Progress . . .

Work is moving along. I now have about thirty pages and that should be just about it. There may be a tweak or two to here and there, but it's pretty much where it needs to be, I think. One of the things I really wanted to void was making changes just to make changes. If it doesn't add to the story then it shouldn't be there. That has been my challenge and fear with the stuff I added about Jimmy's (and my) grandparents. It was sounding to my ear like a monologue in the midst of this flow of language. I had to confront that and face the possibility that it might not work. I think I have fixed it though. The reason he talks about the grandmother of course is because she gave him the knife and he loved her a lot; then talking about her naturally leads (I hope) to talking about his grandfather her husband . . . and this is where I thought there might be trouble because as much as I love the bit why was it there? I may have arrived at a solution this morning though because all this talk about how hard his grandfather worked and how little he got paid for it, convinced Jimmy not to be a farmer. Now I just have to be sure that the thing about the chickens isn't out of step with the rest, I don't think so though because it shows a side of Jimmy early on that maybe we need to see.

My other challenge is something that I've always felt it needed; or at least since the OMT performance: Wallace had the idea of Jimmy misprounouncing 'claustrophobic' which turns out to be a nice way of upping the ante in his big confrontation with his Ex as she jumps all over correcting him. I felt it needed more of that, but couldn't really figure out a) where and b) a word that he might use that would be easily screwed up. I may have found a solution though in having him tell about her correcting him whenever he says something like 'tater' or other simple words like that. I do think it has to be referenced earlier though, no matter what the word (s) ultimately chosen are.

Finally was able to get contact info other than a home phone number for Avy Kaufman. She is one of the busiest casting people going right now and I met her when she was working on Matewan in 1986. When I later moved to NYC she also got me some work on a German TV show of some kind or other. At any rate, my agent got me the info and I sent her an email and he followed up later with an email of his own . . . as he so succintly put it: now we wait.

I'm getting postcards made as well . . . I'd really like this thing to fly . . . and I'm not worried about the performance end of it . . . I just want it to have as much chance as possible to have a life after this!

Now I have to stop blogging and get back to learning them damn new lines!!!!!!!!