Nearing the new year

There hasn't been any theater-going since the last blog post (believe that if you will!) but a lot of thinking about and planning for future theater. 2010 is going to be an interesting year, with at least one production of a play I've written happening in October. Lots of planning going on right now about set pieces, music, lighting and such. But there are a few other possibilities floating around, too. We'll see how that goes.

Though they are tentative commitments until July 1, we also have five of the nine roles in "Conversations" cast and feelers out to four other actors regarding the four remaining roles. I continue to be quietly excited that it could all work out with a relatively low level of "drama" instead of just "good" drama.

Slowly but surely, furthermore, I continue to create bits and pieces of a new full-length script that, at least tentatively, is called "Patent." It's going to be set in three small towns in central Iowa in 1858. The opening and part of the closing, as well as a couple of pages of dialogue from somewhere in the middle, have been created already, and I know what happens at the end, even if it has not been written yet. It's far enough along that I have a pretty good feeling it will turn into something.

I don't think there's a whole lot on the play-going front for January, but after that, I can tell it's going to get busy again. And that's a good thing!

And the fun begins!

It has been busy times since I last posted, including a Thanksgiving weekend trip to D.C. (see comments on Woolly Mammoth's "Full Circle" in a moment) and a host of other activities. But equally exciting, the momentum already seems to be building for the "Conversations" production, and thoughts on casting are moving forward at a healthy pace. I'm already starting to feel that exhilarating combination of excitement and dread that will no doubt last through the end of the run next October.

As mentioned, while in D.C., we got over to Woolly Mammoth to see our second production there. Sarah, our new daughter-in-law, works there now, but they also do some fascinating stuff, and "Full Circle" was no exception. For this show, rather than just sit in a seat and watch, the show "moved" to various places around the company's building. The story itself was semi-absurdist and built at first around the fall of the Berlin Wall, then followed the fates of a young woman, an American society lady and others as they tried to protect the baby of the mistress of the former Communist leader of East Berlin.

Did you follow that?

Well, anyway, it was a pretty neat "moving" experience, going from point to point to follow the story. And even if the ending left me a little at loose ends, I thought it was a lot of fun and certainly "out of the box," if you will.

We also saw "Daughters of the Lone Star State" at Theatre Alliance in Winston-Salem. While there were certainly some good performances, I fear this won't make it to my "favorite Del Shores scripts" list. I'm sure it was part of the purpose of the play to expose several women characters as being despicable in their bigotry and snobbish attitudes, but it was a little too close to the truth for me. I've met those women, and I really didn't want to be reminded that they exist. Cheryl Ann Roberts, of course, got to play the alternative opinion, and did a fine job of it, along with Reba Birdsall as the long-standing victim who finally breaks free of these women's offensive treatment.

But you still wanted to wash your hands afterwards, hoping you didn't get any on you.

And then, on Friday night, we took in the latest KLT production, "The Littlest Angel." Again, maybe not going to be my favorite play ever, but I still took away a large smile because the show, as ridiculously difficult the music was for a community theater production, did exactly what I perceive KLT's mission should as often as possible: it brought a lot of young people and other adults, too, onto the stage to perform, in a lot of cases for the first time. So perfect from that standpoint!

Kathy and I saw it especially closely because a young woman we have known for some time as a next-door neighbor and our cat sitter, now age 13, just bubbled all the way home about how much fun she was having and enjoying the chance to perform. Our community theater may not be a lot of things, but it also IS a lot of things -- and this, I believe, is what it should be all about. Yay, KLT!