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.