, so I wanted no set, just the lighting effect.  I started with Cassiopeia coming on, thinking that she was IN the story, but she started TELLING the story, so I just went with that.

I know there's more to this whole fable, and maybe in September I'll go back to it.  I'll probably say that about all of these...

About... House of Cards - Day 01

The first of my 31... plays is titled House of Cards - a period piece where a husband returns after being gone for months to earn money to pay a debt, and discovers that his wife has moved on.

Shannon and I had gone for breakfast at Brent's Drugs - a great little diner in Jackson (it's in the movie The Help).  I stuck around afterwards to write, and with the mid-century vibe and 1940s big band music playing, it seemed only natural to write it in period.

As with most things I write (especially these short, quick writing stints), I don't have any grand vision of where the story came from or what it means.  I like the tension of the piece.  Not sure I'm crazy about it - I think I was trying to hard to twist it back on itself and try to make it surprising, only ending up not making it that surprising.

But it's day one, and hopefully we only move up from here.

31

It's been a while since I've blogged or posted anything.  I'm about to make up for that over the next month.

I've signed up for the 31 Plays in 31 Days project.  We are to write a play every day in the month of August.  They can be 1 page, they could be 100.  We CAN write more than 1 a day and bank them, but the idea is to write one each day - which will be my goal.

After doing the Long Surrender project earlier this summer, I feel like I can accomplish this - even though by the end of August, we will be starting the fall semester at school.  It will be harder and harder to do this as the month goes on, but I'm going to give it a shot.

I will attempt to post a link to my play for the day each day - and will hopefully scratch out a little bit about the writing process; either an inspiration, or something I learned during the process.  Will make the whole project a little more interesting [hopefully].

So get ready....

Thursday/ Fish

As part of the playwriting track at The Glen Workshop at Mount Holyoke College this past week, we were asked to write a ten minute play.  My play is called Thursday/ Fish, and I've posted it on my Scribd.com page HERE.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - it was inspired by an image of a mother and daughter cleaning up a pile of rubble which I found on Flickr.com's image archive.  I'm not exactly sure what I found so compelling in the picture, but what it inspired in the play was the resolve to continue on - to clean up and begin to heal by continuing to live on.  Tradition as a guide through tragedy.

The Glen

So, I'm attending a playwriting workshop this week at The Glen - East, hosted by Image Journal.  Arlene Hutton is our instructor.  Instead of our session being to get feedback on completed or in-process works (which most Glen sessions seem to be about), we are planning to focus on creating and developing new ideas for plays.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works - I've never done a week long workshop like this.

We are at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts - a beautiful campus with lots of New England charm.  Meeting a lot of new people, and have already had some very interesting and compelling late-into-the-evening-hours conversations.

Not sure how much time I'll have to scratch out thoughts for a blog this week, but maybe some insights or even some writing might get posted.

I did get a chance while traveling to read through the first draft of Long Surrender - some things turned out better than I'd remembered, and some need work.  Hopefully sometime soon I can get back to working on that.

The first draft of Long Surrender is done!

The Long Surrender has a complete 14 play first draft.

The first play was written the morning of May 20, the last one complete around 1 am on June 4.  15 days, 94 pages.  14 stories.  All written at my dining room table.

The longest play is 9 pages, the shortest has 6.  Yes, they are 'just scenes' in terms of length, but I'd be hard pressed to think that there's more to the story to be told in any of them.  All but one of them have just 2 characters on stage (a couple of voices that could be recorded) - the final play has 9 speaking characters, but it's a fable, and could well be done with 3 actors.  Simple sets - relatively low tech (even the most high-tech one has a low-tech alternative).  I even had restraint enough to keep from writing moments where someone overturns a table full of marbles* (or anything like that).

I'm feeling quite relieved - the final play did not turn out to be as difficult as I feared.  I worried that the idea of culminating the whole project with a final play would get in my head and block me up, but deciding (while listening to the song, Favorite Time of Light - in fact, a bonus track when you buy the album online) that it could be like a children's fable, purposely different from everything else, then it was easy to just take this play as its own thing, and not bother with the pressure of having to wrap it all together with a little bow.  Surrendering.  My own little lesson from this project.

I can't say I know exactly what to do with all of this now - certainly, I have to go back and read the whole thing all together, and see what it is I've actually done.  We'll see how I feel about it at that point.  But even if it all comes to nothing - I think I've gained a lot from the attempt.  And that makes me satisfied.

* mental note: write someone overturning a table full of marbles into the next play...

3 more done

I've now completed plays #8, #9 and #10, which means that there are only 4 more plays to write to finish the first draft of The Long Surrender cycle.  I won't be surprised if these three plays turn out to be my favorites when all is said and done.  Two of them are fairly realistic, the other has some style to it (it'll be a challenge).  But when I finished them, each one of them, I felt pretty satisfied that I'd captured what had come to mind (though there may be some adjustments to be made).

I'm realizing now that I'm blogging through the process of writing, but I'm not really saying much about each individual play.  I might do that when I go through a second pass - I'm wanting to avoid influencing the plays that are yet to come by over-describing the ones I've written.  I'm afraid of too closely identifying the pattern I'm setting down, then getting stuck trying to continue the pattern.  I've had that problem before.

Hoping to write another play later today, then I'll be on track to finish on Wednesday...

The Halfway Point of the Long Surrender

I have completed 7 of the 14 plays I have intended to write.

The Long Surrender is proving to be somewhat of a journey for myself - more than I intended it to be.  While the individual 'plays' are coming out quite quickly (most are taking about an hour and a half to write), it feels like the concept has weighed heavily over the past couple of weeks - this past two weeks particularly - so the "Long" part feels like it's living up to its name.  [though, really, I know this whole thing is going very fast, indeed]

And the process of writing a short scene every couple of days (though I've done 3 in the past 2 days) has become, out of necessity, a Surrender - where I can't linger on each play too long, I have to let one be done and move on (I'm not rewriting until I finish all 14).  So, even if I don't feel completely satisfied with a play, I surrender it.  And that's not so easy to do.

Just thinking back over the 7 plays I've written, there are already trends (I wouldn't necessarily call them repetitions).  I would like to see something different come out during the other 7 plays, but I don't want to force something - all of a sudden one of these is a slapstick comedy or something.  But a whole evening of somber scenes might be tough to make it through.  But I still rely on the fact that there's a continuity to what I'm writing because there is a continuity in an album of music - not that the plays are exactly matching the songs point by point; but inspiration is inspiration.

Given the plan of how the evening of theatre is to work out, nothing is yet sticking out as an Opener or Closer - but hopefully that will become clearer after I have the set done.

The goal: finish 7 more plays/scenes by a week from today.  A play a day.  It may go faster, but it can't go slower.  Why?  I'm leaving for a family vacation - and during that time, a conference.  The change of scenery/ venue has the chance to really change the tone of what I'm doing, and I don't want to let that happen.

Four on the floor.

Hopefully, I'm not going to just post every time I finish another Long Surrender play.  But that's what I'm doing right now.

"Soon..." is done.  A strange little piece - no movement, just separation and longing.  I'm liking the first draft, but thinking that there may be more to this one on another pass - more than I've felt about the other ones so far.  Only concern there is that this one is 8 pages already; don't want it to be too long for the format.  But without any movement, the words may go by quite quickly.

Speaking of the format, I did hit on the idea the other day that the cycle could work with one opening play, break out into the small groups for a set of 6 plays in rotation, an intermission, then another 6 rotation, then back together as one audience for a final play.  14 plays.  That would make this an over 2 hour endeavor, and really only be capable of having 36 audience members per show.  it would also mean that we need at least 18 people on cast and crew - 2 actors and 1SM/tech for each piece.  That may still be too much...

And then there were three

I now have three plays for the cycle "The Long Surrender."  Wrote the first pass at a short play for the song "Rave On" by Over the Rhine, which was tricky because I've written a play from that song once already, and it was tough not to write another version of that story.  But it's a really great song - it probably will yield more for me in the future (it's my favorite on the album, I think).

Three plays, three fairly different styles.  Can't wait to get through the whole set so I can start looking at how this can all work together.

The candelabra

This is the second piece I wrote in that evening at The Art Factory.  I enjoy it when this kind of writing happens - it's a response to the flow of the moment; for a place in time and the people inhabiting it.  I don't know if it has any further reach than for that evening, but I thought I'd share it anyway.  It's written down more or less like a poem, but I don't know if I'd call it that...

It drops from above

This rain of wax

Coating

Melted from the whole

Hanging just above

Within reach but secure

The candles spend themselves

To coat what lies below

The burn felt

Being only a fraction

Of the process from candle to wax

All sacrificed

To prepare itself to creat

A protection

Taking perfect shape

Over that which it covers

Individual

Internationally produced playwright

Last night (or thereabouts - with the time difference), two short plays of mine - called East Wind Unfair and Peach Blossoms Fall - were produced at Guizhou University in China.  This was a joint project between students of mine at Belhaven, and Chinese students under the leadership of my good friend Charlie Pepiton, who is in China wrapping up a two-year stint with the Peace Corps.

Our assignment was to write a cycle of 10 plays using the ancient poem called The Phoenix Hairpin by Lu You.  We broke the poem into 8 parts, wrote a short play based on just that phrase, then wrote an opener and a closer - between 4 students and myself, we each wrote two plays.  The plays were then given to 10 students in China, who cast and rehearsed them.  Last night was the performance (in front of an audience of about 500, I'm told).  Hopefully, I'll be able to post photos (or maybe video) at some point.

It's been an exciting project, and certainly a resume-builder. :)  Very proud to have been a part of this.

The cracked window

This is the first of two short pieces I wrote during a really great evening while on the trip to the Art Factory in Kandern, Germany - written really quickly, and for the most part it was for the people in the room.  But I thought I'd share it here as well...

A cold wind rushed in at the crack in the window.  She had intended to fix it all summer and all fall, but had never gotten around to it somehow.  It had happened that spring, an accident – of sorts.  She’d wanted to throw it, a heavy object – heavy enough to smash a window.  She wasn’t mad at the object, but it had the necessary weight.  So frustrated.  She thought it would make her feel better, and she thought it had; and maybe it did, for a time.  But now, as the winter has come and the east wind whips past the pines on the hill, it hits hard her exposed east wall.  Where the window, designed to let in the suns morning beams, now gaping, allows the chill to seep through.  Morning after morning, she’s tried it all – warmer coffee, thicker socks, more layering, a ceramic warmer, a snuggly blanket, a hat, a coat, 3 different shades of masking tape, a piece of cardboard, foam, duct tape, a board and a disastrous attempt at caulk.  But what it needs, what it’s built for, is a whole window.  Until then, she cannot warm herself.  It takes a window, to hold out the wind and to let in the sun.  That is what a window is for.

Two down...

I've tackled a first draft of a piece for the second song in the cycle, called 'Sharpest Blade.'  This one was a little tougher to write, and is a lot more stylized than the last play - but I do want them to be different from one another (mission accomplished).

If I can keep up this pace and actually get through one play at day, I'll be done at the end of next week...

First of the cycle

So, I've written the first draft of the first short play of the Long Surrender cycle - one piece for each song on the album by Over the Rhine. Play one is from track one, called The Laugh of Recognition. The plays do not follow the same story told by the song, but are instead inspired by the tune, the mood, and sometimes snatches of lyrics.

 As a special bonus for me, this first draft received a workshop staging today by my friends Stephanie Bishop, Grace Varland and Ginny Holladay, and in my opinion worked very well. It gave me hope that this project will come together. And now, all I have to do is write 13 more plays...

Coming out from under...

So, i'm noticing that i've not put anything on this blog since november, when i was happy about finishing some more pages on Mayfair.

Well, that got finished - and workshopped with a presentation in February.  It was a fun show, great responses.  There is another presentation scheduled for October at Weslyan School in Georgia, which I'm looking forward to going to see.

In the past two months, i've performed in the New Stage production of All My Sons with John Maxwell and a great cast - very proud of that show.  and I took a team of students to Germany, France, and Switzerland, where we performed The Tempest (I played Prospero).

I'm home now, and looking ahead at the next couple of months.  As always, I have a lot of hopes and dreams of how a summer 'off' will yield a massive amount of writing time - which somehow always gets sucked up to watching the fourth hour of morning talk shows and reruns of HeeHaw.  (that's a joke.  no one runs reruns of HeeHaw.  I've checked.)

My writing project currently on the front burner is to write a 'progressive play' - where the audience moves from site to site to watch short 7-10 minute plays at various locations.  My idea is to write a play based off of each track from the Over the Rhine album The Long Surrender - which might prove tricky, since I already wrote one (which is too long for this project) to the song Rave On.  But we'll see how it all turns out.  The goal is to have a set of plays which the audience sees in groups of 10 or less, then at the end, all the small audience groups comes together to watch the last play together - maybe people from all the individual plays are all in the last play.