More Old Hickory

I guess since this blog started as a way to keep a diary of Old Hickory, it's only fitting that now that I have a rockin' promo piece for the show that I should share that as well. It's a really great poster/postcard created by Richard Quinn with my input on some minor areas. I could not be happier!

What I used before was stuff I put together without really good production tools . . . and this is off the charts!

2011 recap

Well let's just say it was an interesting year. Started off excited about 'Old Hickory' at Arts on the Lake with Blue Horse Rep and then my mother dying put that on hold. It was ultimately rescheduled for Halloween weekend, and then that got put on hold because of renovations at the theater. It may end up happening in 2012 . . . I'm happy to do it whenever we can.

Of course, not doing OH on Halloween meant I was available to do the Poe readings in Nyack, which was a huge treat. I got to read the Raven and found layers and layers in there, a real acting exercise . . . and I met and ultimately conspired with Richard Quinn who runs the Nyack Village Theater, where 'Old Hickory' will go up in February! Awesome!

Also, had a nice couple of readings of 'Like a Sack of Potatoes', first in the city as part of Woodstock Fringe's Voices of the Fringe, then at the Fringe Festival in Woodstock in August. It was well received both times (hoping to perform it this spring as part of One Man Talking, more on that when I know for sure).

This past spring also had me walking the tightrope with my solo piece 'The Red Hand of O'Neill' at One Man Talking. It was a real stretch but acting isn't acting if there isn't an element of danger to it, and this was way out of my comfort zone, so I attacked it and pretty much nailed it. I don't know if I'll ever perform this one again, but I don't think I could improve on it if I did. (of course if anyone asked me to do it I wouldn't hesitate to say 'hell yes').

In case you think solo pieces are all I'm about: I revved up Dead Authors again and it's a finalist for a competition in NYC at Terry Schreiber Studios; should know about that practically any day now . . . I took the play into the Fringe workshop this fall and heard it read for the first time in years . . . it was a great exercise because it made me look at the piece with fresh eyes and I made some changes, some of which were really hard to do . . . but it's a better play for the changes I think, or I wouldn't have made them.

I also entered several of my other plays in competitions, but they won't announce results until later in the spring.

All in all a pretty exciting year from the theater end of things. And not just my own! Seeing the Berliner Ensemble doing Threepenny was exciting and ending the year with John Hurt doing Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape were great reminders of what we want to be in theater for.

Didn't see much Broadway, though I have to say Mark Rylance in Jerusalem was special (and bumping into my old teacher Ed Morehouse at the show was a major treat!).

A lot to look forward to in the coming year . . . but I think that's a separate post . . . this one is a look back. It's all a work in progress. I guess that's how plays (and a body of work) mirror life . . . they continue to change and grow and they will never be 'finished' until I am . . . so more life to my plays and life and health to all of you . . . amazing to be part of it all!

Gonna have to write something someday

Lots of distractions right now, so I haven't been all that productive from a writing perspective. But that doesn't stop the voices in my head, the ideas that come out of nowhere (some lost forever because I don't write them down), the constant simmering of stuff I've been working on . . . it all adds up to something and I trust that when the time is right I'll get on with it. I do have three solo pieces I'm working on right now at various stages, though one of them has kind of made the cut for most likely to proceed. I also have been bapping around ideas for a full length . . . and there will come the great nearly audible click when something makes it all fall into place.

And what is so distracting you might ask? Well, since this blog is about my playwright/actor life I won't go into work and family emergencies and such, but there is that. I have been using time that might have been for writing to work on my lines for the soon to come performances of Old Hickory at the Nyack Village Theatre (in Feb. more on that later), and there is the pending notification of at least three things: 1) One Man Talking (which of course will mean learning a new script etc); 2) the New Works Project at Terry Schreiber where my play Dead Authors is a finalist and 3) I just found out yesterday that they plan to announce the finalists on January 20th for the Jewish Play competition. I entered Words of Fire, my Emma Goldman play. I happen to think it has a lot of potential as a play and is topical politically in the extreme . . . and of course, a lot of the characters are Russian Jews . . . but if they are looking for plays about contemporary Jewish life . . . Words won't get it. We shall see. They got a hundred and seventy some entries . . . I'd say Bubbie's blintzes will win out over anarchists plotting to kill Henry Clay Frick any day . . . unless . . .

So other than that nothing's cooking . . . pretty exciting stuff!

Adventures at BAM, Part 4: A truly grand finale!

The expectation I had for the performance of 'Krapp's Last Tape' with John Hurt, was very high; not least because the production comes from the Gate Theater in Ireland, where the Beckett festival started that I was privileged to experience part of at Lincoln Center a few years back (Godot and Happy Days), and the director also directed Ralphe Fiennes in 'First Love', a Beckett solo piece adapted from his fiction, also at Lincoln Center (and which blew me away)it all added up to much promise . . . almost impossibly high promise.

But it was equal to all my expectations. It was beautifully directed and acted. And it's funny about Beckett, to me anyway, when I see a successful production of his work it's almost like he's in the room with me. I guess you can say that he truly is, through his words, but his work is so deeply meaningful and visceral that it really is alive . . . and so is he. There's some kind of directness to it . . . no melodrama, no bullshit . . . just real, direct communication.

I had never seen John Hurt on stage before, but he was perfect as Krapp. Bette wasn't that enthralled with the Krapp he did as presented as part of the 'Beckett on film' set, but she was the first one out of her seat when the lights came up for the ovation . . . he had just the right balance of playfull and resignation (I almost wrote despair, but I don't think Beckett is about despair really, I think it's more like looking into the abyss, saying 'Oh, really, now what?' and then going on because what are the options?)

In the case of Krapp, the option is celebrating his birthday by listening to tapes he made from previous birthdays; and his reaction to the person he was back then . . . underneath it all, currents of lost love, regrets and reflections on life, with wordplay and humor . . . and the most beautiful writing Beckett ever did, at least in a play. It's a gorgeous play and the production at BAM brought that home . . . the last moment when Krapp is sitting alone in the light and says: 'Perhaps my best years are gone . . . but I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire that's in me now. No I wouldn't want them back.' is a shattering moment in its simplicity, he says the words and he shows nothing to betray that they aren't true . . . but somehow, you know that he would take them back in a heartbeat . . . if only he could.

A recap

Maybe I'll start doing weekly recaps for weeks when I don't get around to blogging much, just to keep things current. Some cool stuff this week, most especially attending a Solo writer/performer and director exchange at the Dramatists Guild. It was a nice event and broadened the pool of contacts a bit perhaps if nothing else. Saw the director of Bette's piece from the Estrogenius Festival a few years back, Elena Araoz. The writers essentially got to present an excerpt of a piece and the directors got to hold forth on their modus operandi. It was good just to be in a roomful of people who work in and love theater.

I sent an email the next day, offering the script to anyone who would like to read it and got one bite from Thom Fogerty. Seems to be a nice guy on a similar wavelength; anyone who quotes Stew in email signature is ok with me.

It's getting to be time to get a bit more serious about Old Hickory . . . Feb will be here before you know it! I'm excited for what 2012 is going to bring, lots of potential in so many areas . . . acting, writing and the accursed but not hated: work.

Just read the NY Times review of Krapp's Last Tape. Really good one, we're seeing it next Friday . . . can't wait. Charles Isherwood wrote it and it was one of the best written reviews I can remember . . . hard to believe John Hurt has never been on stage in NYC before!

Solo networking

Found out on Friday that I am accepted for the Solo writer/performer-Director networking event at the Dramatists Guild. Nice opportunity but I'm not sure for what. I don't really feel like I need a director since I have one for Old Hickory (Wallace) and I've spoken to Bette regarding Lika a Sack of Potatoes (in the event Wallace can't/won't or I don't feel like driving in that much). On the other hand, it seems like one of those things where it never hurts to put it out there and see what happens . . . increase the size of the circle kind of. Should be fun though and I'm looking forward to it. Fifteen performers and fifteen directors. We all get to read two pages of a piece.

Saw a reading yesterday of my friend Angelo Parra's new piece about Kurt Weil and Lotte Lenya. Nice work. Well read by the actors too. They were interesting people and of course the hooked is that they lived in Rockland county.

Oh, and a slight correction from my last post: I said I had two piece I have to choose from, in actuality it's four . . . but whose counting?

Adventures in OMT, Part 3

Sent the application materials to the One Man Talking festival yesterday. This festival has changed my life, that's for sure. It has given me the confidence to keep working on solo material. Two years ago when I applied with Old Hickory I had no idea where that would take me. Working with Wallace led to the Woodstock Fringe performances, which lead to the performances at Arts on the Lake (hopefully this spring some time) and also to this blog, which I started to track Old Hickory's progress!

Last year, with 'The Red Hand of O'Neill', I upped the ante a tad. That one was so far out of my comfort zone it ain't even funny . . . which is one reason I had to do it of course. My only regret with that one was that I didn't work hard enough to build audience because I had no idea it would go so well . . . I kind of kept it under the radar and then wouldn't you know it: I hit it out of the park! Well . . . that one was for me . . . and the ten or twenty people who saw it.

This year, it's back to my hillbilly gothic roots with 'Like a Sack of Potatoes'. This one has the advantage of having been read in Woodstock last summer, and that basically was a performance with script in hand. And it went very very well . . . people responded beautifully and I'm ready to rock with it. Of course, it has to be accepted, but since last year I mentioned Bette maybe doing something and Scott Klavan said just have her put a note about being referred by you . . . so my guess is as long as I want to participate they will let me. Awesome opportunity.

So now I have one more distraction from writing . . . learning the lines. But there is time . . . so I should probably get off my ass and work on whichever of the two solo pieces are drawing me in right now . . . I have to look at them both and see which appeals . . . we'll see. I want to have whichever one ready for the Woodstock Fringe reading series in spring. And obviously, more on that later.

I did get a response from the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival and since this is tagged on to the end of a posting you can probably guess that it wasn't in my favor! Didn't really expect much from that one . . . one thing my stuff ain't is urban!