Da Times

So there was a mention of the One Man Talking fest in the NY Times today, in an article about one man shows. It wasn't a big part of the article, but it was in there so that's cool. Nice to know people are paying attention.

I worked the lines some more today; funny how addicting that is. A long way to go, but the trepidation I first felt about it has been replaced by confidence, which is a very good thing. I can see how this is going to be a lot of fun, not that it hasn't been up to this point, but shadowing all the good stuff that has been happening has been the 300 lb gorilla in the room that is the inevitable work of memorization . . . one thing that is for sure: no one can do it for me. Just another spice for the recipe as it were.

Once I'm off book the piece will really start to take on a life of its own, I can feel it.

A shade under two months until performance (speaking of 300 lb gorillas). Though this festival is billed as a 'works in progress' type thing, I want Old Hickory to really rock. And rock it will. Of course, there is no failure . . . the only failure would have been not seeing this through . . . so there is really no down side. But I still want it to be the best it possibly can be, for myself if no one else.

Learning lines

Despite having put it off for some time . . . today I took the plunge and started working on learning lines . . . it came much easier than anticipated, or that I feared it might anyway . . . but I think that was just an excuse to keep from starting in the first place. I guess it helps that I have spent so much time working on the writing over the last few weeks/months and that now the piece sort of flows from one thing to the next . . . but still . . . until you actually get revved up you never know how easy or hard it will prove to be.

I can actually say it was fun! And . . . as these things have a tendency to do . . . it has gotten under my skin a bit . . . so I find myself picking up the script whenever I walk by it to see what else I can do . . . of course the really good thing about this is that once I can work the piece without script in hand I can really start to make progress on the acting end of things.

One thing for sure: there is no easy way to work on memorizing lines. It's repetition and working it working it working it and then .. . working it some more. But what a sense of accomplishment!

Wow! Two pages down . . . twenty more to go! Happy snow day!

Getting down to it!

Rehearsals are really starting to produce benefits. We are unearthing all kinds of little gems in the piece, some of which, though the script might make it seem obvious, weren't all that obvious to me. Funny how that works. At any rate, the time flies.

I have to say, I was having feelings of 'what have I done' earlier in the day when I was reading through the thing. After a while you tend to lose objectivity, you tend to see nothing but weaknesses and the virtues are less obvious . . . in other words, the rehearsal couldn't have come at a better time. Wallace is very intuitive and supportive, and, not least, encouraging. I left rehearsal feeling a whole lot better.

He confirmed that I will get the March 23rd reading spot, which is sort of a test run to see how it plays. I hope to be able to learn about a page a day; I ought to be able to do better than that, but with a light goal it won't feel so intimidating. The sooner I'm off book the book the better . . . then I can really explore physicality and all the beats. It's pretty rich material so I kind of feel it's up to me to screw it up.

I haven't been in this situation in a looonnnggg time. If ever. When I performed in my one act Thirty Odd Years, it wasn't a solo piece for one thing, and for another it had been previously performed so I knew for a fact it worked. With this one, yeah the response has been pretty phenomenal in the workshops, but we'll see how a paying audience receives it. Of course, that is putting the cart way before the horse.

But as I told Wallace last night after rehearsal: this is everything I had hoped it would be . . . and then some!

I don't know how much of a part of me solo pieces will become, but ideas are popping so I can't rule out doing another one . . . but first things first. If I can nail this one . . . won't it be a wonderful thing!

Wow! Not since Monday?

Well it's been a busy week, what can I say. A not too pleasant trip to Long Island on Tuesday, and then job hunting and writing . . . it's a full time job all in all!

Didn't end up rehearsing on Wed. because Wallace was stuck at work. Can't wait to get back at it, but I could be doing more on my own then I am . . . I am going to try to spend a little time each day with OH, then when I start working the lines, the outline will be clearer.

I think in my last post I spoke about the promo blurbs for the play; I didn't think to attach the photo though . . . so I am today.

Oh well . . . that didn't work . . . I'm putting it on facebook so you can check it out there if you're so inclined.

Onward and upward!

to MFA or not to MFA that is the question

So I'm impaled on the horns of indecision. I thought a couple of weeks ago that I might be well served to go after an advanced degree; specifically an MFA in Playwriting. It sounded good and made some sense to me at the time, as a lot of the jobs I'm looking at right now do say an MFA is desired, but not required. So it would make some nice connections in the writing end of things, and maybe help for the future of job search.

Of course, it would have down sides: cost for one, though the school I was considering, Hunter, is not that expensive for instate students; for another thing it would be a heck of a lot of work and would really get in the way, potentially, of further development of my solo piece thing. As I may have mentioned before there is some possibility of Old Hickory being performed at the Woodstock Fringe Festival this year, and who knows what after that . . . committing to an MFA track would kind of take care of the 'who knows what after that'.

Plus . . . in looking at my college transcript . . .well lets just say my college years weren't where I put my best foot forward. And I had very little in the way of theater courses. I can't for the life of me imagine why I did that . . . why I ignored that part of who I am back then . . . but I did. It's really all I ever wanted to do and when I had the chance to explore that in a college with a good theater dept. I chose to explore other, shall we say, internal areas. Well you make your choices and you can't go back and change them now.

At any rate, things have worked for me I'd say. My path to where I am now has been more circuitous than it might have been, but I can't say it was the wrong path, it just was a different one. And a lot of the beautiful things in my life right now, wouldn't be there had I gone full tilt into theater in college.

Now back to the MFA thing. So I signed up for the GRE and the date I signed up for got snowed out . . . this might be a sign. Also, I spoke to the counselor at the Actors Work Program and she suggested talking to people to see how an MFA has helped them, or not. She did say that there are a lot of MFAs that are in the AWP who are looking for work.

My gut right now is that the MFA thing might not be such a great idea. The path I'm on right now feels good . . . do I really need to add the angst? I had considered an MFA at one other point, before moving to NY. I was even accepted to WVU; but then I thought, that was just a way to keep from doing what I really wanted to do . . . which was move to NY . . . so I decided against it at that point . . . and put money down on a house! (that's how screwed up I was back then . . . I just didn't know which way to turn . . . when there really was only one way I was interested in) I finally snapped out of the buying the house thing . . . I ate my earnest money but I wasn't tied down; which was essential a few years later when I finally made the move.

By the way, a few months after I decided not to go to WVU, I got the opportunity to be directed by Edward Albee in Counting the Ways: that was an experience I would have missed had I gone back to school . . . not only that, but that play was what got me the dinner theater gig that made me 'equity eligible' when I finally did move to NY. And because of the equity eligibility I was able to audition for, and get cast in, The Trip to Bountiful with Ellen Burstyn, which is why I'm sitting in Nyack writing this.

So, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say: Go figure.

Publicity

I worked a bit on my new absurdist piece today (trying to spend some time every morning on it) and then went to work on some publicity stuff for Old Hickory. They need a one sentence description for their brochure and then a 50 word description of the play for their programs.

For the one sentence description I played around with the old quote 'behind every great man is a great woman', changing it to Old Hickory says: Behind every fed up husband . . . is a great knife. I think that should serve rather well. For the 50 word description I took a similar tact; something to the effect of: his dog is dead, his ex-wife is a thorn in his side and his only friend is his knife. So what's the problem? After all behind every etc.

for the accompanying photo I'm thinking of a shot of my back, with my hand holding a knife . . . goes well with the other stuff, what with the behind every man bit.

we'll see. I sent it to Wallace and will show Bette to get their reactions.

I've gotten a lot of responses to emails telling the date (some criticizing me for not including location . . . that was intentional . . . I figured I'd include all that when they announce on sale dates). I'm excited to say the least.

New Play

So I finally typed in the first nine or so pages of this new play. I wrote it longhand on the train going into Manhattan last week, and then avoided working on it because . . . well . . . it promised to be work. Not that I don't enjoy writing; I do. It's just that sometimes things pile up and it seems like you can't start one because the other one is sitting there demanding attention, but you can't work on that one because the first one is pending. Sometimes you just have to sit down and do it. A little each day gets you in the mode. Before you know it you can't wait to get back to these people.

What were the two thing distracting me? Well three really. I need to revise Old Hickory some based on what we accomplished at last week's rehearsal; then there is my new piece that I finally got typed into the computer; and finally another solo piece I'm thinking about (if you count rewrites on the O'Neill solo piece that's four!).

This new play is gonna be fun. I'm envisioning it as kind of an absurdist attack on the defilers of the environment, specifically mountaintop removal and gas drilling. I think I'm gonna have fun with it . . . not sure if anyone else will. It's a new thing for me . . . haven't really tapped into the surrealist/absurdist thing before. (though Family Matters was openly a tip of the hat to Godot in that the old couple is waiting for their son's arrival. My goal with Family Matters was to write a play in which nothing happened. What did I hear from the AD at Penguin Rep when he read it? Nothing happened! Well . . . I guess it worked then. He wouldn't even give it a reading which I didn't think was the right choice on his part; audiences seem to love it, in past readings). No title for it yet, but I think Hillbilly Absurdist is a genre worth exploring.

The new solo piece I have been bapping about is a ghost story based on a short story I wrote almost thirty years ago! I think it would be a good candidate for solo theater. It's a creepy story about a guy who buys a house in the country, and the old lady that sells it to him asks him to take care of her long dead daughter, who in a family portrait is a stunning beauty. Turns out the old lady isn't totally bonkers and the stunning beauty is a presence in the house.

Add to that: The Red Hand of O'Neill just won't go away. I keep thinking about it, unbidden at times, and I think it has a ton of potential. For now I just have to keep my eyes on what is most immediate, which is of course, Old Hickory. I don't know what doors it will open up but I'm poised to dash through when they do.

SAVE THE DATE!

Just got word that Old Hickory will go up April 29th at 7 pm! It's funny timing because Wallace and I met last night to plan a schedule and then rehearse and among the things we wondered was when we'd know the date. This morning I checked emails and there it was!

Last night was a truly substantive rehearsal. I read through the surgically altered play, wondering if Wallace was going to be as charmed by it as he was by the original. His reaction was all I had hoped it would be. So far so good. Wallace and I are really simpatico. He is attuned to the needs of the writer (being one himself don't hurt) and he doesn't so much suggest changes as ask questions. And they are generally spot on.

After I read through it we talked for a bit and then started at the top of the play and did some exploration, finding moments, beats, that sort of thing. There are a lot of places the script could be more specific, and we're exploring to find those, sometimes they're obvious. While I was reading I was making mental notes of things that struck me. Simple things like instead of 'like this friend of mine used to say' give the friend a name. It's funnier and more specific. Pulls the audience towards you a bit more.

Anyway, I was stunned, stunned I tell you, when Wallace said that our two hours were up! It flew by! That I think is a very good sign.

There seems to be very little question that Wallace is thinking Fringe if this goes well. I don't want to put the cart before the horse, because . . . well . . . if I don't pull my weight with this performance, nothing else is likely to happen. He did say, however that there are a lot of areas to explore or things that can go back in that I cut, should we want to take it from forty to sixty minutes. That's good enough for me. I'm just thrilled to be on this ride. I haven't been this immersed in a rehearsal in a loooonnnngggg time. The last non-reading acting that I have done was the production of THIRTY ODD YEARS at Theatre Artists Workshop which was at least four years ago, maybe more like five. Too long. Which of course is why I dove into the solo pool to begin with. You can travel light and walk the highwire sans net; I just can't wait to feel how it works (assuming it does). The big challenge, after we settle on the script is going to be learning it. But there is lots of time and April 29th is better than April 19th, that extra ten days is a godsend.

By the way, it's kind of funny to be walking around Manhattan with a bag full of butcher knives and cleavers. If ever I was going to be mugged this would be the time (if someone wanted to compare knives, I think I'd probably win . . . but my luck they would have a gun!)

a great audience story

Yesterday I heard from my brother about something unrelated to plays and the like, but I asked him if he had a chance to listen to the broadcast of my play on the radio and he said he had listened to it that day . . . AT WORK! I said: You took an hour and a half at work to listen to the play? And his response was that it was 22 degrees outside and he doesn't sell much roofing material when it's 22 degrees!

Not only did he listen to the play but every person that works for him listened as well . . . now some of these people don't know from plays, probably have never been to a play . . . and they got off on it!!! Of course it being a regional piece and the region in question being where they live it was pretty close to home . . . but my brother said he was something of a celebrity at work that day . . . I got a big kick out of that.

It reminded me of my other favorite audience experience which was when they brought people from a homeless shelter to see the dress rehearsal of my play Thirty Odd Years which was part of a one-act festival in Brooklyn (Gallery Players). These people responded so enthusiastically talking back to the characters . . . the men identifying with Uncle Lee when he describes the abuse he takes from his wife and everybody really, verbally, enjoying the ending. It was a visceral kick I'll tell you that.

I also started a new play yesterday and had another idea for a monologue today . . . so the spark plugs are really firing right now. Which is good. I have generally been able to keep up quite a pace, but there are times when I am more inspired than others. Now seems to be the crest of a good wave and I'm trying to ride it.

the new play that sprang to mind yesterday is sort of a hillbilly absurdist environmental disaster piece . . . there . . . I've coined yet another genre . . . goes quite nicely with hillbilly gothic don't you think?

Last night's Fringe

I finally got to read the end of Old Hickory for the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit last night. It went well, which was a relief. People said some very nice things about it. The ending initiates the kind of discussion I had hoped it would (some see more ambiguity than others) and people like the character, characters in fact.

One funny thing that happened during feedback that has happened before: people sometimes find fault with a man calling another man 'honey'. It's just an Appalachian thing I guess. It's as if you're saying 'man' or 'dude' or whatever. It's always women that get thrown by it, and sometimes they are quite vocal, going so far as to say it took them out of the play for a moment. The upside of that is that if the only thing they can come up with to find fault with is something like that, well . . . I guess we're on the right track.

One Woodstocker, who has done her share of solo shows, said she liked the way the piece swings between humor and threat. Another fellow took me aside after the session and told me how much he likes the piece. He said the writing just takes him somewhere else, it has a rhythm and he can just get lost in it.

It's all very nice. I just hope my surgery of yesterday didn't damage the piece too much. I don't think so, but we'll see. I did read the new ending, which gives a bit more motivation for the core event of the piece, which I ain't telling of course!

I also got a new idea for a play yesterday, sort of an absurdist environmental disaster thing about mountaintop removal and gas drilling . . . wonder when I'll have time to work on this thing, but I feel like I should put some ideas down before they disappear.

Still getting good feedback on the radio play as well.

The doctor is in

I spent a large chunk of this morning performing surgery on Old Hickory. It was painful but it had to be done. I hope the piece will be better for it. When I first started with the writing I wasn't sure where it was going, but kept writing . . . amusing myself no end (and others as it turned out) but still unclear where it was headed. I finally did get through a first draft and then sent that off to some competitions. Between sending it in and being accepted by EAT I made changes, largely to the ending. Bette thought and I concurred after thinking about it, that the original last third was a whole different play; different tone etc. There was some good writing there, but it wasn't of a piece with the rest.

It made much more sense to have it be one story driving the piece rather than a litany of women who done him wrong (or that he did wrong). So I changed the ending and had a rehearsal with Wallace. He was so helpful, asking questions firing out ideas, and each one seemed to bring more! It was pretty wild. I wrote it all down and started pondering.

Another factor was that the competition asked me to whittle it down to forty minutes . . . so taking all that in, today I went in and cut cut cut. It's funny in looking back on the original draft how much of it was off the beam. Funny, yeah . . . but it's another play. This play it seems is about Old Hickory and the Ex wife and the intersection thereof.

The struggle is to make it make sense. to not lose the charm, to keep the gothic sort of feel . . . the suspense . . . we'll see . . . more surgery may be required.

Oh, and one more thing . . . when the competition wrote me they told me how much they liked the ending of the piece (not the current ending by the way) funny how this stuff works. I hope they'll like this one too!