Further reflections

My previous post was a tad light on the reflection, and contemplation of the horizon. Looking forward is always tricky, because there is what you hope will happen and then everything else that gets in the way. I do look forward to doing a play at the Fringe this summer (acting in one of Wallace's plays, not my own); and in the fall a few more performances of OH and maybe even performances of my newer pieces as well. We'll see. Old Hickory is tentatively scheduled for some time around Halloween with Blue Horse Rep; and I spent yesterday morning getting an application together for the United Solo festival in the city . . . And of course there is the writing . . . it's always there lurking under the surface waiting to give me a nibble to remind me I'm not spending enough time with it . . .I am working up to something . . . making notes here and there . . . might spend a bit of time with it today. And there is still the corner I've painted myself into with my hillbilly-gothic-environmental-disaster-comedy . . . So far the first half of 2012 has been pretty darned amazing so far, a hard act to follow.

A tad of reflection . . .

2012 is shaping up to be quite a year theatrically. Already I have performed three of my solo pieces (one of those performances was a reading but still) and fall promises more performances of Old Hickory . . . and who knows what else is to come. The activity already so far has been quite gratifying and nearly enough to keep me happy for the entire year . . . and it's only April . . . well May for all intents and purposes . . . so more to come and all I can say is bring 'em on! Need to get out and see some plays though . . . I miss that!

Letter of Resignation reading!

Looks like LOR is ready for its big night. Bette and I read our plays to each other on Saturday night and they both seem to be in good shape. And we're both reading on the same night, April 26th in the city; that's a pretty special thing to share. Bette has been getting very good response to her piece at the Fringe workshop and is nervous about unveiling it but she'll be fine. one thing is for sure, you never really know what you have until you put it up in front of people.

For my part, I have been distilling and tweaking LOR for a while now and it seems to be right about where it needs to be, maybe some modest adjustment here and there, but according to Bette it seemed to work quite well. One of the bonus points for LOR is that it is sufficiently different from both Like a Sack of Potatoes and Old Hickory that it could make a nice opener for either one of them.

I'd have to go back a ways to see when I started LOR, but the earliest version I took to workshop last year I think; and it was received ok, but it didn't have the focus it does now. It started as this guy with an employment agency talking about some of the weirdos who come to see him, but it didn't really have an arc; it was more of a this happened then this happened and only after I had let it sit for a while and I came back to it did I see what the real story is . . . it was all in there, I just had to find it.

So a lot of stuff I really liked got jettisoned, but I ended up with a very nice piece. We'll see what everyone else thinks on April 26!

A good writing weekend

I got some work done on two fronts this weekend: the hillbilly-absurd-environmental-disaster-comedy and the new solo piece. In the former I got caught up with the new stuff, typing it in from long-hand to computer; with Letter of Resignation progress on a couple of fronts, including a major breakthrough.

LOR had started as a comedy about a guy with an employment agency and the weirdos who come to see him. There was a dog-whisperer type and a deranged vet . . . it had its moments but I wasn't sure what it added up to and it sort of was all over the place. Then I did a lot of cutting (out with the dog-whisperer and the deranged vet) and started getting to a more focused story about the guy and how he got where he is and his dealings with a problematic mother and women in general.

But it wasn't really kicking it for me . . . it was a character I liked and the story was humorous . . . but there wasn't a real arc to it, sort of ambled along . . . and in the rewrites I started to get somewhere, in that it wasn't a story about how to deal with his mother . . . but specifically what happened to make him want to tell this story now/today.

Then something of an ah-ha moment this weekend. I was getting close when I came up with the Letter of Resignation conseit, but this weekend I sort of closed the deal. For now. I think. Instead of starting all light an general and autobiographical (of the character that is) I started with a hint of what is to come, that maybe this guy is saying what he is saying in the form of a 'letter of resignation' rather than getting to it on the last page or so. And the mother is less of a character and more of a problem, if that makes sense.

We'll see. I still have to type it in and do the reconstructive surgery, as it were, but it was a huge relief to get there. The reading is coming on up . . .