On a roll

So still keeping the writing/blogging thing happening. This is three or four days in a row now and it's become kind of part of the plan for mornings, part of the secret is making sure to get the writing in before checking emails, because that can take you in an altogether different direction.

Yesterday is a good example . . . I did an hour of combined writing/blogging and then checked my Yahoo account . . . bingo! An answer from Steve Earle's manager to my question about sending plays: 'Absolutely, send them along and I'll get them to him!' And that sent me into a frenzy of locating or printing scripts, deciding whether to send just the miners plays or send one of them and my Emma Goldman play, so I decided on one of the miners plays and the Emma, so print them, punch holes, find report covers for them, write a cover letter then breakfast/shower/off to work. At work I decided to take Bette's advice and send the two miners plays and let Emma wait until/if he asks to see it. Home at lunch: walk the dog, find and print Where the Rain Never Falls', rewrite the cover letter, put them in an envelope and then, a quick sandwich and back to work. (why do we create such mania?) You might ask why the rush? Well, I know he has a couple of gigs in the city this week, so I figured if I could get them to the manager by Monday/Tuesday it would be a lot easier to get the scripts to SE.

It was a relief when it was all done, but it added a mild pinch of chaos to an otherwise mildly chaotic day at work (if not chaotic, then busy).

So the plays are off. Hope he likes them. Amazing how this has worked out. Just shows to go you . . . nice things can happen if you let them; open the door and sometimes something walks in.

Poe-etry

Looks like Bette and I are gonna participate in a reading of Poe's poetry in Oct. Should be fun. We went and met the guy last night. He has an internet radio station here in Nyack and a little fifty seat theater. The Poe thing sounds like fun and the theater could be a good place to work on stuff potentially . . . we'll see how things develop.

Actually Bette and I did one of my earliest readings at that space. At the time it was called Main Street Arts. We read my play 'Last Request' there. That play is essentially a two hander in the first act and then a third character is introduced in Act 2. Anyway, we had a very nice turnout and had a great time there. A fun anecdote: the guy that played the third character, the ghost of my character's father as it happens, was an actor named Peter Demaio, he had actually had a career on Broadway for a while and understudied the guy in 'Same Time Next Year'. Anyway, I bumped into him as he was walking toward the theater that night and he had this gravelly voice and said 'I don't think I can read, listen to my voice'. I said, 'No you're perfect!' And he was! The cracked voice worked!

Back to Poe: I have to decide what poems I want to read. I'm leaning toward Annabelle Lee (pretty creepy), and another one, the name escapes me just now . . . but I'm leaning toward the dark stuff . . . because he did write some stuff that wasn't so dark . . . but since this is going to be around Halloween it's obvious that a trip to the dark side is in order!

Catching up part 2

So there is more news to catch up on that I ran out of time for yesterday. The delayed presentation of Old Hickory is delayed again. This time because the renovations on the space haven't been completed and won't be in time . . . so delayed until further notice. That's a shame, I was looking forward to it. But I am committed to doing the piece in the city and reached out to Wallace to see what he thinks; I asked him about Theaterlab, where we rehearsed last year, and she suggested either that or perhaps Westbeth, where the playwrights unit meets.

I like that idea as well. I'd just like to have at least a few performances of the piece in the city . . .

And I'm working on new stuff. Reading a lot and getting inspired. Just finished All Quiet On the Western Front, which blew my mind! What a great story . . . also read Travels With Charley, a great Steinbeck work (but I have yet to read one of his novels that I didn't love). This stuff I find inspirational in important ways as a writer. It's people sitting down and trying bringing something into the consciousness of the world, in hopes it will make it a better place . . . nice work if you can get it.

So I have an idea for a new two hander, that sort of germinated from All Quiet, we'll see what happens with that, and I'm working on something that may or may not be a new solo piece . . . but I'm writing every day, and trying to reestablish the groove . . . it's easy to get out of the habit, and once out it's hard to get the discipline to keep after it, but you just have to turn away from distractions (in my case, I no longer check emails and then write, I write and then check emails . . . you'd be surprised what a differenc that makes!).

Even just a little bit every day sets the tone . . .

Looks like it's gonna be dueling writing groups again this fall, with both starting on the same day . . . as much as I like the one the meets in Nyack, Woodstock Fringe has been a game changer for me . . . can't walk away from that . . .

Long time gone

Ok so there is some catching up to do: I read my new solo piece, Like a Sack of Potatoes, at the Fringe this year. Nice turn out and everyone loved it. Felt very good. I treated it as a performance with script in hand so I took a mini set, chair, crate for a table, a few tomatoes for props. People loved it. Read it again a few nights later for some friends in their living room in Nyack . . . they raved as well. The one thing that may have been nice to add in Woodstock would have been a talk back at the end. Talking to some people after they really enjoyed hearing the root of some of the stuff in the play . . . but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. And . . . there was a sizable chunk of the audience that was there to see me! Based on seeing Old Hickory last year! One couple even went so far as to say they are 'fans'! I told them they better watch saying that kind of stuff in public . . . but self-deprication aside . . . it was an amazing feeling.

Bette and I went back up to Woodstock last weekend to see Steve Earle at the Bearsville Theater. I had never been to the venue before but it is now my favorite place to see shows. Nice vibe. Beautiful space. And 250 seats! Very intimate. Now, this may sound strange, especially in retrospect, and especially since I never mentioned this to a soul, but I always sort of hoped for/felt like I would get the opportunity to talk to SE some time and tell him how much his album (ok ok CD) The Mountain meant to me as I was writing my coal miner plays. I played it a lot and felt it was an important work and still do. I even . . . get this . . . thought of taking one of my plays with me . . .just in case . . . but I didn't. I was there to enjoy the show . . . and besides . . . shit like that doesn't happen. Does it? So. After the show (the amazing show)my wife and I make a bee line downstairs to the facilities before the drive home, and saw SE and his wife go into a door marked private (they were making tracks though, after a three hour show I'm sure the dressing room sounds pretty inviting) So I do my business and figure to wait for Bette, and I figured as good a place as any to wait is at the foot of the winding staircase that leads to the lobby . . . and oh . . . I was right outside the door marked 'private'. I was not stalking however. Just waiting for Bette. Out of the way. In hindsight it may seem like stalking but the fates are funny sometimes. How funny are they? Well, as I'm waiting there the door marked private opens and who should step through it but Steve Earle. He was looking for someone I think, but I didn't miss a beat: I went up to him and shook his hand, introduced myself and said that I'm a playwright and that his album was an inspiration while I was writing my plays. He could have turned and walked off, said 'Isn't that nice or some such' but he didn't he asked me the names of the plays (I almost blanked on one of them) and if they were produced . . . chatted for only a couple of seconds and then I basically excused myself with a 'I just wanted to tell you that' and the last thing he said was 'You're the best man'. I don't know what must have gone through Bette's mind when she came out of the facilities and saw me talking to himself, but I'll tell you what, I was pumped. It was one of those moments that mean so much and to not blow it was a huge relief . . . I can't imagine how it would feel if I had said what I said but it came out sounding like kissing-ass or gobbledygook or something. It was a very nice moment. I asked for nothing and expected nothing but the opportunity to say my piece.

Then, in the car Bette mentioned sending him a script . . . and I allowed as how that had crossed my mind . . . his agent is mentioned in his new album so I called him yesterday, and the guy answering the phone, after I explained that I met Steve and he seemed interested (well ok maybe that is embellishing a tad . . . as my friend Boyd Carr used to say via his cartoon character O. Hector Lee: Sometimes I call a spade a shovel). Anyhow, I asked if I could send an email and get the message to Steve that way, so he gave me the email address for the agent and I sent one; figuring maybe it would be something to read on the tour bus. Of course, I expect nothing to come of it, and if anything did it would just be introducing my work to an artist I respect. But that's enough in its way.

What more than one character??!!

I spent some time this morning formatting and tweaking my new solo piece, which I think I will call Sacred Ground. At any rate it's the two hander I've been taking to the Fringe this winter and it has been getting nice feedback . . . so I think I am going to get it ready to send to the Abingdon Theatre, to see if it flies with them. They have a nice development program, which Where the Rain Never Falls benefitted from. They do a reading and then a staged reading and if they think it'll fly it moves to a production . . . I think it was the technical aspects of Rain that killed it there . . . at any rate, we'll see what happens.

Bette's 'review'

I forgot to mention in my previous posting that I got a real good omen yesterday morning: when walking the dog I found a $20 bill in the middle of the street!

Here is Bette's posting from Facebook about last night's performance of The Red Hand Of O'Neill:

I wish you guys could have seen Ric as O'Neil's father. Try acting in a one man show (1) that had 19th century references, vocabulary and syntax; (2) was historically accurate; (3) was non-linear; (4) was both funny and tragic; and that you wrote yourself. People loved it. He was amazing. (And as his most severe critic, I oughta know!) Oh well, maybe next time


Thanks Bette.

Red Hand performance!

Last night's performance of The Red Hand of O'Neill exceeded my expectations. Especially in light of the fact that the previous two night's rehearsals had not left me feeling all that good about things. Thursday I rushed from work into the city, rehearsed with Wallace for a couple of hours and then went straight to the tech. Tech can be a strange thing in the best of times, and One Man Talking makes it very easy, great folks . . . so we did our tech and then the run through . . . whether it was the new space (after rehearsing in my living room mostly)or my exhaustion . . . it felt flat and just plain wrong. Got home about 12:30 AM up for work the next day, so when I ran it for Bette Friday night, exhaustion again took it's toll and I was happy to get through the damn thing . . . it would have been easy to throw up my hands and surrender to giving a less-than performance, but I decided I'd be ready . . . one way or another . . . I had spent the previous few days concentrating on the performance, I decided Saturday would be spent making sure the lines were right . . . all the work that Bette and Wallace had done with me was really good and helpful . . . I had to trust that structure and make sure the foundation was solid . . . so first thing after my run on Sat. morning I read through the script. Then in the course of the day I went upstairs and ran the show a couple of times . . . by the time we left for the city I felt prepared.

When we got into the car to leave I told Bette: I'll either return carrying my shield or lying on it . . . at any rate, once I got on stage it felt natural and good. Just the right balance of bombast and drunk for the character, all of which is covering his tragedy, which comes out ultimately. There we one or two line blips, but nothing major . . . no flat out blanks, where you don't know what comes next. It was magic, for me, and Bette and Lisa both liked it a lot, and both are honest folks who would tell me if it sucked.

All in all a worthy experiment. I did the piece in the first place because it seemed like a stretch, and it was . . . and boy did it work. Now? Onward. A reading of my new solo piece on the 31st, maybe it'll be my next OMT shot.