Monday, December 15, 2008

Revisions the latest

I'm very pleased to report that I did actually take another reader's comments into consideration and reworked portions of"The Good Life" while I was off at Carolina Beach. The revised version is now prepared for a reading by a group of friend/actors in January -- and then the finished draft will be off to at least one point of review as soon after the read-through as I can complete the brush-up.

Meanwhile, hopefully, some word on a couple of the works out there in contest-land will have been received, and maybe things will move forward an inch or two!

We caught the sweet "Christmas Bus" performance by Kernersville Little Theatre performers on Saturday night. Not overwhelmingly attended, unfortunately. My theory is that the current state of the economy is not going to do any of the arts any big favors over the next year or two. Time to tighten down the hatches and kick into survival mode for a while!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Hmm. We've slipped into December, always a busy month, and haven't blogged a bit about the progress of the various plays. Would that be because there has not, as yet, been any progress to report? That would be ... accurate.

It's not through any lack of desire or anything, but though I have the beginnings of a new 10-minute play on paper, the concept of another 10-minute play in my head, and I reported earlier that a full-length script had been commenced, nothing further has transpired. Part of that is due to all the other December activities and some play going (we enjoyed "Black Comedy" at Third Stage in Greensboro, and I thought that "Beautiful Star" at Triad Stage was "nice"). Part of it is due to researching and writing for a new paying project. The rest of it is lack of time and, in some cases, desire.

As I was saying to another writer the other day, sometimes when you've put lots of hours into projects and nothing has, yet, borne fruit, it's hard to maintain the desire to write MORE work that isn't going anywhere, yet. I'll get past that at some point, but right now, other than the second, only-in-concept 10-minute play, I don't have any burning desire to move forward with projects in play world until something moves forward on the work already done.

The reason for the one 10-minuter is that there is a program called "The Seven" in New Mexico that, this year, surveyed all its playwrights and others via e-mail, and then conducted an e-mail vote from selected theme ideas to come up with the 2009 final theme. All plays are written about that theme, so if I'm going to submit an entry, I've gotta write a 10-minuter to that theme. So there's actually a target there.

And I got some useful commentary on "The Good Life" the other day, so hope to do some rewriting on that script BEFORE we have a private reading in mid-January.

So while it's not full speed ahead, something is happening while I wait on responses to the various entries floating around out there. By the end of January, I hope to know something about at least one of them. Maybe.