Complicating the Process

After an inspiring weekend spent with the great folks at the fall SETC Board Meetings (who'd have thought board meetings could be inspiring...), I have returned to Jackson with several things on my proverbial plate which will likely be cross-complicating my creative projects for the next few weeks. While I hope to continue progress on the latest draft of Mayfair so that we van begin the casting/reading process, tonight I begin rehearsals on the Galileo production I am directing with the Highland Players Guild (Belhaven theatre alumni). This will make for an interesting couple of weeks...

Workshop Production scheduled

The premiere workshop of my new farce, The Mayfair Affair, will be produced at Belhaven University in February of 2012.  My good friend, John Maxwell, has agreed to serve as the director for the show, even though up until now, the play has only been a series of outlines, and one really terrible draft that has to be almost completely set aside for the next pass.

Yesterday, I started the new draft, a 12 page rewrite of the opening scene - a much better version (if I do say so myself).  The hope is that I can get enough pages of this draft done in the next few weeks that we can cast the show and have an initial read with them in place, so I will have time to do at least one more draft, if not two or three, before rehearsals begin at the start of the spring semester.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to be in rehearsal as the playwright again, where I can put all my focus on the script, and leave the directing to someone else.  I found that process to work well for me during the staged reading of Anathema at Square Top Repertory in Colorado - made a lot of progress in just one week.

Pope's address to artists

Artists seekers of the truth and witnesses to love - Inaugurated by Benedict XVI an exhibition for his 60th anniversary of priesthood

The Singer/Songwriter

Another free-write. I like to go back and find these things in old notebooks. I was actually listening to someone sing a tribute song like this - but this is not their story (or my opinion of them...).

She sang a song for him, piano and voice, to remember him. He had always hated her songs, her voice. He didn't have the courage to tell her - he didn't trust that she liked him enough to survive telling the truth. But now she sings what she calls 'his song,' thinking it is a tribute to him, to their relationship. But really it is a tribute to her own perception of their relationship, which has little to nothing to do with him, or reality. If it had been up to him, the best tribute might have been moments of silence, pure silence, expectant silence which is more full than empty absence of sound. That is how he would have remembered them, who they were together.

But she. She remembers them by covering over that silence with her words, her voice, her playing the piano, her thoughts, her attempts at poetry. And she remembers him with her own creativity, which has little to nothing to do with him, with reality. It is only her, covering over their perfect silence with herself, afraid that in the silence he will disappear. And that she will as well.

She sounds the siren...

This is a short free-write I did a few months back in my notebook, writing to the song "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" by U2. Not sure what it is, really, except that I've come back to it time and time again as I flip through the notebook. Something about the character, I like. If you want, listen to the song while you read...

She sounds the siren. The cry for help. Supersonic, and only the dogs come running. She's been beaten before and expects each embrace to end that way. It's all temporary, she's learned, but it doesn't mean she lives that way. Each meeting is a desperate goodbye, each loss the dawn of a new morning. When he passed, she half expected him to walk in the door the next morning. She opens the door every day expecting the same.

She's a walking invitation to a party in an empty room. Her hair flows down in front of her shoulders. She's long since given up pretending to be attractive, which has only made her more alluring. Do the men that approach her want to be her savior or her damnation? She gives none of them the power to be her either. What can make a girl lose this much of her soul? Where has she given it away - where is it hidden now?

She's the girl who when she wants something, puts her hand in her pocket and, no matter what when or how much, the money is there - in crumpled bills and change - and she's learned to keep her wants to that scale. To want more is only disappointment. To want more is a luxury she can't afford. It costs more than her pocket can provide.

A little bit more...

So I got another 17 pages done, which is the bulk of one of my primary climax-type scenes, a very complicated sequence which has proven to be a real challenge today. The scene isn't done, but i did map out how the rest of the scene will work. Up to 86 now.

I'm finding it quite difficult to write scenes with this many people in them. I realized a couple of days ago that I haven't actually written a play with more than 4 characters total, much less a scene where 8 people are all trying to talk. Almost as confusing as the fact that almost every single person in this play is pretending to be at least one other person, if not more.

I will also say that, as someone who almost always writes to music, I'm having a great time listening to all the Tango music that I've chosen to inspire the writing - a LOT of Astor Piazzolla. It's a fun kind of energy that is beautiful, takes itself quite seriously, and is bouncy and fun at the same time.

As the New Year is approaching, I am also realizing that if I finish this first draft - no matter how badly it is written - I will have kept my New Year Resolution for 2010, to write at least the first drafts of two new full length plays. I might just be able to sneak it in under the wire...

A beginning!

It has begun. I have started to write script pages for The Mayfair Affair.

On December 21, I pounded out the first 20 pages of script, another 24 pages on the 28th, and today, I have about 25 (That's a total of about 69 for the math-deprived). This is all some really terrible first draft writing, but I continue to make discoveries, as my pre-conceived ideas seem to take a back seat to whatever the characters start to say while I type - though I am hitting all of the major plot points (a necessity in a farce comedy - which needs to have a highly structured plot). I have reached some moments which should hit right around the end of Part One (pre-intermission), and a big scene that I think should go in part two. Though I do think there might be more setup necessary before I could call part one 'done' even for a first draft.

I'm actually just glad that all of the characters finally have names now - which really helps when trying to flesh them out as full characters and not just 'the maid' or 'the male thief'. Obviously, there will be a lot of cleaning up to do - including re-establishing some of those initial ideas, but a start is a start.

The goal is to have a full first draft (which I'm guesstimating will have about 100 pages, maybe a little more) sometime over the weekend. That's long for a play, but inevitably there will be some trimming. With a pending trip next week, I'd like to have at least this first pass done before I leave. Perhaps putting it in the drawer for a week while I'm gone will let it settle before charging ahead with another draft.

Kind of funny, the idea first came to me in early January, while making the long drive back from visiting family - roughly the same trip I'll be taking next week...

So much to do - but glad to finally be at a beginning - a whole year later!