Familiar territory

Right back where I often am this time of year:  wondering what to write next.  So we can expect to get more frequent blog posts just to keep the writing muscles honed as much as possible.

So far this year has been fairly productive I'd say.  It was a lot of fun adapting The Craftsman to a play and solving the problem inherent in a transfer from screenplay to stage.  And having the platform for a reading with 'civilians' in the room reacting to it from afresh was very helpful as well.

I'm proud of the play and welcome it to my stable of submittable material . . . when I become an overnight sensation there will be no shortage of material!

But now what?  I've recently submitted both The Craftsman and The Brother of the End of the World to various places, and will continue to do so (and other stuff as well).  The flint will eventually hit the steel and create the spark but for now I'm refilling the cistern, so to speak.

We went to see a less than perfect Long Days Journey Into Night at BAM last night.  It is a wonderful play, but this production wasn't firing on all cylinders.  Jeremy Irons was fine as James Tyrone, and Leslie Manville was an adequate Mary, though when she makes her entrance at the end of the play she wasn't that much crazier than she was earlier, which sort of diminishes the impact to say the least.

Neither of the actors playing the two sons caught my fancy.  The actor playing Edmund was not well cast at all, seemed to be in a different play at times, and the actor playing Jamie, while he had his moments, really dropped the ball in his big scene with his younger brother in the second act.  Any time I see this play it'll be haunted by Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance on Broadway.  His meltdown in that scene was a sight to behold, and this guy didn't even come close.

Oh well . . . nobody's perfect.  We have seen in recent weeks a wonderful Lear, with Antony Sher, and Three Tall Women, which was astounding so I guess that's a pretty good track record.

Now we're going to lay back a bit, we are saving shekels for Italy of course but a couple of things on the horizon are interesting:  a Japanese production of Macbeth in July and The Ferryman opening on Broadway in Oct.  But for now we can relax a bit.  The only things on the horizon are concerts, unless something strikes our fancy.

Post reading post

I can't believe I went this long after the reading without posting something.  At any rate, the reading went beautifully.  Bette's piece Glass Slipper was exquisite and The Craftsman got a great response as well.

Some interesting things happened along the way however:  I got scripts to everyone way in advance of the reading, complete with highlighted stage directions.  So all was well.

About three days before the reading I got a call from Craig Marin, reading the Homeless Man, asking if he could use a puppet.  After much hemming and hawing I finally said sure why not?  The dude is a puppeteer after all.  Turns out the puppet he brought was made specifically for the reading!  And it was fantastic!  Really added a lot, and it is the first time someone has nailed the Homeless Man.  It's a tough scene to read cold, but Craig had time with it and using the puppet gave him license to go a little crazy, which is what the part screams for.  It added so much to the finished product!

The day before the reading I got a call from the fellow who was reading Jimmy.  The lead.  On every single page of a 96 page script!  He told me he had broken his dentures and couldn't do it.  So I emailed the guy playing another part and asked him to do Jimmy and I read the part he was going to read.  He was great and everyone was very happy .. .

A little drama when we got there however, we were locked out.  Ultimately I called Wallace and he was waiting in the space, unaware that it was locked.  He told us the people who run the space had him down for Friday and we couldn't do the reading that night.  I wasn't privy to the scene that transpired but when Wallace's kraken comes out you don't want to be on the receiving end of it.  We did end up doing it as planned.

The reading was on the 13th floor of the building we usually meet in, but we usually meet on the ground floor.  The view was nothing short of spectacular!  In every direction!

Since the reading I have sent a hard copy to Jerry Davis at Burning Coal, and entered it into the Relentless Award competition.  We'll see what happens.

Now we're back to the old 'what comes next' syndrome.  I feel like good things are happening and can't wait to see what move in on me.  On the other hand summer is sometimes sort of fallow for me, just reading and recharging.

I'm ready for just about anything!

Excited

Excited by the upcoming reading of The Craftsman this week. Should be a lot of fun. Sort of spinning wheels on what to do next, but something will happen. I have some ideas. On one of my periodic rambles through my saved documents I found a couple of snippets of things that I hadn't done anything with yet . . . maybe . . . maybe not.

I also found an old newspaper article that I wasn't really sure about why I kept if until I read the opening paragraph . . . more on that later.

So on a rainy - but cool - Sunday morning, just chilling.