Playing with Plays

Finally.

2012-02-22T08:41:00.003-08:00

I'm very pleased to report that, on my writer's week away at the Outer Banks, I finally tied together the pieces in order to complete a first draft of one-act play "Patent." Now I'll wait to see what the first readers think, and then try to figure out what to do with it. But it is a great joy to no longer have to say, "NEXT month, I'll finish that script." Of course, I've done a number of things and finished them since I started that particular one, but still ....

Meanwhile, I have mostly completed an update and edit of the first 250 manuscript pages of another novel that's been a work in progress, a serial-killer tale set on the Outer Banks. Regrettably, in the 15 years since I last gave it a serious look, some of the settings in Manteo, etc. have changed or disappeared, so I'll have to do a little MORE editing to fix those alterations. But then maybe I'll get started trying to finish the little bugger.

We've only seen one play since I last blogged, "Welcome to Mitford" at Twin City Stage. It was not one of my favorite plays or productions, but I'm glad I went. More playgoing to come soon!

A little progress, anyway

2012-02-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

We haven't been too busy in the playgoing world since the last post, though we did catch opening night of the "Twelve Angry Men" production at the Caldcleugh Multi-Cultural Center in Greensboro a week ago Friday. There were a few rough edges due to opening-night jitters, but overall, some strong acting and a good representation of the play, in our opinion. Robin McGhie directed the show and several actors we know were in it. Nice job!

It was also useful to visit the Caldcleugh for the first time as I will be giving, at Robin's request, a workshop on the basics of playwriting there on March 24th. I've met several of the staff folks there now, which is always helpful rather than walking in cold.

Speaking of giving presentations, on the novel front, I will present a talk on the history of mystery-genre stories and novels at the Walkertown Public Library on March 10th from 10:30 a.m. to noon, along with a reading and booksigning from A Simple Murder. It's free and open to to the public. That should be fun! I've certainly enjoyed researching the lecture portion by re-visiting a lot of my favorite books and authors.

I also finished writing a short script that has been submitted for consideration for a themed 10-minute-play competition at the Lee Street Theatre, Salisbury, N.C. If the script should happen to be chosen, it will be staged in early June.

Not much else to report at the moment, but I've been staying busy lately! Yay!

New script(s), books keeping me hopping.

2012-01-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

January isn't over yet, but I find myself knee-deep in scripts and books that need to be distributed and promoted.

This is NOT a complaint!

As previously mentioned, the afternoon of January 15th was a decided high point for me. A group of actors who are also great friends to my process gathered here at our house and gave me the immense gift of a). hearing the draft of "Rehearsals" out loud for the first time and b). further offering thoughts and suggestions regarding the script. My fifth full-length script is now completed, or at least far enough along to start sending out, thanks in great part to the reading AND the comments. Combined with the changes I made based on first thoughts from Kathy and from Kelly Wallace, I think it's a much stronger and (hopefully) funnier script than at first blush.

In any case, I am starting to get copies of the script around, at the same time as I have received the first hard copies of the printed, bound version of "Conversations in a Cafe." I have plans to continue the marketing of that script using the more professional, lighter-weight and believe it or not, cheaper printed/bound versions. They look great, to me, anyway.

And in December, I moved from solely offering e-Book versions of my detective novel, A Simple Murder, to also having a paperback-hard copy version available. While I realize that books for many are becoming a thing of the past, in terms of marketing the book and contributing it to libraries for those who are still reading books, I'm finding it much easier when one has a "real" book in one's hand. I will have the opportunity to lecture about mysteries and detective authors on at least one occasion (at a library, in March), so at least a little bit of groundwork is being established on the novel side of things. And I'll be able to take books along that can be sold!

As one might expect, we've done a little play-going recently, too. We took in "The Little Dog Laughed" at Theatre Alliance. I had been able to see this show on Broadway, with Tom Everett Scott in the male lead and Julie White in the role of the agent, for which she won a (I thought a well-deserved) Tony. We thought T.A. did a fine job with the show, especially Mark Flora in the male lead role and Suzanne Vaughn as the "girlfriend," a role which she brought forward, I thought, very nicely compared to the Bwy. production. I found it well worth seeing.

We felt the same way about Paper Lantern Theatre's latest offering, "Next Fall," just last night at the UpStage Cabaret (Triad Stage, Greensboro). A touching and not-simple story which bounces around somewhat in time, it was treated quite well by a cast of six and a very-cleverly designed set that made brilliant use of a limited space. It was also the kind of play that sent us home still discussing it and not necessarily even reaching the same conclusions about some of its aspects. Which in my opinion means: good theater.

Into the new year we go

2012-01-11T09:44:00.001-08:00

Somehow when I wasn't looking, New Year's slipped by and the first month of 2012 is nearly half-gone. Busy is, I guess, better than sitting around with nothing to do. If only I had more to show for it ....

But the exciting moment for me for early this year is just around the corner -- a group of actor friends once again convening in our den to read the latest full-length script out loud. "Rehearsals" is going to be given the treatment this coming Sunday afternoon, and I can't wait. Not only do I think it will be fun, and good to see a lot of those folks again, but I think this may be the most commercial and marketable script I've written. We'll see, of course, but after the reading and revisions, I can put the script out there and see what happens.

And, though I've said this before, I have hopes of wrapping up the one-act "Patent" before the month is out. Hope so, anyway.

We haven't seen a lot of shows recently, but that's about to change, too. More reports, and soon, from area theater.

Meanwhile, I have been working on cleaning up the layout and promoting the print copies of my first published novel, A SIMPLE MURDER. It has chewed up a fair amount of work time outside of the playwriting realm, but all for the best, I believe. Getting known as a writer isn't easy, but it won't do itself.

Should be back soon with more comments and the aftermath of the reading!

And 2011 is (nearly) a wrap!

2011-12-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

It has been 10 plays since I last updated the blog, so it is well past time to get caught up.

First, on the writing front, I last reported nearing completion of the first draft of "Rehearsals," a full-length comedy. That first draft did get done; two of my favorite first readers gave it a once-over; suggestions led to a fairly significant re-thinking of act two; and that work was completed not long ago. We are casting a hopefully fun "den reading" of the script for mid-January, and that's going well. So I'm printing out reading copies and looking forward to seeing how my actor friends and acquaintances react to the show. Let the fun (I hope) begin!

Meanwhile, I need to get focus moved on to a shorter play (one act, most likely) that I've been fiddling with on and off for a while now. Hopefully the year will not end without a full draft of "Patent" completed. I don't have a one-act in my repertoire, and this seems like the right length for this particular story.

My wife and I meanwhile continued a lively schedule of playgoing since the last report. We started with a trip west to Abingdon, Virginia - a favored destination of Barter Theatre there -- to see the second play they've done this year by the playwriting team of Duke Ernsberger and Virginia Cate. This one was "Dracula Bites," a comedy based around one of Duke's early acting experiences in community theater -- with the crazed director, actors coming and going, stagecraft issues and so on. There were moments that I was very glad I had put the finished first draft of "Rehearsals" in Kathy's hands literally the day before we went. There are, let's say, some similarities though the specifics are measurably different. A fun, and funny, experience, especially since we got to speak with Duke in person again, some time after our "Margaret Mitchell" experience in Kernersville.

We then saw a fine production of A Doll House at Triad Stage, and over at UNCG, a powerful "Self Defense, or The Death of Some Salesmen," based on the Aileen Wuornos story. Our friend Mike Shapiro from "Conversations" and the "All About Faith" reading was in it. A young woman playing the character based on Wuornos gave a brave and strong performance along with an excellent ensemble.

We also saw Clemmons Community Theatre's "Red Velvet Cake Wars," which I didn't find as strong a script as some of that writing team's other works; and took in readings of three new plays up in Asheville at the SART New Play gathering. We particularly liked one called "The Vanishing Point," about a family in Louisiana.

A week later, we saw a production of Lanford Wilson's "The Rimers of Eldritch" at Theatre Alliance. Awesome ensemble, and both interesting and challenging to watch. Which is what made it so good.

On November 15th, after a variety of "challenges," KLT put on a 5-minute skit to help kick off the Kernersville Chamber of Commerce's annual banquet. They had chosen a Back to the Future theme for the overall event, so I got to write the skit and Kathy chose to direct it. I couldn't be there, but despite all the challenges, the cast of five pulled it off quite well -- and to my great pleasure (we just got a copy of the video), the laugh lines all worked and people seemed to enjoy it. Kind of fun to be part of something like that.

After some time off theater for a fun family Thanksgiving, we started the month of December with Kernersville Little Theatre's Doris Baizley adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," very ably and creatively directed by Adam Sullivan -- who also ended up stepping into a lead role late in the process. We found it very enjoyable. As we did No Rules Theatre Company's production of the inventive musical, "The Last Five Years," just last night. A very pleasing production indeed.

And with that, believe it as you may, we have probably reached the end of our theater-going for 2011. I could be forgetting something, or something else could crop up, but I think we are over and out until January. I think I'll survive.

Time in the theater

2011-10-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

The last post has proven to be quite accurate -- the last month has been very busy, and a lot of that time has been time in a theater. No complaints here, of course!

I wound up September by catching Greensboro-based playwright Tommy Trull's "Wake-Walking" at Greensboro College, which I found quite interesting and well-done for a college production. A planned staged reading of another play of his, however, was postponed, so I'll just have to wait and see when that one comes back to (workshopping) life.

Then Kathy and I went up to Korner's Folly for another Triad-based playwright's "The Service at Rocky Bluff," written by Scott Icenhower and done by Kernersville Little Theatre. It was a laugh-out-loud, family-friendly play with music, and the cast included Brad Phillis, who we first got to know through our own production of "Conversations in a Cafe." Truly a fun night in Cupid's Park.

We followed that in October with Scott and Katie Jo Icenhower's production of "The Piety Variety Gospel Show" at the Paramount in Burlington. While there were many good parts of the show and the cast was chiefly strong, with this one I could see a few areas for editing. Unlike "Rocky Bluff," where I felt you got to know each of the characters, this one gave some characters a fair amount of time and several, not very much. I'd have like to have known more about some of them.

We caught "The Mystery of Irma Vep" at the UpStage Cabaret at Triad Stage, and laughed a lot there, too. Multiple characters in a gothic mystery-styled show, all played by two men. A hoot, for sure.

Recently, because Kathy had a prior event one night, I went to Mount Tabor High to catch an evening of one-acts directed by Chad Edwards. To my delight, Cheryl Ann Roberts was there that evening, too, so we watched a one-act very much in the "Laramie Project" mode about a high school's reaction to the events of September 11th (the school was two blocks away from Ground Zero). And then - not exactly a one-act -- a truncated version of the play "Proof" (one of my favorites of recent years). For the state high school theater conference, presentations must be one hour or less. I thought not only did the four students do a nice job with the abbreviated version, but it was nicely edited and still held up decently despite the cuts. It was a reassuring evening that there is at least still SOME art in the schools even as budgets are decimated.

Finally for this go-round, we saw the hilarious and spirited Theatre Alliance production of "Evil Dead: The Musical." Hard to describe in a few words, but a lot of fun if you've ever seen horror movies and enjoy parodies.

As for my own playing with plays, I'm pleased to be within two or three pages of wrapping up a first draft of the comedy called "Rehearsals." I've had a lot of fun with it so far, and hope to yuk it up some more while reading and editing it. Then maybe some outside readers and a group reading early in the new year? It could happen. Progress!

Into the busy season

2011-09-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

While there still hasn't been much writing time put into plays, I have been organizing myself on the marketing of Conversations in a Cafe and All About Faith -- so that perhaps I will know what HAS been done, and what has NOT. That organization is completed, so now I can move forward.

In the meantime, after the dregs of August, we've moved back into a time period when play productions are coming along hot and heavy. That's certainly not a complaint, because I almost always enjoy seeing something new or old favorites in the dark. But sometimes it's an embarrassment of riches that becomes a challenge to fit onto the calendar! We'll just have to do the best we can.

The first two stops in the busy season were made last week. We both very much enjoyed a show we had not seen before: Kander and Ebb's Kiss of the Spider Woman, done by Theatre Alliance with Gray Smith and Heather Hamby in the leads. It's not done a lot, apparently, and to some extent one can understand -- it's not a laugh fest and has a somber ending, not unlike Cabaret. But the production was very well done, and of course many dark-themed shows work just fine for me.

We also saw the Evening of Short Plays fall 2011 in Greensboro last Thursday night. Naturally (though it's true that I heard earlier read-throughs of three of them) they were new to us. Most of them were pretty good.

High points, low points

2011-09-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

The "nice" thing about the writing biz is that it's a bell-curve kind of existence, or maybe roller-coaster is better, since there's more horror and nausea involved with roller coasters. The last couple of months have not only included some repeat paying business and a new project that went well. But also, I e-published a detective novel in June and a general novel just recently (on Kindle and Nook), and got to see a short script produced in Virginia, which was a writer's and audience member (natural) high for me. I even got the script for Reunions fine-tuned and shipped off to a couple of contests.

Right on the heels of that, I found out that other short scripts were NOT accepted for two different short-play contests and, as a continuing theme, I have found no theater company (yet) interested in producing any of my long scripts. So -- up one day, down the next. Which to be honest I feel is certainly the way with a number of playwright hopefuls, or at least there's ample evidence to suggest that's true.

Which makes it no easier to stomach when it happens.

Nevertheless, I've learned also that writing stuff and doing NOTHING with it absolutely assures nothing will happen with it -- so one keeps on plugging away. Some days turn out well; the others remain depressing.

Perhaps I'm also going through theater-going withdrawal -- August seems to be a very slow month for theater productions, while September and October go nuts. Starting Thursday night, we have quite a bit of theater to take in, just to try to keep up. In short, things could be worse ... and I keep trying to remember to un-cross my fingers every now and then. Something will happen sometime. And I hope that's not just wishful thinking.

A novel distraction

2011-09-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a recent post that we drove north to see my short script, At The Shrine, done in a 10-minute play fest in Purcellville, Va. On the return trip, my wife mentioned that one of her favorite pieces of writing by me was a novel I first created in (we figured) roughly 1983-1986. As I thought on it, I tended to agree.

So upon our return home, I sought out that novel, only to find that I had no digital version of the text -- but I did have a typewritten manuscript of 342 double-spaced pages.

This is all by way of saying I haven't written a word on any play project since that day, because I undertook to scan each of those 342 pages, convert them to a digital document (which took a learning curve, of course), then update, edit, fix and generally try to create a "clean" Word document that could be converted to my second eBook on Kindle and Nook.

To be polite, it took longer than originally anticipated.

However, I'm pleased that one of OUR favorite pieces of writing, a novel called Fictionography of a Mental Coward, is now e-published and back off my desk. Hopefully this means some kind of writing -- new writing -- looms somewhere in the future. It's about time.

Plugging along

2011-08-09T05:50:00.000-07:00

The theatrical life has certainly been continuing in fits and spurts since the last post. We've seen quite a fair bit of it; and during a week-long vacation, the long play Reunions was essentially wrapped and readied for submission, while further progress was made on newer full-length work-in-progress Rehearsals. While I have been diverted lately by converting another older novel manuscript into a digital version, I feel reasonably good about play progress at the moment.

On the play-going front, we saw a very delightful The King and I done at the Weaver Academy in Greensboro, starring Carlos Nieto, Mara Norris and her daughter Skye. A very nice production throughout. Two days later, we saw The Sound of Music done in Winston-Salem at Stained Glass, with Cameron Williams and Mary Lea Williams. Overall, also very pleasing, though we wished that they could have found two young men for the "family" who could also sing.

We were unfortunately crunched for time when the National Black Theatre Festival got to town, as it does every other year. We only got to two productions, but Knock Me a Kiss was quite good. We also saw two shows paired, one about singer Lena Horne and the other about Harriet Tubman. The Lena Horne show was just so-so. But Spirit of Harriet Tubman was a knock-out. The one-woman show was deeply impressive and moving -- what an actress! It deserved wider exposure than it got.

I mentioned a couple of blogs back that my short script, "At The Shrine," was accepted for production as part of the first-time "The Top :10" at the Franklin Park Arts Center, up in Virginia. We drove up on August 5 and caught the opening of three performances on Friday night. What fun. I honestly believe I had the best director and the best cast and, well, by popular vote, nearly the best script. We came away thinking there were three contenders for the Best Script -- and one of them won. I fell short by two votes, apparently. Pretty good!

But more excitingly from my standpoint is that the short play won Best Overall Production and one of two Best Actor awards, for the woman who played Grandma Clemmons in the play. It would have been a travesty, IMHO, if she had NOT won. Our friend Lissa and son Andy were with us, so all in all, quite a wonderful theatrical excursion!

And the following night, my beloved wife and trusted first reader, Kathy, was given a Lifetime Honorary Member award from Kernersville Little Theatre. Delicious icing on our cake!

What's happening with my plays

2011-07-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a while about my writing, but it is still happening, if sporadically.

A while back, I took time to write a short (10-minute play range) script called "At the Shrine." Our good friend Lissa Cobetto "requested" (read: more or less demanded) that I submit something for HER friend's newly-created 10-minute play event at the Franklin Park Arts Center in Loudoun County, Virginia. It was one of the events that had a fixed something that had to be part of the script -- not necessarily my favorite thing -- but I eventually came up with something that I thought worked decently in that format.

It was fun to learn sometime later that the script had been accepted for this inaugural event, and it was well enough received by the various directors that more than one of them wanted to do it. I'm pleased that another friend of Lissa's, Heather Stillings, is casting and directing the script. It will call for another whirlwind driving trip, but we will get to see it (and for me, equally fun to see how other writers incorporated the requirements into their stories!) with Lissa, and hopefully our son and D-I-L as well on August 5.

Another short script was written, read, went to Directors' Workshop and was submitted for the fall E.O.S.P. event -- for which the submission deadline just passed. We'll see sometime later whether or not it makes the cut.

And finally right now, I have two short scripts in the pile at the Future 10 short plays event in Pittsburgh. Hope to know sometime in late August or early September if either of them gets chosen.

As far as writing is concerned, still working towards some final tweaks on the "Reunions" full-length script in preparation for submitting it somewhere soon-ish. And my progress on the next full-length, "Rehearsals," has moved along to the point that the "plan" for the play from beginning to end is pretty much in place; the first of two scenes of the first act is completed; and the beginning of act two is also written. So now it's filling in the holes. That's something like progress!

I continue to send out the "Conversations in a Cafe" and "All About Faith" scripts to selected theater companies, hoping to find a production. So far, no nibbles. But we keep trying.

More recent play-going

2011-07-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

We have been staying pretty much at full-speed-ahead with our playgoing since visiting Spoleto. In early June, I very much enjoyed the upbeat "Hairspray" as produced by the West Side Civic Theatre in Lewisville; the interesting and well-done "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel" at Twin City Stage; and chiefly very entertained by Kernersville Little Theatre's musical "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which chewed up a lot of Kathy's life as she was the stage manager (in addition to her KLT presidential duties.)

In the midst of that production, we raced up to Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Va., and back, catching the new show "Elvis Has Left the Building" in the middle of that whirlwind. The comedy is the latest show by Duke Ernsberger and V. Cate, who first wrote "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell," with which we have a long and enjoyable relationship. Speaking of which, I also caught a very pleasing production of that show in Burlington that involved Katie Jo Icenhower (director) and actors Scott Icenhower and John Collier.

We also snuck out to see the movie presentation of the "Company" concert that starred Neil Patrick Harris. And very much enjoyed and were amused by Triad Stage's "Masquerade."

Speaking of whirlwind trips, we were able to sneak up and surprise Carson Gregory, who had acted in both "Conversations in a Cafe" and "All About Faith," seeing her perform in "Hello, Dolly" and a new musical interpretation of the "Little Mermaid" story at the Allenberry Playhouse in Boiling Springs, Pa. That was a great deal of fun.

Last but not least, we were just in Charlotte to see the musical "Next to Normal" on tour. Kathy had seen it in New York, and the much-vaunted Alice Ripley was touring with it, so we bought tickets as soon as we could, some time back. Sadly, Alice's performance was a disappointment to me, though I really liked the show, the set, the effects, the music and the performances of the rest of the cast. The young woman who sang and acted the Natalie part was especially good. Alice, however, often sang weakly and occasionally off-tune, which affects me almost physically when I hear it. Kathy and I both agreed that we'd like to see this show with a different actor in the lead female role, just to see if it's actually better than the much-hyped current lead.

More to come soon!

Our 2011 Spoleto jaunt

2011-07-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Since our son started working as a crew member at the Charleston SC Spoleto Festival while attending UNCSA, we have been heading to Charleston each late May or early June to take in some of the wonderful range of offerings at this event. We usually try to cram in as much as possible, which with Spoleto and the parallel Piccolo Spoleto schedules usually can mean A LOT. This year, I think, we set a new record with nine events in four days.

The first year we went, Andy was on a mobile crew of troubleshooters and we never saw him at all. This year, he was overseeing the lighting requirements of all Spoleto venues, and we were able to see him three times. Nice!

As for our shows, in addition to a jazz concert done outdoors at College of Charleston's Cistern and a dance concert done to the music of Duke Ellington, we saw a wide range of plays that were at a high level of enjoyment and quality (some past years, to be fair, there has been some variation in quality. Not so in 2011!)

First and among the foremost was the Druid Theatre Company (Ireland)'s production of "The Cripple of Inishmaan," presented in the historic Dock Street Theater. A strong, touching, flawless production, with nary a faulty performance from the cast.

We then saw a variety of shows from the very touching "The Guys" in a tiny but effective space used by Threshold Repertory Theatre; the amusing and well-acted "The Understudy" and Sartre's "No Exit" by groups grown out of or directly affiliated with College of Charleston's theater program; the one-man show "The Banana Monologues"; and a well-done production of Tracy Letts' most recent play, "Superior Donuts," by PURE Theatre.

Finally and fittingly, we saw the awe-inspiring "The Red Shoes," the third production we've caught at Spoleto by the rule-bending Kneehigh Theatre company from Cornwall, England. Their main focus is interpreting classic folk tales such as the first one we saw, "Tristan and Iseult," perhaps still my favorite, though this entry was strong competition. We also liked "Don John," two years ago, but not quite as much. But still, in nearly all moments, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat and wait-to-see-what-they'll-do-next theater. Awesome.

Time to start catching up again -- busy, busy!

2011-06-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Since I last wrote - and yes, it has been a while - someone DID raise their hand, and I understand that Steppenwolf's Virginia Woolf may indeed make it to Broadway for an anniversary-year production in October '12. Yes!

We also had a lot of fun with the reading of Reunions. I've made brush-up changes since the reading, and hope to do some additional work on Act I, Scene II before long -- then see if I can submit it somewhere.

And while I intended to return to Patent when I last wrote, instead - coming out of a show I saw in Charleston and an earlier suggestion - I am working as time permits now on a full-length tentatively called Rehearsals. It's based in a small community theatre and is entirely meant to be a comedy, as a group of the regular suspects (to any theater person) try to stage a production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. Hopefully, hilarity will ensue.

I have to note that some of the time that might have been given over to playwriting in April and May instead went to editing and uploading my first e-Book, a private-eye detective novel based on my Jack Larson character based in Pittsburgh. It's been kind of fun finally having that story "published" and some people reading it.

Naturally, we also saw some plays since that last update: Kitchen Witches at Open Space was fun; the New Play Workshop at GTCC was, once again, quite interesting; Brad Phillis (who was in our production of Conversations in a Cafe) wrote and helped coordinate The Other Minos at the school where he teaches; and we saw Disco Inferno at Theatre Alliance. The latter, I fear, will not make my list of favorites.

Then, in late May, we made our seventh-year-in-a-row trek to Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston. I will report in detail on the various shows we saw there next.

Writing and viewing

2011-04-11T09:22:00.001-07:00

Just a check-in report to let the readers know that I've completed my brush-up revision of "All About Faith"; am partway through editing the new short script for a 10-minute alternative version; and hoping to return to working on "Patent" soon. In other words, the writing work is moving ahead at a healthy pace, which is exciting.

I'm also looking forward very much to having some of my favorite actors and friends in the house this coming Sunday to give "Reunions" an out-loud read-through. Always fun, and always informative about a script-in-progress.

In the meantime, we got to travel northwards to D.C. and see two plays on this immediate past Thursday and Saturday.

First, our son Andy worked as associate lighting designer on a brand-new musical being presented at Ford's Theatre, called "Liberty Smith." First, I will say I enjoyed the concept: a young man in the time of the Revolutionary War -- and the "what if" proposition was, what if some of the events credited to certain well-known individuals by history were actually suggested, or aided, or done by an uncredited individual. What if Paul Revere, for instance, was too inebriated to make his famous ride -- and Liberty Smith did it in his place? I'll give no more away, but it's a fun idea.

Anyhow, the voices and the music generally were quite excellent; sets, costumes, lighting, sound, ditto. Concept generally well presented, though some of the silliness could have been cut to make the show 15 minutes shorter, and a distance better. We enjoyed, though.

Secondly, we made our long-awaited trek to the newly-renovated Arena Stage and saw Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." I thought it was awesome -- all four actors strong, and especially the leads Amy Morton (Martha) and Tracy Letts (George). Very well done. And absorbing. It's a bit confusing to me, and to critics in D.C. and NYC, why no one raised their hand and took this production to New York. But right now, anyway, it doesn't seem to be happening. Curious.

The writing goes on!

2011-04-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to report that I did complete a first draft of another short play, though I may go back and do another version of it that fits in the 10-minute category. This one fits in the 16.5 minute category currently.

I'm also doing some revision of "All About Faith," with a little bit of addition to the third and fourth scenes. Nothing too major, just adding a few points that have occurred since the January reading, and hoping to address one comment that I thought was valid after due consideration. Continuing to try to find a home for that script and for "Conversations." Speaking of which, also considering working up an alternative version of that to reduce by one the number of scenes in the first act. We'll see ....

So anyway, seems to be primarily a time of revision. Plus working on "Patent" again, which I have concluded will probably wind up as a one-act script. I don't have any one acts, so that should be fine.

We have a variety of theater going excursions coming up, plus Kathy has committed to stage managing KLT's upcoming musical, so we should be able to stay pretty busy for the next few months!

Onward and sideways

2011-03-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

I would have said onward and upwards, but things seem to be going along sideways at the moment, so ....

Anyway, as previewed in the last blog, we did go to the Broach Theatre for the first time ever, to see "Crimes of the Heart." After all, we've only been in the Triad since 1986. It seemed like time.

More recently, we caught the Sondheim musical "Assassins" at Theatre Alliance, which I found more entertaining overall. I had a quibble or two with the structuring of the play itself -- which builds nicely to a rousing choral number and suddenly shifts one character to a lead one and kind of brings the show to a screeching slowdown for a time before rebuilding itself to the finale. An odd show overall, as I'm sure many audiences would feel, but as one who enjoys looking at the dark side of the American psyche as well as the brighter side, I found it just fine. And several of our friends and acquaintances were in it and did well, too, so even better!

The writing continues to plug along - though I've not found a home for anything recently, so hence the "sideways" comment above. I did, however, finish up a draft of something to submit to the Evening of Short Plays (which is going to have a common set again, which is roughly the same as having a theme). And I am partway through another short play script -- an idea cropped up in my head while I was working on the EOSP submission, so I will write this out while it's fresh in my head. Then, perhaps, back to "Patent" to see if I can finish that one. Progress is good! (You can borrow that sentiment if you'd like.)

While the muse is speaking ....

2011-03-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion over the past four-plus years of "trying my hand at playwriting" that only a total idiot would ignore the muse when she (or they, in the case of multiple characters) is speaking to you. And I have to say that the past few months, the muse and/or the characters have been talking a lot, and that is a very good thing.

Both the boys and girls of "Reunions," my new full-length play, were good enough to keep chattering away until I reached a point I thought I could cut them off. They may be now changing a few of their words here and there (an inevitable part of re-reading and editing the first draft), but that's fine. They came up with things to talk about, insults to toss and revelations to share, often with little or no help from me. That's one of the little miracles of writing I enjoy so much! They take on characteristics and minds of their own, and sometimes surprise even me.

Anyway, "Reunions" is now nearly completed in preparation for a first full reading in mid-April. I still need to do the out-loud read and edit of the two men's scenes, but the women's scenes are completed and mailed to the appointed actors. I also got to hear the first four pages of scene one at Forum last Wednesday night, and hope to have enough woman actors at next Forum to hear part of scene two also. I'm enjoying the process!

Furthermore, I had a good writing exercise and experience last week. A good friend highly recommended (not that I'm saying she's pushy or anything) that I write and submit something to a new 10-minute play contest up in Virginia. And so I did.

The challenges involved were: 1). it was writing to a set theme, which is not a favorite thing of mine; 2). it had to be a play that could be considered family friendly. So there goes sex, swearing and too heavy a theme. All of the things that snuck into "Reunions" in one way or another.

Nevertheless, "At The Shrine" came off the computer by the end of the week, and with some slight revisions and Kathy's reading (she called it "cute," which is probably a good thing given the particular contest), off it went. We'll see if it strikes anyone's fancy. The event's in August, so it shouldn't be an endless wait one way or the other.

And then my other "need," in my opinion, was to get something going on a 10-minute play for the next (September) Evening of Short Plays submission. While not exactly a theme, the fall EOSP is once again going to have a common set. But to my pleasure, an idea finally floated into my head and the two characters started talking to me again this morning. (Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a transcriber of these peoples' babbling away). So there's a chance, anyway, that I'll have something to submit. Not due until the May 15-July 15 submission window, so I feel good about the odds.

And then I should start writing on prior projects again!

Meanwhile, we did finally, after all these years, make our way to our first show at Broach Theatre in Greensboro on Saturday night. It was a production of "Crimes of the Heart," directed by Stephen Gee, who also directed that show for KLT way back in 1991 (which starred, among others, Kathy Cissna and Myla Tucker, now Myla O'Brien).

I think I would choose the word "disappointed" to describe my overall reaction. The theater itself reminded me a little bit of some of those slightly iffy off-Broadway theaters in New York where you see stuff like "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" or "The Fantasticks," which is not entirely a compliment. And while there were some good actors in the group, the production was not destined to make it to my list of best shows I've seen in the Triad in 2011, even though it's early in the year. Just not that awesome, I fear. The ensemble never quite gelled.

But there's plenty of additional theater-going coming soon, so ... always a chance of awesome right around the corner.

Playing right along

2011-03-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to report that, in addition to playgoing, I have been keeping busy working on one full-length script while doing the necessary research for a short or one-act play I hope to create soon.

The full-length play is called "Reunions," and it deals with five men and five women talking in the aftermath of their 10-year, and then their 20-year high school reunions. These characters have been pretty good about continuing to "talk" to me over the past couple of months, and I am within viewing range of the end of the two-act show. First draft, anyway.

Meanwhile, I have been reading a lot of history books, on both sides of the "issue," and last week paid a visit in person to the historic site of the Civil War-era Andersonville (Camp Sumter) prisoner of war camp. A sobering visit to be sure. Lots of the men who died fighting the war on both sides didn't die on the battlefield. They died in prison camps of which Andersonville just happened to be the most outstandingly awful example. I hope to write something interesting about that piece of man's-inhumanity-to-man history.

The Andersonville visit was tied to a stop in Atlanta, Ga. to attend two days of the Southeastern Theatre Conference. I may not have found it terrifically helpful to me as a playwright, but it certainly was heartening to see a strong interest in the theater continuing among the young and supported by the organization, and the interest is both on and off stage. Some of us worry about where the next generation of theater actives and theater attendees will come from, especially as certain political figures seem hell-bent on destroying any fiscal support of arts of all kinds from various levels of the government. They should -- but they never are -- be ashamed.

We have also continued to be sitting often in a theater watching something. Most recently, a fine production and an enjoyable "talk back" of "The Sunset Limited" at Triad Stage; a fun, family-friendly "Headin' for the Hills" at Kernersville Little Theatre; and a road trip to see new friend Mike Elliott perform in "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Oak Ridge, Tn. Playhouse. One of our favorite plays, it was also updated to a 1960s Manhattan/Connecticut setting, which had us worried - but it worked out fine.

And soon, another show: we attended the fundraiser for the City Arts Drama Center in Greensboro recently, and won a silent auction item with two free tickets for the Broach Theatre -- which we had just been saying we had never visited. So next: "Crimes of the Heart" at the Broach!

And more theatrical experiences.

2011-02-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

We've been maintaining our active theatre-involved lives since the "All About Faith" reading wrapped up on Jan. 28th. Greensboro Fringe Festival 2011 had us back and forth to the GSO Cultural Center several times. We saw both "The Couch" and "Silent Pictures" there -- and then a very fun production of "Dearly Departed" at Twin City Stage.

I also was involved with the Evening of Short Plays #24, which occurs at the end of the Fringe Festival (this year, on the second weekend of February.) My short play "Communication Gap" was chosen as one of the 10 short plays. So I got to be involved in auditions/casting with Randy Morris, my director, and attended the first full rehearsal of the two-actor script. I was able to discern at that first rehearsal that Randy and both actors (Artemis Jameson, also one of the playwrights, and Skyler Whitfield) "got" the concept and the show just fine. I didn't feel any need to bother them further!

So on the 10th (Kathy and I) and the 11th (just me), we took in all 10 shows -- mine was the production opener each night. A lot of fun, and certain plays (as is usually the case) impressed us more than others. It was also fun to see Myla acting in one of our favorites.

It has been an intriguing and delightful five months since "Conversations" opened -- two full length and two short scripts found their way onto a stage. Exciting!

All About Faith reading -- success!

2011-02-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to report that our staged reading -- OK, somewhere between a stage reading and a staged reading -- went well at Theatre Alliance on Jan. 28. We had a decent sized audience, who were very attentive indeed. And virtually everyone stuck around for the talkback afterwards, which was a surprise. Good comments, good feedback and everyone seemed to take something away from the play. I couldn't have asked for more!

We then reconvened at the Village Tavern with cast, crew, friends and a couple of special guests from the "Conversations" cast as well. What an excellent group of people to work with!

So, where thanks are due (so many of them): Myla for directing, Kathy for stage managing, Mallorie for lights and sound. Cast: Cheryl Ann Roberts, Carson Elizabeth Gregory, Michael Shapiro, Cameron Williams, Kenny Gaylord and Angie Barnes. Plus all the help from Theatre Alliance, too. You are all the greatest! Now, we'll see if we can find someone who wants to produce it ....

Anyway, it was a great learning experience again -- and of course, working it out in rehearsal and on stage helped the script, too. So glad we were able to work this project out.

Time to hit the stage

2011-01-27T05:52:00.000-08:00

OK. Basic rehearsals behind us: check. Figure out the basic props: check. Arrangements made with the theater space at Theatre Alliance, tickets prepared: check. Time for our one tech rehearsal before tomorrow night's stage/staged reading: yep. We're there.

I'm very pleased with the preparations for our reading of All About Faith, which starts at 8 p.m. tomorrow (Friday, Jan. 28th) night at Theatre Alliance. It's running at just about the length I expected; the actors are doing well with the fine direction of Myla O'Brien; and whatever edges we need to sand, well, I'm just confident we will do it.

The bottom line is that, though it's a little hard to judge before it's in front of an audience, the script seems to be having the kind of impact I hoped it would. That's very reassuring, too.

Then we get to see another new play on Saturday night, followed on February 10 with the first night of the Evening of Short Plays #24 - ten short shows, including one of mine. Exciting times!

Regarding EOSP #24

2011-01-16T14:16:00.001-08:00

Treading right along

2011-01-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

And now we've jumped to the middle of the month, but that's a significant time in the projects mentioned earlier. Tonight, we gather for the first time to read through and begin to rehearse All About Faith for the stage reading that will happen at Theatre Alliance on Friday, Jan. 28th. Myla is directing again, and we have a fine cast gathered -- four of whom were part of Conversations, too. I'm really excited about this opportunity!

Speaking of Theatre Alliance, we were there this past Saturday night to see Ken Ashford, Neil Shepherd and others in Looking for Normal, which was quite a good production. And as is often the case with T.A., not necessarily an easy or safe subject. Well done!

A few days before that, we saw our first show in the new Hanesbrands Theatre space in Winston-Salem -- and hope to see a lot more in that theater! We saw the No Rules Theatre Company's production of Touch, which was an intriguing play and generally, despite a carp or two here and there, a well-presented show, too. Well worth the time to catch that one.

I also was able to attend the first read-through/rehearsal of my short play, Communication Gap, which will be offered along with nine other plays at the Evening of Short Plays, Drama Center Theatre, Greensboro Cultural Center (on Davie Street), on February 10-12 (8 p.m.) and 13 (2 p.m.) It's part of the Greensboro Fringe Festival, and I will write more about that and other Fringe plays later on.

But the rehearsal was very reassuring -- the two young actors, and Randy Morris, director and long-time acquaintance, clearly "get" the show. I look forward to seeing the finished product!!

There's a LOT of theater going on for us between now and the end of March. But we are not complaining!!

Looking ahead

2011-01-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

OK, now that we've wrapped up 2010 (see below), let's take a look ahead at 2011!

I'm very excited that the year will start with a bang from a developing-playwright's standpoint. After having been discussed and kicked around for a while, Jamie Lawson, artistic director of Winston-Salem's Theatre Alliance has agreed to put our cast on stage at his place for a one-night stage reading of All About Faith, my second full-length play script. We've put together an excellent cast, and the excellent Myla O'Brien has once again agreed to direct the reading. Brilliant!

Since it is just a one-night event with limited set, costumes, scripts in hand as needed, it will be much less labor-intensive than Conversations, but I'm equally excited. Just as with children, one should be careful not to name any favorites among one's scripts, but Faith is a totally different kind of script, and one of which I am quite proud. It's time to find out if anyone else agrees! Though I think the potential market for it is much narrower than Conversations, I've already identified a number of places to send it after the reading is over. We keep plugging away!

And then, because so far things seem to happen in clumps, another of my short scripts, Communication Gap -- which I also like quite a bit -- will be performed in Greensboro in mid-February as part of the Playwrights Forum's Evening of Short Plays #24. Randy Morris is going to direct it, and I look forward to finding out soon who will play the young man and woman in the script. Not to mention seeing all the other shows -- in my experience, the Short Plays are always interesting!!

The other good news from my viewpoint is that, in addition to starting a play called Patent which has been temporarily set aside in favor of a lighter script, I have written about half of a new show called Reunions, which I am really enjoying. It's not meant to be a laugh riot or anything but, like Conversations, it is certainly lighter than what I've been writing for a while. It is about five men and five women who gather and chat after their tenth high school reunion -- and then again after their twentieth. So far, so fun!

So that's where I am right now. Working and looking forward to seeing a couple of scripts brought to life between now and mid-February. That, for me, is fun!!

Catching up

2011-01-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Wow. It seems as if it has been a month of Sundays since I last wrote here -- and it nearly has. I was last reporting on the progress of the production of Conversations in a Cafe. And then that production happened, and there was no time.

I think it is safe to say that the production went quite well indeed given all considerations. I really, really enjoyed the process and learned so much along the way. I felt that our cast got along quite well especially given how I have seen other casts/crews go in productions. I've never been so intimately involved with all aspects of a production before, so maybe I'm kidding myself, but I thought we created a supportive environment for everyone to do their best -- and I think they did.

There were of course a few challenges here and there -- lights not quite working the way they should, a door that didn't always want to stay shut, a challenge with the flooring in one particular spot (though overall, the flooring idea really worked quite well). And one audience that should have been declared dead on arrival. But generally speaking, we had decent audiences who had nice things to say when the shows were over, a lot of really helpful volunteers, some fun gatherings and all in all, I thought a very positive experience. And now I am working to uncover theater companies out there who might be interested in reading and/or doing the show, and getting the script out there.

The end of strike and a couple of weeks of figuring out what to do with everything from the show led directly into seeing a short script of mine done as part of the second Horror Anthology in Greensboro (part of the Playwrights Forum projects). So, in short, October was a heck of a good month from a playwriting standpoint! But it was all very time-consuming, so very little writing got done, really, from August until mid-December.

Somehow, despite the schedule, we also managed to see quite a bit of theater during this time period. At Triad Stage, we caught a very good Glass Menagerie and a favorite of ours, Educating Rita, along with a good if not totally great Christmas Carol. Theatre Alliance offered a very good Cabaret and a fun Winter Wonderettes. Open Space hosted Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, featuring one of our fave actresses.

Clemmons Community Theatre presented Never Too Late; Stained Glass Playhouse featured Cameron Williams and others we knew in And Then There Were None; and we got to see Tommy Trull's new The Immersibles at GTCC.

Perhaps of the greatest personal interest in the late fall was the latest work-up of Harry Connick, Jr.'s musical version of The Happy Elf, worked out in Maryland with hopes of a Broadway future. Wonderful and creative lighting design: Andrew R. Cissna. We of course had to go and see it.

And that brings us up-to-date, here just into the new year with more playwriting stuff coming up soon! And I'll write about that in a short time.

Plugging along

2010-08-26T14:00:00.001-07:00

The "Conversations" progress is moving along nicely. The two missing tables arrived on the same day as the tablecloths that will cover all three tables. Some of the other fine details are getting worked out (venue, electrical matters, lighting and sound decisions and such like). Still a few holes to fill in and volunteers to locate, but it gets closer to a complete picture each day. We had production discussions earlier this week, and we regroup for another read-through next week. Then after Labor Day, we get down to the "real" rehearsal schedule.

In the meantime, Labor Day Weekend will include some labor. It will be move-in time for the KLT "The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon," and time to start setting up lights and programming of same. Plus hoping to grab and transport at least some of the flats and related items we need for our show. Busy weekend coming up!!

We are underway!

2010-08-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

In addition to roughly a million little details of minutiae, trying to pull together the various pieces for putting this play on stage, we've now had the excitement of having the whole cast together in a room reading the script. Out loud. With laughter. If I'd had more sleep recently, I would be TOTALLY excited. As it is, I'm pretty darned excited, anyway.

The real revelation to me continues to be finding out that this is a funnier script that I imagined. I'm sure putting it in the hands of a great set of actors makes a lot of difference. Not that there aren't still some peaceful moments (as there should be) and a couple of touching moments (or at least I hope so) -- but both at auditions and last night, there was laughter among us. And that, for me, is a very good thing. I never wanted it to be TOO heavy, but I think current audiences want some humor when they go out.

We have a cast. We have a director who has clearly been doing ALL her homework (thanks, Myla!) We have a rehearsal space that should be ready in time if all the pieces come together in a timely fashion. Jim Lehman, who is a wood-working man and has done a lot of set-building for KLT, has most politely agreed to build the window units we need. And we have other volunteers coming on board who will help out so much. Not to even suggest I was ever a non-believer, but as these items come along, I believe more and more that we can really pull this thing off. Whew! That's a relief.

The cast is set.

2010-08-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

We were able to have our final auditions tonight, and were able, after more tough decisions, to settle on the last role. The cast is complete, and we're only two days away from our first read-through. The pulse is undeniably starting to pick up.

And so, the very exciting cast of "Conversations in a Cafe" will be:

Kathy Anne Cissna (Susan)

Carson Elizabeth Gregory (Meredith)

Rebecca Clark Mills (Jenny)

Brad Phillis (Brad)

Cheryl Ann Roberts (Ellie)

Michael Shapiro (Joshua)

Scott Terrill (Carl)

Cameron Williams (Don)

Mary Lea Williams (Gina).

Well, very exciting to me, at the very minimum.

And off we go!

Auditions seemingly successful

2010-08-11T13:48:00.001-07:00

I am very excited to report that our two nights of auditions for "Conversations in a Cafe," just completed, went very well, maybe even better than expected. We had more folks, especially men, than we anticipated, which made for some very difficult decisions about who might be right for which part. But ultimately, we were able to cast four of the five remaining roles at the end of the second evening, and we hope to do callbacks for the remaining male role soon. First read-through is a week from today, so we gotta get that finished!

Anyway, we saw and cast a good Don, Joshua and Carl from the first night's attendees, and found (to my great relief because, even though this is an ensemble show and everybody's important, I think of her as the glue that holds it all together), a fine Meredith on the second night. So we only need to nail down Brad at this point.

What was a great revelation and a lot of fun for me was seeing our pre-cast ladies reading with the candidates and starting to figure out that there is more humor and laughter in the show than I ever imagined. I've always said that yes, there are some funny moments, but we were coming across more in the short side segments than I thought could be found in the whole script. Seeing these characters spring to life after living in my head for four years is just more exciting than I could imagine. And having such a great group of dedicated people -- especially Myla, our director, who has already done a ton of work and not only understands the show as I see it but is already bringing new thoughts I never had to it -- is making for a collaborative effort that just thrills. Playwrights who have had a production have probably already been there. For me, it is new food for inspiration.

We begin the rehearsal process next Wednesday, and then we're off and running. Should be a fascinating but also hopefully reasonably painless process if we can make it that way.

We've done a bunch of the shopping for set items and more -- now have a base to connect with a small round top for our "bar height" table, and an order has been placed for the other two tables we need. A magazine rack and a chalkboard to hang; lots of discussions on set design/construction, technical matters ... it's all good. And it's all moving along. We hope!

Not much time for playgoing lately, but we did catch Stained Glass Playhouse's "Evita" a few days back. It was a reasonably good production with some stand-out performances, but I fear the show itself is not one that's destined to become a favorite. On the ALW front, I'll say "yes" to "Joseph" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar" and "no thanks" to "Evita," "Cats" and "Phantom."

The serious work begins

2010-07-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing at this point that it will be a rare day from here through October that doesn't have SOMETHING to do with preparing for "Conversations in a Cafe." Tuesday night was a good example: Myla O'Brien, our fearless director, was here at the house along with Kathy and Cheryl Ann Roberts (who will play Susan and Ellie, respectively, in the show). We had an early audition with an actor who could not be here during the regularly-scheduled auditions (for a totally enviable reason), followed by a wide-ranging discussion of planning for the show, and taking notes regarding first-act blocking from the director to meld into the play's script.

Meanwhile, the search is on for various stage furniture and dressing items, along with various props, all of which need to come together reasonably soon. Today, I also spent time with the director at Korner's Folly, where we'll produce the show, working on a variety of subjects that will make the actual production go smoother. Good meeting!

And then I discovered the place in Greensboro, thanks to a lead from the afore-mentioned actor, that has a lot of used and new restaurant furnishings and equipment. Hog heaven! I now have a little less to worry about in regards to where I might find the things we need. This is a good thing!

CATF entertaining, "Conversations" taking on life of its own

2010-07-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

So back some months ago, I decided and committed to going up to Shepherdstown, WV for a second year to take in some of the new plays at CATF. For those who don't know, Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) is in its 20th year, working on the campus of Shepherd University and using its facilities to present, nowadays, five new works each summer with an Equity cast and providing lots of opportunities for Shepherd and other young theater students to work shows.

A good friend of ours is the business manager there, and she convinced me last year to make the trip, and I found it quite worth it. All three shows I saw, I felt, were worthy and entertaining within my vision of what constitutes entertaining theater.

This year, I was set to see three more shows, but ended up dropping one of them in order to accommodate a reviewer who wanted to get into a sold-out performance. For me, it worked out well, for my overall favorite this year, "Breadcrumbs," is the show I picked up to replace the one I was going to miss. Yay! It was only a little over an hour long, but very touching, very well performed, a very nice lighting design by Colin Bills (one of Andy's friends in the DC theater lighting group) and just no false notes I could discern. The story deals with a young woman seeking some kind of purpose and an older woman writer starting to disappear into Alzheimers. Liked it a whole lot!

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the rest of my stay. I liked the second show, "Inana," quite well, but it wasn't earth-shattering, though it did a fine job of tapping into a culture less known to the average American. It deals with a newly-married Iraqi couple -- an arranged marriage -- and we slowly learn why they have ended their marriage day, which started back at home, in a hotel in London. It's a good mystery, and was generally well-acted, and there's certainly a tension. But one of the transitions, to me, seemed a little abrupt -- my feeling was the playwright could have given a few more lines to smooth the transition. Others felt it might have been weakness on the part of the actress. I didn't see that, but I certainly felt there was room for improvement somehow! And that in turn stole a little bit from the play's overall impact.

And then my last show. Wow. "The Eelwax Jesus 3D Pop Music Show." Allegedly a musical, though actually sort of a disguised rock/pop concert with a fair amount of pretty uninteresting music and a fair number of disjointed images being thrown out on either side of where they placed the band. I can only say I've never seen a more random conglomeration of stuff being thrown on a stage. They could have saved a lot of room in the program by calling it "Random," in fact. I made it to the end, but it was a close thing on bailing at intermission. It would surprise me very much if this show made anything other than noise anywhere else in the future.

Now back in the Triad, and even while I was gone, the details and planning for "Conversations in a Cafe" began to show that time is growing shorter and suddenly the work is going to have to get serious. Finding prop and set dressing items; contracting for the music license rights; buying additional lighting instruments; planning for auditions; getting the script ready to copy for read-through; contacting production folks; and a lot of other correspondence. There's a lot to putting on a play! (In case you didn't already know that.)

Catching up on the play-going reports

2010-07-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

As I sit here in front of the computer listening to "The Music of Providence Gap" and being reminded what a lovely talent Laurelyn Dossett is, I'm also reminded that I haven't yet caught up on the various shows we've seen since late May. It's about time!

On Memorial Day weekend, we made a now-traditional pilgrimage to Charleston, SC to spend a little time with our son, Andy, and take in some of the many fine offerings of Spoleto Festival USA and Piccolo Spoleto. Normally, this means 5 to 7 shows of some kind or another over a long weekend. This year was no exception. In addition to a jazz performance, we had six shows to see during our stay.

Of those six shows, three of them were presented by student actors present and past of the College of Charleston, and all three of those had something about them worth seeing. Two -- "Lone Star" and "Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)" -- were new to us, and the latter in particular -- a one-man performance -- kept one's attention especially well. The third was a presentation of Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty," which we had also seen on Broadway with a fabulous set and a good cast. Even with a simple set on a simple stage, the cast did a fine job with the play.

Another show we took in was "(title of show)," an amusing little musical about a couple of guys and their friends trying to create a successful musical. This was done out at the Village Playhouse, which has done a decent job with earlier shows we've seen (they're in Mount Pleasant). We had fun with it, but it's hardly a brain-teaser or challenging in any major fashion.

We were somewhat less thrilled with the production of "Mahalia: A Gospel Musical" downtown. Nothing wrong with the play, exactly, and it was certainly better than last year's "Cage Aux Folles." But the lighting in this space is, well, basic, and either some of it was pointed in the wrong direction, or the actors forgot where to stand. The woman in the lead role had an awesome voice, but especially for Kathy, not so much on the acting chops. And as an overall rule, the sound was choppy. While it certainly had its moments, it was the least effective of our theatrical stops.

Last but certainly not least was Gate Theatre/Dublin's presentation of "Present Laughter." It was quite well done, wonderful set, great acting, very amusing. And we had the benefit of sitting afterwards to watch the crew convert the set to the next production -- which they did many times throughout the Festival -- since there is chamber music and an opera presented in the same space as well. Our son was master electrician here (Dock Street) and his best man at the wedding last October, McLane Snow, was on the crew. A little fun behind-the-scenes visit.

Since our return, there wasn't much theater-going time for a while since Kathy was way deep involved in a show -- stage managing KLT's "Once Upon A Mattress." Naturally, I saw it, and had a lot of fun watching a good cast in a funny, light-hearted show. We did, however, manage to sneak in Paper Lantern's excellent production of "Kimberly Akimbo" in Theatre Alliance's space and enjoyed that very much, too.

Finally, once the show was over, we had two entertaining experiences at Triad Stage, one later in the evening (11 p.m. start) at the UpStage Cabaret, where they were offering Christopher Durang's "An Actor's Nightmare" and "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You," a combo we first saw together in a small theater in Los Angeles once upon a time. And the following night on the main stage, we saw "Providence Gap," the latest play creation effort of Preston Lane and Laurelyn Dossett -- and in our opinion, the one that holds together the best of the four (also including "Brother Wolf," "Beautiful Star" and "Bloody Blackbeard"). Though I would cut 10 minutes from its running length if it were me. And come to think of it, are all the titles required to be two words long?

Anyway, a couple more events coming up, including three or maybe four shows at this summer's version of CATF up in West Virginia. Sounds like more fun, to fill in around the many preparations for "Conversations in a Cafe."

Time to catch up!

2010-07-01T08:12:00.001-07:00

Here it is July 1 already, and I haven't blogged in, well, a while. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

Since last I wrote here, Kathy has been tied up in the process of stage managing Kernersville Little Theatre's "Once Upon A Mattress," chiefly a fun if time-consuming process. This also meant, of course, some entertaining at home, which is always some work. Since I wasn't seeing much of her during that time, I also took off to the other house for a while -- and even got some writing done on the "Patent" full-length project. Not much, but better than nothing.

But the vast majority of my time nowadays is caught up in preparations, research, communications and other related tasks for the fall production of "Conversations in a Cafe." It's pretty exciting, of course, thinking of having one of my scripts coming to life on stage. But as many common citizens do not realize, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that no one knows about, and I am in the middle of all that "stuff" right now.

We will hold auditions for some of the roles in August, and we are tying down the roles we've already cast right now. It's a busy time, and it's going to remain that way.

But worth it, one hopes!

Catching up, a bit, anyway

2010-05-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Since last I posted, we caught the very entertaining "Hank Williams: Lost Highway" at Theatre Alliance. I don't need to plug it too hard, since the run just ended and the shows all sold out. But Gray Smith as Hank and Justin Hall as his street mentor were both excellent; the live music was delish (esp. the pedal steel and Dobro moments); and the supporting cast generally fine. Gray was on pretty much throughout the show, and I'd guess three days of sleep would be appreciated now that the show's over. He earned it!

I came back from Phoenix with the idea for a short play in mind, got it written, and got it read at the Greensboro Playwrights Forum two weeks back. I thought it went very well indeed, and we'll learn more tonight when it will be the raw material for a Directors' Forum -- first time I've attended or been part of one of these. That should be a new and intriguing experience! I'll report on that later.

With Kathy doing the stage manager job for KLT's "Once Upon A Mattress," there's not a lot of show-going right now. But that will pick up speed again very soon, as the annual (sixth year) excursion to Charleston, SC and the Spoleto USA and Piccolo Spoleto plays is right around the corner. Yay!

Two shows, and more waiting

2010-04-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

After Thursday's night's new plays at GTCC, Kathy and I then, together, took in "Nunsense" at Clemmons Community Theatre (performed at the New Hope Presbyterian Church) on Friday night, and last night was "Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow," at Triad Stage.

I thought the CCT did a very nice job indeed with "Nunsense," a very amusing tale of the nuns at Mt. Saint Helen's and their efforts to raise some money to properly bury the last four of the 52 nuns who died when the convent's cook's vichyssoise went bad. The "talent show" they are trying to put on runs into a variety of challenges, and each nun gets a chance to shine and/or save the day. All of which, as Sister Hubert points out, would have been unnecessary if the Mother Superior hadn't taken money from earlier fundraising to buy a VCR.

We enjoyed the singing and the performing, and were especially pleased to discover what a great singing voice was displayed by Lee Ann Chrisco as Sister Hubert. Her number near the end of the show was awesome. Though she is pleasingly humble about the whole thing in real life, that's a voice you'd want to hear again, for sure! And young Charis Jeffers, who we hope will be our Meredith in "Conversations in a Cafe," was a pleasure to watch as Sister Amnesia. Though we didn't know the other three performers, they all played their characters quite well, and they all seemed to be comfortable together and enjoying themselves.

If only the sound had been better ....

The Triad Stage show was a good one, essentially telling the story of Ethel Waters with one fine actress reflecting through flashback, and a piano player accompanying her when she sang, and sometimes providing "mood music." I'm not familiar enough with Ms. Waters' recorded music, but we agreed that the singing portion was not quite as strong as hoped (esp. having heard Ms. Chrisco the night before!), and for me, about five minutes cut from each act would have made it more pleasing. But all in all, still a good night of theater!

The playwriting continues, in fits and starts, as I'm working on a short piece for which the core idea was created during one of those shows in Phoenix. And I need to return to "Patent" and try to get more pieces of that glued together. Maybe this week ... as I wait to hear something one way or the other on the fates of two short plays I have submitted. One of those delayed its submission deadline by a couple of days ... so that more competitors could come in!! Whee! ... and then delayed the announcement of its finalists accordingly. Grrrrrr ......

It's FUN trying to break in as a playwright!

And an update

2010-04-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

We've just moved out of the time period in which, after too long a lull, Kathy was involved as an actor with a play. We had noted that Adam Sullivan, who directed "Margaret Mitchell" for KLT, had won and would have his play "Crier Tuck" produced by 3rd Stage Theatre in Greensboro, while attending the Short Plays. Kathy wondered out loud if there were any roles for middle-aged women, so I asked Stephen Hyers, who would direct. He said "yes." She decided to audition, and, it turned out, she was given BOTH of the middle-aged woman roles. That turned into a lot of fun for her -- playing two completely different woman characters -- and hastened the acquisition of a wig she had planned to get for the "Conversations" role this fall. At least one member of the audience (who clearly hadn't read the cast list in the program) did not even know the two women were the same actor. Cool!

The play itself was pretty good, especially for a first staging, and underwent some change in the rehearsal process. One or two things I might change, but minor -- all in all, a lot of fun!

Kathy since has moved right on to helping stage manage the upcoming KLT musical. Meanwhile, I caught two short plays by Ed Simpson and a short-ish musical by Tommy Trull tonight at GTCC, directed by Michael Kamtman, with whom we have crossed paths various times since arriving in Kernersville in 1989. It was an interesting evening! The first, perhaps 10-minute, play was good but suffered some from one weak link in the cast. The second was longer and well done, given the partial limitation that these were all staged readings. And the musical was a neat retelling of a piece of mythology, with the lead female quite good -- animated as a performer, and a good singer, too. I can't say quite as much about the rest of the singing, though, and would enjoy hearing this again with a group of musical singers.

And on we will go -- two more shows in the next two days!

I just love good acting

2010-04-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

The material is tough to watch at times, and of course some folks here in the Bible Belt are just going to lose their religion over the language, but Del Shores' "The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife" just opened at Theatre Alliance (Winston-Salem) tonight, and it is intense and awesome. Two of my favorite actors, whom I am also lucky enough to call friends, play the lead couple, locked in an abusive marriage that meets all the classic characteristics. A friend in the trailer park is trying to help the wife out, and the newly-arrived five-times-married slut across the way is helping the husband out of his pants.

We had seen three Del Shores plays at T.A. in the past -- one of which, "Sordid Lives," I actually liked. But you can clearly tell that he decided to go serious with TTATOATTH. And serious it is, for the most part, though there are certainly some laugh lines. Especially for the two leads, played by Cheryl Ann Roberts and Mikey Wiseman, it's a physical, and physically demanding, time on stage. They make it very, very believable, almost uncomfortably so -- which is, of course, the point. We're looking unflinchingly at a bastard of a husband doing everything he can to demean and intimidate his wife, and blame his many failings directly on her rather than looking in the mirror. Painful stuff, but with those two leads and strong support, extremely well presented.

As I've said before, not every T.A. presentation is a favorite or even good. This one, however, for someone who wants some serious in his theater from time to time, is an absolute winner.

The latest reports

2010-04-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Time to get caught up on recent playgoing!

Quite some time ago, in part to see if we could figure out what all the buzz was about given its seeming success around the country, we bought tickets to the national tour of "Church Basement Ladies" for when it came to the Stevens Center on April 1. We went and saw it. Well, truth be told, we saw part of it. It is a very rare thing indeed for us to leave a show before it's over. I can only think of two other times in all the years. But we walked at the intermission on this one.

Frankly, I simply cannot understand what would entertain anyone about this show, unless, possibly, they were from Minnesota or possibly practicing Lutherans. Even then .... The tunes and lyrics were so-so, the acting in most cases overdone, and it just wasn't very funny. I've always thought "Nunsense" proved that you can have some fun with religion or religious characters (though I'm not so sure about any of the sequels, which I have not seen.) But this show proved that the opposite is also possible.

Not long afterwards, we arrived for a mini-vacation in Phoenix, and Kathy discovered that a Phoenix Fringe Festival was happening. So on Sunday night of the trip, we found one of the six venues that had three interesting-sounding shows (most of the Festival shows ran about one hour each). We caught a 5 p.m., a 6:30 p.m. and an 8 p.m. show.

The first was a one-woman show on the concept that angels are given opportunities to select bodies and types to return to the Earth to fix karmic problems. It had some good ideas interspersed with some less-than-interesting exposition. Not bad, but not great, either.

The second show was intended for children but told a good story for adults, too. The concept was a young man (with wings) who had been hidden out of town by his parents and as he grows up, discovers other children and ideas and finally makes his parents realize he must try on his own and might have been overprotected, though to some extent for good reason. It was a sweet and thoughtful show. Unfortunately, I got kidnapped for a few minutes by an idea for a 10-minute script that I will start writing soon. But I still enjoyed it a lot.

Finally, we saw a play called "Dudes Gone Wild," with four young men in various stages of not yet being willing to grow up, on the evening five years after high school after a woman leaves one of them virtually at the altar. There was a lot of drinking, cursing, and crude references to women and themselves. Sometimes playgoing should take you to places you don't normally reside, and this did for me -- kind of made me wonder if my life would have been different if I'd had a fraternity mindset.

And happy that I didn't.

A little down time

2010-03-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

Well, March has not been much of a month for play-going, though April should make up for it. Due to a variety of time-sucking chores and non-play projects, not much has happened in play writing, either. I need to find a way to turn that around!

In any case, the musical highlight of last weekend was attending High Point Community Theatre's production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," which used the impressive sanctuary at Wesley Memorial U.M. Church in High Point. We went with Myla and Paul O'Brien, not solely for the musical but because Mary Lea and Cameron Williams, as well as Dave Wils, were in it.

In addition to being a lesson in how some things can be done by a community theater that KLT seems not to think of, the production was a delight, with only one really bad off-note in the entire show (pretty wonderful for community theater). Mary Lea, as the Narrator, and the young man who played Joseph, had -- and I don't often use this word in theatrical commentary -- awesome singing voices that impressed from beginning to end. The show may not be "Cabaret" or "Spring Awakening," but I enjoy it (second time now) and I left the theater smiling. That's a pretty good deal for a Saturday night's entertainment!

Now I look forward to "Church Basement Ladies" on April 1 and a host of others to follow. And I will write again some day. I swear it!

And on we go ...

2010-03-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

The week away at the OBX wound up with a little more work done on "Patent," a number of other needed chores completed, and a draft of a second short play that might prove suitable for the fall Greensboro Playwrights Forum's short plays. The concept for the fall shows is less a theme than a place -- all of the shows will take place in a unit set of a roadside diner. Fun!

As mentioned before, "for the fun of it," I stopped in Raleigh on the way home from the OBX to see Theatre in the Park's "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell." It did not turn out to be fun, actually, except for some conversations with audience members before the show and during intermission. It just wasn't very funny, and some of the choices on line interpretations and physical "humor" were mistaken, in my opinion (and Kathy, who saw it Friday night, chiefly agreed).

I had corresponded with the actor who played Hecht, and I thought he looked the part very well, and when he was allowed to be a grown-up, played it quite well, too. But sometimes, it was more Three Stooges than three grown men working on a play script. And the way they chose to represent Victor Fleming, the man's man, well, less said the better. The transitions to the beginning of both acts were painfully long, for no clear reason except to allow entire songs to play, and oh, I could continue, but I won't.

I guess, on the bright side, it is always instructive to see something you DON'T like, not only for education but because you appreciate a well-done show much better as a result.

And speaking of well-done shows, "Around the World in 80 Days" at Triad Stage was delightful, and we especially liked the lighting (designed by Norman Coates, Andy's lead professor at UNCSA). We also had fun at "Forever Plaid" by Theatre Alliance -- a little choppy here and there, but at least one especially good voice that I had not been able to hear individually, at close range, prior to that night -- and more fun with Kernersville Little Theatre's "The Battle of Shallowford," with a good cast indeed and one of the best KLT sets I've seen. It's unfortunate that it was under-attended.

Meanwhile, auditions were held for "Crier Tuck," which was the winning NC New Play Contest script (Greensboro Playwrights Forum) this year. Kathy has been cast in BOTH of the middle-aged woman roles, both of which occur in the second act of the show, written by Nathan Adam Sullivan, who also directed "Margaret Mitchell" at KLT. It will be fun to see her back on stage after some time, and dancing with two different roles, too. Those shows will be in Greensboro April 15-18, at the downtown Arts Center.

Keeping busy!

A good experience

2010-02-18T07:58:00.000-08:00

I am currently on my annual week-away timeshare writer's retreat to the Outer Banks, where it has been cooler than most years, and breezy, but mostly sunny. I guess it's good that the weather has kept me indoors and more concentrated than some of these trips in the past!

The writing portion so far has included the adaptation of an old short story to a very short play, which was fun and might become a submission to the Playwrights' Forum's Horror Anthology, which occurs in October (going to be a busy month). Maybe I'll get it accepted!

But speaking of the Playwrights' Forum, I volunteered for, and then ran the lighting board for two tech rehearsals and three of the four performances of the Evening of Short Plays. It happens that the studio theater lighting board there is identical to KLT's larger board, so I wasn't too technologically challenged to be able to figure out the running and the cues. Unfortunately, the cues were programmed for a certain order of shows, then the order was changed, so there was some jumping around involved. But I don't feel I screwed it up too badly; it was fun to see the various shows and how the process works; and I certainly got to be comfortable with the board again. Maybe next time I can learn more about the actual programming, etc. Certainly a fun learning experience, anyway!

Many more shows to come over the next few weeks, starting on Sunday -- going to stop on the way back to K'vegas to catch "Margaret Mitchell" at Theatre in the Park in Raleigh (Kathy will hopefully get to see it on Friday evening) -- just for the fun of it, to see how they handle the show.

And then a fair # of Triad shows after that. And hoping to get some serious work done on the next full-length play script, "Patent" -- starting ... right now!

Weather or not

2010-02-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

Lately, central North Carolina has been pushed around by somewhat uncommon wintry weather -- a 6" snowfall over last weekend; uncommon cold; freezing rain/rain today; more wintry stuff threatened for the coming weekend.

It has wreaked havoc with all kinds of events schedules, including the play we had scheduled to see this past Saturday. We've been lucky enough to reschedule it for Thursday night -- hopefully before the next snow attack -- so will report on that soon.

However, that means we've only been in the theater a couple of times lately, as well as a special event, so looking forward to clearing roads and more shows before long.

We got over to UNCSA for a special performance of "The Compleat Works of Wm. Shakespeare, Abridged" that helped raise funds for senior drama students to get to L.A. for auditions (and part of the proceeds went to the Haitian relief effort). It was a lot of fun, if a little sloppy here and there. We sat with Macon Shirley and Paul and Myla O'Brien, so a good theater night!

More recently, we caught "Oscar & Felix" over at Open Space, with Ken Ashford and Scott Stevens in the title roles, and Michael Carter and Chuck Powers among the poker players. Pretty good too, I thought. A few line drops here and there, but good energy and it held my attention.

We also ran over to Greensboro for the season-announcement event at Triad Stage. A good collection of shows, but a particular favorite included -- they'll be doing "Educating Rita" as their second show, in the fall. Can't wait!

Since last writing, I have managed to discover that a lot of the in-depth research I had been doing on individual songs, writers and publishers may not have been necessary. I have yet to confirm with ASCAP, but BMI definitely offers a "promoter" license that, for a fee (of course) allows basically unlimited use of all BMI songs for music backdrops -- at least for the limited run of our "Conversations" production. This is VERY good news!

Plunging ahead

2010-01-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

We haven't done much playgoing lately, but that's about to change -- quite a few shows in the region looming on the calendar. I'll try to remember to report on them as we take them in.

In the meantime, the work on the "Conversations in a Cafe" project for October continues rapidly. I am in the middle of a number of searches for proper licensing techniques in order to use certain popular songs as part of the soundtrack, legally. This is a one-time production; the venue doesn't have any kind of musical license (nor does it need one); and the use of a recording in a performing-arts environment falls into a kinky area of music licensing anyway. The easiest ones, I have found, have one performer, the same writer and one publisher. Get much beyond that, and boy howdy, does it get complex.

The soundtrack I had in my head at the beginning, back in 2006, is going to change somewhat, both for simplicity and for financial reasons. I originally had 11 songs I wanted to use, but if you have to pay upwards of $70 per song to use 'em, well, public domain songs sound better and better.

Then we're starting discussions about set, set pieces, furniture, lighting, window designs, and of course, casting. A lot to think about, but oddly enough, we open in nine months, and that doesn't sound like a long time away any more. I actually ordered the first piece of the prop furniture yesterday.

I'd quote a Steve Miller song about time keeping ticking, ticking ... but they'd probably want a fee to quote it. So let's just say I'm trying to keep up with show prep along with everything else.

But we have filled in a lot of blanks in terms of casting the show, and with each commitment (well, tentative commitment - we'll ask for firm commitments on July 1), I get a little more excited about the show being something special. Most of the time, I'm glad we made this decision to jump off the cliff. And as I told someone the other day, we'll see how we feel about that when the run ends!

Nearing the new year

2009-12-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-06T08:15:00.001-08:00

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!

Not one for the disengaged

2009-11-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

If all you're looking for is light entertainment or comedy, I highly recommend you stay clear of David Mamet's play "Oleanna," currently being offered at Triad Stage in Greensboro. It's another of the recent pattern of 90-minute, no-intermission shows (though this one dates back to 1992), with a pair of characters in an escalating confrontation.

If you like your plays with some thinking included, and maybe even some controversy, though, I recommend it. Good set, good lighting, good acting -- and for the first time in Triad Stage history, done in the round. Intriguing and certainly one to raise as many questions as it answers.

OK, it's gonna happen

2009-11-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

All the contracts are signed and the first details nailed down, so I can officially say it -- barring catastrophes as yet unseen, we are going to produce the world premiere of my play, "Conversations in a Cafe," at Kernersville's Korner's Folly in October 2010. There's a whole lot of work and planning to do before then, including set pieces, lighting plans, sound and music rights gathering and a whole lot more, but it's exciting to contemplate the very real possibility of it happening. I've got a great director on board, and I hope she can stay there. Two of the roles are pre-cast (so far), and we're gathering names and possibilities to entice to auditions for the remaining seven roles. And a lot of good ideas floating around.

I know it seems early, but the clock is already ticking and time will fly. I just know it. There will be some challenges, no doubt -- but hopefully, a much greater quotient of fun and satisfaction.

Two enjoyable productions

2009-11-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday and Friday, we took in two plays that we found very entertaining, in fairly completely different fashions.

First, we were at opening night (and a fundraiser for the Hamlin Scholarship Fund for UNCSA) of a production of "Fences," one of August Wilson's two Pulitzer-Prize-winning plays. Kathy is determined to see all ten of the "Pittsburgh Cycle" that Wilson completed before his death, and she's now counted five of the ten. I have some catch-up to do, but I have seen three of the 10.

The production, as is often the case with UNCSA presentations, was quite good -- an excellent ensemble and an outstanding lead. With some plays, you're ready for the end when it finally rolls around. With others, you're on the edge of your seat and wishing for more. This was one of the latter. Highly recommended!

On Friday night, we took in one of the first community-theatre productions of the full Broadway version of 'RENT' since the show itself closed down in NYC. Theatre Alliance took it on, and did quite an admirable job of representing it (since I've seen it five times previously, including twice on Bwy. and three times with a touring company, I think I'm qualified to judge). Many of the songs, as always, tug at the heartstrings, and nearly all of the performers and singers were up to the task.

If I had one carp -- and I certainly don't blame the operator -- it would be the same complaint that some others had with the touring company: sound. There's so many singers, and important lyrics, and lyrics crossing over other lyrics, that even the best sound set-up would be challenged. It's impossible in a space like T.A.'s to have multiple sound operators and keep all the mikes in proper balance and above the band, but that's really what it takes for a 100% successful production. Sound was good MOST of the time, but sometimes, could not handle it all.

Still, the positives way outweighed the negatives, and I certainly enjoyed my time in the alphabet streets.

About to start up again

2009-10-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been much to report on the play front since the end of "Margaret Mitchell," in part because we've been involved in real-life theatrical activities instead of working on or sitting in the theater.

First, our only son, Andy, got married on October 11th, in a delightful outdoor ceremony with the dunes and Atlantic Ocean in the backdrop (just north of Duck, North Carolina), then a reception with the sound and a lovely sunset in the backdrop there. Kathy got to involve herself with the hanging of lighting instruments in the reception tents before the event, and both of us worked on taking them back down on the morning after the wedding. So certainly, given the number of theater-related folks involved (including a fair number of UNCSA graduates), it sort of constituted "theater" of a different kind.

The following Saturday evening, we also attended the wedding of a young woman who was one of my assistants when I worked at Old Salem -- again, a fine time and a pleasing outcome.

In the meantime, there has been at least a little theater process as well. Primarily, I've been trying to figure out if there is an affordable way to produce a version of "Conversations in a Cafe," my first play script, at Korner's Folly next October. Unfortunately, the costs keep going up, but it is still not impossible that it will happen. We'll see how the rest of the negotiations go ....

I've also started both research and a little bit of writing on a new play script, anticipated to be a full-length script. It's at least tentatively called "Patent," and will follow two brothers who are traveling through Kansas selling patent medicines in 1858. When they find out that some of their fake concoctions are actually killing people, one will be deeply upset, one will not -- and there begins the conflict.

We also have four plays to see between this week and next, so we'll be back in the swing of play things before long at all!

And now it's done

2009-10-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

The earlier post about "Margaret Mitchell" was optimistic, but not perhaps optimistic enough. The run went very well indeed, with virtually all of the 10 already-scheduled shows selling out (and TRULY we packed them in for the last two shows, over-maxing the Folly's capacity). Then we were able to add one more show, which had a more-than-half audience that included Duke Ernsberger, one of the two authors. What a blast that was! Most of the audience was way into the show that evening and Thursday evening as well. The audiences in general had a good time regardless of the show day or time.

It was a fun experience to work intimately on the show, to learn a whole lot about lighting and programming the KLT small light board, and surviving load-in and load-out in general. Great experience, great fun watching the show, and of course, a few lessons learned.

Now we will forget about plays for a week or so to prepare for our only son's wedding. Exciting!

Some REAL "playing" with plays

2009-09-18T07:56:00.001-07:00

There hasn't been much chance to post lately. In addition to cramming in some shows, Kathy and I have been up to our ears preparing, with a lot of others, for the KLT production of "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell" at historic Korner's Folly. It's a very funny show that we've been tied into for some time. We first saw the show at Barter Theatre and highly recommended the script to the KLT playreading group, which also liked it. We had a need for a Folly show in this time slot, and were fortunate not only that others agreed, but we tied down the rights to the show quickly enough to be able to host the North Carolina premiere of the comedy. Neat stuff for KLT!

Then, when it finally came along in time, Kathy volunteered to stage manage -- and eventually we worked together to create the lighting design, and I am operating the board for most of the shows. Last night was the by-invitation preview, a nearly full house -- and by the audience's response, they "got" the show just fine. After all the rehearsal and programming and tech issues, it was a blast to hear people laughing out loud.

Tonight's the opening night, and we already have three of the 10 shows sold out. Seems like the right show at the right time (we all need a laugh!), and having a state premiere is pretty cool, too!

In the (little bit of) spare time during the past few weeks, we also managed to catch "The Great American Trailer Park Musical" at Theatre Alliance -- definitely a hoot and a half, or maybe even three-quarters -- and a thoroughly pleasing production of "Picnic" at Triad Stage. We won't see much OTHER theater before mid-October, but I would guess that we will know most of the lines from "... Margaret Mitchell" by October 4th when it closes!

Visited an icon

2009-08-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

In recent years, especially, Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago has increased its recognition value and rep for quality -- the production of "August: Osage County" that moved to New York, then London, now elsewhere, being a good example.

I traveled for a couple of days to Chicago earlier this week and, though there was not a great deal of theatre being offered in mid-August, I was lucky enough that "Up" was being presented on the main stage at Steppenwolf, and a good friend from college who works there during the week could accompany me.

Interesting story, good set/effects, fine lighting, very nice acting indeed (including in the lead male role the actor who originated the role of "Little Charles" in "August: Osage County," under the same director who handled "August") -- quite a nice night in the theater indeed. But for me, a fan back to his days in the movie "Manhunter," followed by those nine years as Gil Grissom in "CSI," it was a great pleasure to sit a few rows up the aisle from William Petersen, now an ensemble member at Steppenwolf. A very nice added spice to being at the theatre in the first place.

Packin' 'em in

2009-08-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

It's safe to say that, though now there is something of a lull, we've been continuing a rapid pace of live performances here into August.

After two shows on one weekend in mid-July, we then caught "Dead Man's Cell Phone," Paper Lantern Theatre's first production in Winston-Salem, on a Thursday night. It was a chiefly pleasing script and well-done by the performers -- certainly a production that suggests we should keep our eyes on Paper Lantern!

On the weekend following that performance, we also caught our first live rock concert in a while -- Kenny Loggins and his band, performing at App State in Boone. It was a warmish wait to get into the space, but quite a fun night of good songs and memories. It also wasn't a long trip home, since we were staying in Fleetwood.

We followed Kenny with a play called "Dead City," performed by Rorschach Theatre on the Georgetown University campus in D.C. As is often the case with shows we see in D.C., the lighting designer was our son, Andy. It was a show full of ideas, and most of them paid off pretty well.

The very next evening, we had a fun experience in seeing the live Paul McCartney concert at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. Again, a pretty hot/damp experience getting to and from the stadium by way of the Metro, but the concert itself was again a wonderful sing-along night of nostalgia. For us old folks. And to be polite, they had just about every current theatrical/stage lighting toy you could think of, and they sure used 'em. "Flash and trash," as Andy and his lighting friends and gurus call it. But kind of fun, too!

Most recently, on a Friday evening during the 2009 version of the National Black Theatre Festival, which is held nearby in Winston-Salem, we saw the thought-provoking "Halley's Comet," a one-man show powerfully and pleasingly performed by John Amos. Wow. A fine theatrical experience. I will never understand why, in the so-called City of the Arts, so many white folks who attend other theater tend to skip nearly all NBTF events. It's been that way as long as we've been attending shows during this every-two-years event. Sad. But true.

But now, two actual full weeks off without a show that I know of anyway, while I continue the wait on three different play submissions that are SUPPOSED to be decided by the end of this month. We'll see if that actually happens.

On the local/regional scene

2009-07-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

Close on the heels of returning from CATF, Kathy and I took off for a jaunt to Greenville, SC, to catch The Distracted Globe's production of "Beyond Therapy" by Christopher Durang. We'd never seen the show, or enough Durang period, and former Kernersvillian Kelly Wallace was one of the stars in a fine cast all the way around. It was a nice space and a good production, we felt, and given that all of the characters are chiefly nuts, it was a lot of fun to watch, too. Though I don't highly recommend trying to escape from downtown Greenville on a Saturday night if you only know how to leave using Main Street. Their great success in revitalizing downtown has turned into a traffic mess -- so a qualified success, I would say as an outsider.

From Greenville, we hustled back to Kernersville, and then over to Greensboro and Open Space to take in Richard Dresser's "Rounding Third." I had heard of this show some BEFORE we knew Open Space was doing it, and then -- serendipity -- I saw a poster for it (and for a couple of other Richard Dresser plays) as having been done in 2004 at CATF.

In any case, our friend Ken Ashford was one of the two actors in this show, which was painfully funny for anyone who had ever encountered Little League in any form. Ken and fellow actor Scott Stevens did a great job, and the story line turned out to be a little deeper than I had anticipated at first. An enjoyable afternoon at the theater!

And now, four days without a play to attend. How will I survive?

Contemporary is chiefly all right with me

2009-07-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

Midweek, I began my current play-going marathon by heading 5.5 hours northwards to the small town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. It's way on the eastern edge of the state, one of the collection of old towns in that area such as Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg and only four miles from Shepherdstown but in Maryland, Sharpsburg, near which the tragic Antietam battle was fought during the Civil War.

At Shepherd University, each summer since 1991, the Contemporary American Theater Festival has brought new plays to production on the stages here -- this year, there were five, performed in three different venues. A close friend of ours is the business manager at CATF, which is how I learned of it. In addition to some excellent genealogical research in that area, I was lucky enough to see three of those five shows.

The first show was called "Farrugut North" and, apparently, has already been optioned for a potential movie with George Clooney. The stage version was quite well done, with a chiefly representational set to tell the story of a young campaigner working the presidential campaign in Iowa, dirty tricks, dirty mouths and ultimate disillusionment (and more dirty tricks). Anyone who was paying attention was unlikely to walk away without a deeper cynicism towards the American political process.

The second show was "Fifty Words," referring to the idea that there are probably fifty different words that can be used to reflect "love." The show, which was a bit on the long side for a no-intermission production, was quite well acted by two people, and dissected, almost literally, a marriage in trouble. Thought this is apparently OK or even desirable for this particular contemporary theater festival, this play and the next ended with a fairly ambiguous closing. It's not my favorite thing, but still, I can't take too many points off given the other strengths of this show.

Finally, I saw "Yankee Tavern," the latest completed script by prolific playwright Steven Dietz, whose "Trust" I saw produced in 2006 at Spoleto. This one had a great realistic set of an old-fashioned (and fading) bar and delved into conspiracy theories in the aftermath of 9-11, and some interesting characters. Once again, the ending left some questions which I suspect we were meant to fill in for ourselves. If you really wanted to.

All in all, it was an interesting and entertaining few hours in the theaters up in West Virginia. I'm definitely glad I went.

Short plays can be fun

2009-07-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

We've just returned from a long road trip which, while not overwhelmed with playgoing, did include two of the three ten-minute play flights at the Source Festival in Washington, D.C. We caught all three flights (25 plays) last year, but only scheduled two flights (12 of 18 plays offered this year) for this visit due to other obligations. In addition to catching up with family present and future and some good eating, we once again enjoyed most if not all of the offerings. Source solicits scripts from around the world. They got 700 in the first year and 500 for this year's presentation, so you can imagine that they get to pick the best of the best.

They also mine from a great crop of actors each year, and each show gets its own DC-area freelance director. Some are very funny; some are quirky or weird; and several are quite intense, too -- such as one about a young female recruit in the Airborne whose parachute fouls and we learn about her as she falls towards her likely death. As it was last year, a good and inspirational experience.

We have more theater coming up, but I will report on that as it happens.

I also managed to wrap up a ten-minute script called "Progress," and have moved that along to a possible outlet. Meanwhile, on virtually all of the other scripts, I wait.

On the play trail, again

2009-06-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

We've been keeping up our theater-going escapades lately, with three very different shows in three very different venues but each of them chiefly light-hearted and good for a chuckle.

We started by taking in the opening night of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," the musical, performed quite ably by six young actors on the Kernersville Elementary School stage. Kernersville Little Theatre normally does a musical in June each year, and this was one of the best I have seen (and we've seen most of them since 1990 or so). The show used only one keyboard (on-stage) and the six performers in great costumes to represent their respective "Peanuts" comic strip characters. It was a lot of fun to watch, and pretty much glitch-less on the technical side as well.

The very next night we were off to sit in "our seats" at Triad Stage in Greensboro, for their updated and shortened version of Moliere's "Tartuffe." It was not a show or story I was familiar with, but the tale of hypocrisy and fraud in the name of religion certainly had its moments. I found it to be just a slight bit over-the-top in some of the posturing, with the understanding that it was, after all, period comedy updated. All in all, still an entertaining stop in the theater.

Finally, we caught Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance's very fun second run of Del Shores' "Sordid Lives," which included fave area actors Cheryl Roberts and Ken Ashford along with others in the long-and-narrow theater space the Alliance now uses. We also caught up with Mikey Wiseman, who was helping backstage, in town from his extended run in Fort Myers with "Church Basement Ladies." He's about to go back out, on tour this time, as the understudy to William Christopher (who played the Chaplain in the TV version of "M*A*S*H"). Busy man!

Meanwhile, I came back from Spoleto with an idea for a 10-minute script, and I'm getting closer to finalizing that one. Another script is on its way to yet another competition, so at least the playwriting is not entirely moribund.

Soon, we're off to see 12 different ten minute plays being done, so more about that soon.

Wrapping up this year's Spoleto

2009-06-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

The rest of our slightly shorter visit to Spoleto this year had the stronger offerings, in our opinion. We enjoyed The Reckoning, a Chicago-based long-form improv group, in their show at Theatre 99, one of our usual stops for Piccolo Spoleto events.

We also took in "Don John," at the Memminger (a recently renovated space where Andy worked the last several years, this year as Master Electrician). This was presented by the Kneehigh Theatre group from Cornwall (England). They were at Spoleto three years ago, doing an astonishingly entertaining telling of the "Tristan and Iseult" tale (which is set in Cornwall and Ireland). This play was an updated interpretation of the Don Juan/Don Giovanni story, set (sort of) in a carnival. The set ideas, lighting and sound were all fascinating, and so was most of the play -- though I have to compare, and "Tristan" wins for overall achievement. Nevertheless, these people are chock-full of ideas, even if some of them don't always hit home.

Our final show before taking off for home was a one-man (well, there was also a musician who pitched in now and then) presentation by a gent from Wales, which chiefly reflected on his experience when his father passed away, and connected (in the theme of death) to a time when he "babysat" a rabbit for neighbors -- and the rabbit promptly passed away. Though a reviewer for the main newspaper in Charleston ripped it apart, I felt it certainly had its moments and some effective times. Maybe not the greatest thing ever, but good. If only the family with the three year old hadn't crazily decided this was something they should do together ....

Anyway, as always, some interesting times and experiences at a great Festival.

From Charleston and Spoleto

2009-05-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

And now, from current-time, Kathy and I are on our annual (sixth year, I believe) marathon visit to the always-interesting Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto festival events in the charming town of Charleston, S.C. We usually try to cram in as much as we can during a weekend, almost always Memorial Day weekend, and this year is no exception.

We drove into town on Saturday, checked into the hotel, and immediately left for Mount Pleasant and a production about the musical life of Bobby Darin. There was much to be liked about the production, especially the singing/interpretation of the lead actor (playing Bobby) and the great band they seem to be able to assemble at the Village Playhouse for these events (not our first time there). However, being what we are, we spent the drive back into town dissecting what we would change about the show if WE were doing it. There were only two actors on stage, and "Bobby" also ended up telling a lot of the biography. We'd have put a third actor on stage and just let Bobby be Bobby throughout. And a few other nitpicky things. But when the music was cooking, this was a lot of fun to watch.

We returned and quickly went off to our next show, a production of "La Cage aux Folles." It had its moments. Just not enough. A few of the voices/actors left something to be desired, and they should have hired a choreographer. (Now, there might have BEEN a choreographer, mind you, but they should have hired someone else.) Not very comfortable seats, either, so that made it a bit painful.

We then had our outdoor Jazz performance pushed indoors, and an hour-plus later, by rain. By that time, for better or for worse, we were in a restaurant drinking good wines and eating delicious Italian. We did not make it to the rescheduled jazz show. Ah, well. We had fun anyway (and the rain stopped until about 3 a.m., of course.)

More to come!

Update on my own plays

2009-05-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'll do a quick update on the plays I have written so far, chiefly to the effect that the only news hasn't been positive news, but at least I know ....

One play was submitted for the N.C. New Play Festival, which selects only one play. Mine wasn't it. One play was submitted to an artistic director known by a friend of ours, who might or might not be producing some plays at his center this year; he chose to determine he was not interested. One ten-minute play I wrote and submitted to the Source Festival -- one of some 500-plus that were entered -- was not chosen for the final 18. And one ten-minute play written to a specific theme for an event called the "Seven" (this time, 418 competitors) did not make the Top 22 from which the seven finalists were chosen.

That hasn't stopped finding new or revised places to try to place the play scripts, and there are several other "maybes" that will be answered one way or another by September or so. But for now, no definite productions brewing. Just so you know ....

Catching up

2009-05-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

Not least because we've been seeing a lot of plays, I haven't had much time for catching up and reporting on the ones we HAVE seen. So I'll try to do some of that today.

Since returning from the Big Apple and Memorial Day weekend, we caught three different plays in our own back yard. First was "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a place we return to often when we get the chance. There is almost always something interesting on stage at UNCSA, especially during the late fall, February-early March, or late April - into May, the times when productions are ready to be staged within the school's calendar year. Although tough times for everyone caused some budget cutbacks this year, there were no disappointments with this production or the earlier Timberlake Wertenbaker play we saw on campus. It continues to be surprising to me that low-cost, high-quality shows on this school's stages continue to be under-attended by the area community.

The very next night we were off to catch N.C. Black Rep's production of "Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope," which had some dazzling talents on stage for a relatively short run at the Arts Council Theatre. A lot of energy, chiefly well presented, though like other shows of this sort, sometimes the disconnected stories can be a little disjointed as well, for me, anyway. It was time very well spent in any case.

Last but not least in our local show-going was "The Blonde, the Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead," a one-woman show at Triad Stage that I thought quite impressive for the range of characters, male and female, that the actress presented. The show was interesting too, though perhaps more interesting to me than to Kathy (maybe it had been too long a day for her). Set, lighting and sound, as usual for a Triad Stage production, were very well done, and generally speaking, it was a pleasant and rewarding evening of theater.

New York City, Part Two

2009-05-02T10:20:00.001-07:00

We wrapped up our visit to NYC and Broadway with three more plays, all interesting or at least worth seeing to one extent or another.

First, Kathy returned with TKTS tickets to "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," one of August Wilson's ten plays from the cycle set in Pittsburgh's Hill District. It was quite well acted, and generally very interesting, but at the end it got all kind of metaphysical/ theological/mystical on us, and I lost track of it. I'm sure it meant something to some of the members of the audience. Not so for me.

We had the added bonus here of sitting next to a couple who, it turned out, were from Winston-Salem, and he had been the head of the theater department at Wake Forest for over 30 years, prior to retiring about a decade back. Delightful conversation during the breaks!

On Saturday, we took in "Exit the King" (Eugene Ionesco) and wrapped with "The 39 Steps." Ionesco was perhaps a little too deep for the likes of me, though the performances, esp. Geoffrey Rush as the 400-year-old king who was on his way out from his collapsing kingdom, were worthy. "39 Steps" was just pure fun -- very clever staging and use of only four actors to presesnt a complete story based on the Hitchcock movie of the same name. It had at least one of those scenes where a character is juggling three hats and passing them around from his head to portray three different people in the same space of time. For entertainment that doesn't really require a lot of thinking but you can be charmed by the cleverness, I recommend it!

Then it was back home to Kernersville, though we did get to see and share some of the LaGuardia space with musician Bruce Hornsby, one of our favorites -- just happened to notice him coming through security right behind us, then waiting for the flight to Richmond, Va. adjacent to where we waited for ours to Greensboro.

Great trip all the way around!

New York City, Part One

2009-04-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

My wife, Kathy, and I are partway through a five-show visit to Broadway, along with a few other chores and undertakings.

We started Wednesday night by visiting the TKTS booth and, after dropping a couple of possibles as they only had "partial view" seats for them, we picked up two decent seats for Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty." I had heard his name many times before, but never saw one of his shows, which apparently chiefly run off-Broadway until this one. We found the show to be quite interesting, and it included a neat set, good lighting and sound, and some good acting, too, particularly the lead actor. It certainly held our interest, no matter how off-putting some of the characters were, or how challenging it was to believe some of the aspects of the relationship between the four characters visible in the show.

As for me, trying hard not to be a throwback of any kind, I still found it difficult to believe that the use of words not really acceptable in mid-range society to the extreme that they appeared in the script was necessary, or didn't even detract from the storyline after a while. I for one do NOT object to the use of selected curse words from time to time, used for emphasis and/or charactor development. But this show, I believe, could have used 10-20% as many selected words, and still have gotten the intended point across just fine. Though it would have shortened the show measurably ....

Last night, we saw "Jersey Boys," another one of those top-hits review shows but with a difference, in that it delved into the interesting and sometimes challenging real lives of the group's members, and wove the songs into the real stories being told about them. For me, that worked so much better than "Mamma Mia" or "Back to the Eighties" or others of this ilk. And the musicianship, stage technology, etc. were top notch.

Now, I'm waiting to see what Kathy finds for us at TKTS for tonight. We already have our "Exit the King" (Ionesco) and "The 39 Steps" tickets for tomorrow (Saturday.)

Serious and silly

2009-04-20T09:35:00.001-07:00

Two more plays were recently viewed, at a pretty wide divergence in terms of message and seriousness. We first saw "Our Country's Good," by playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, chiefly performed by seniors of the UNCSA drama department, on the Performance Place Thrust Theatre stage.

We had earlier seen "After Darwin" by this same playwright, up in D.C., so thought this one might be good, too. And it was -- primarily about the "transportation" by the British of people dubbed criminals, in the late 1700s, to the Australia colony. A great deal of conflict between some of the soldiers, who were unhappy with their assignment and treated the convicts as somewhat less than human, and the governor and one soldier who saw opportunities for raising some of these people up through the power of art and theater. After a fair amount of agony, an ultimately uplifting message and moment of theatrical joy.

It seemed a little bit long to me, but I don't think that's a fault of the production, actors, directors or anything else than the fact that nearly everything I have seen lately has been a 90-to-95 minute, no intermission show. Thus, when an intermission show that runs about 2.5 hours comes along, it SEEMS long but of course, it is not. It's just normal.

The next night, we took in "Back to the 80's," a musical, so to speak, at Theatre Alliance. It bore something of a resemblance to "Mamma Mia" in that it took existing and chiefly well-known songs and tried to tie a story of high school romance around them. Which was partly successful, for me, anyway. Unfortunately, with a couple of outstanding exceptions, TA didn't manage to locate the kinds of voices that could carry that sort of music off. It was fun and upbeat, but a little hard to listen to.

From the D.C. market

2009-04-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

Kathy and I have been spending a few days in Washington, D.C. It's Easter weekend, so there were not a whole lot of theatrical offerings floating around a normally very busy theater town, but we managed to catch two shows while waiting for tonight's heavily-theatrical event, the annual Helen Hayes Awards. Son Andy is nominated for one of his lighting designs (the Catalyst Theater Company's production of "1984" last year), so we are attending. That should be quite an experience.

Meanwhile, along with Kathy's college roommate and friend Lissa, we took in Arena Stage's production of "Crowns" at the Lincoln Theatre on Saturday night -- a very entertaining evening of music, performance and costume (especially, of course, hats). Michael Cunningham, the photographer who, with a writer, created the book on which the play is based, at that time anyway was Winston-Salem based. I'm sure many of the interviews that provided text for the show were done in our area back in N.C., so a few of the references probably meant more to Kathy and me than to many others in the audience.

Then last night, we saw our first show at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. It was also quite a good production and fine acting, though there were a few moments that I would have picked a bone, critically speaking, with the playwright or the director, depending on who was responsible. "Antebellum," however, was chiefly thought-provoking and intriguing, and it certainly held our attention, which you cannot always say.

We continue to enjoy the heavy playgoing spring!

A few playgoing reports

2009-03-30T17:25:00.001-07:00

We've been able to get out and catch a few plays recently, and have quite a few on our upcoming list as well. So here's a report on the most recent ones.

One of our favorite weekend run-aways is to head to the charming southwestern Virginia town of Abingdon, and the two stages of Barter Theatre. We selected the one weekend on which we could catch the three shows we wanted to see - only to discover that it was also the weekend of the Bristol NASCAR races. Ouch. The hotel we normally use was about three times the usual nightly rate, but being stubborn, we went anyway. It was a lot of fun. We saw "Four Places" in Barter Two on Friday night and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" on Saturday afternoon on the main stage -- both excellent productions, for completely different reasons. Finally, we saw "Adjoining Trances" at Barter Two Saturday night, which (chiefly because of the play) was the weak link of the trip.

We followed that with a shortened adaptation of "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen at Triad Stage. As usual, good acting, good set, good lights, good sound ... but just not destined to be one of my favorite plays.

But the interesting continuing trend noted in these four plays -- every one of them except "Joseph" was a 90-minute (or nearly so) no-intermission show. There's been enough of that lately to really believe it IS a trend.

"Dearly Beloved" - just a whole lot of fun!

2009-03-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

I've been a little slack in getting on the blog and writing up Kernersville Little Theatre's production of "Dearly Beloved," most decidedly a "Southern comedy" that may not play well in certain parts of the country but sure enough played well last Friday and Saturday nights in Kernersville. We found it a fine production, with a strong cast that had no weak links in our opinion (and believe me, that is not always the case). The set was a good one, and I had no problem hearing anyone (also not always the case with shows, not just KLT's). It was fun to see Myla O'Brien back on stage after a long gap -- and I thought she was having fun with her role, which seemed a good way to get her "stage legs" back.

The leads were fun to watch, too, and good character work by several folks I had not seen on the KLT stage before. Several folks who had had smaller roles here or elsewhere in the past, too, handled a step up quite well. Kudos, KLT and cast and crew and all!!

Now we have a little time off from plays -- but before long, a three-play weekend at Barter Theatre, "Ghosts" at Triad Stage, plays and the Helen Hayes Awards event in D.C. and an April long weekend in the Big Apple. Whee!!

On the Play-Going Trail

2009-02-28T06:05:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for going to see more plays. OK, it's true, it's nearly always that season for us, but speed is picking up again, it seems.

Last night, we took in GTCC's production of "Under Milk Wood," Dylan Thomas' poetry-driven view of life in a small Welsh town. We enjoyed the myriad characters, sound effects and vision of the multiple characters making up the town. Kathy had performed in it back in high school days, and it also happened that Lori Koenig, who will direct KLT's "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," starting in April, directed this performance. Good job, we thought!

And in the category of confessions to be made, as I always do when there are young people ages 18-30 in something, I sat there with my program making notes on the performances I like. Since the day I finished writing "Conversations in a Cafe," I have watched particularly for the part I figure might be the hardest to fill in the play -- a young woman 20-25 to play "Meredith." My file folder is filling up with programs that have notes on them such as "She could be Meredith!" or "He could be Brad or Josh!" I saw two potential Merediths and one potential Brad in this show. Distracting? Yes, a little bit, but I enjoy it.

Tonight we'll see "Dearly Beloved" at KLT, then we have tickets for "Ghosts" at Triad Stage, shows at Barter Theatre, and just found out yesterday that we'll manage a NYC trip in April and perhaps cram in five Bwy. shows while we're there. Wonderful!!!

New stuff, old stuff

2009-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

I'm nearing the end of my annual writer's retreat to the Outer Banks of N.C., which is really just using a timeshare we bought years back and have been unable to unload on today's incredibly wonderful and active real estate market. But it does allow me a little time to unload, upload and clear the brain, which usually results in at least a little bit of meaningful writing.

I started the week off by deciding to take some thoughts that had been kicking around in my head and, rather than putting them into a new script I had just started, I went back and fit them into "All About Faith," which of course I had thought was finished. I think the new page of dialogue towards the end of scene three, however, improves the set-up for scene four and some "explanation" of my thinking in general, and helping the audience even a little bit is in my opinion a good idea.

And then because of one three-second panning shot in something I was watching, I started writing something altogether new as a potential new play script, and have added to it since. Why? who knows? Creativity is funny. We'll just have to see if it continues to go somewhere.

And as for the other scripts already finished? The waiting, dad blast it, continues.

And the nominees are ...

2009-02-10T08:14:00.001-08:00

I have no doubt made mention of my son, Andy (www.andrewcissna.com), and the fact that he studied lighting design at (now) University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, graduating in 2006 and heading north to a fellowship at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Liking his odds in the theater-heavy atmosphere of the District and nearby Maryland and Virginia, he stayed on, taking a job as the man in charge of the lighting equipment at the Atlas Performing Arts Center and designing, assistant designing and doing electrician work as a freelancer in a variety of theaters.

We have tried hard to see most of his work, particularly that on which he was the lead lighting designer. As such, last fall, we took in a very appealing (if you like that kind of thing) production of George Orwell's "1984," done at the Atlas by the Catalyst Theater Company, which had just moved to that location.

In Washington, the theater world has a set of awards for the region called the Helen Hayes Awards, with a localized level of prestige somewhat parallel to the Tonys at the national level. Imagine our pleasure and surprise to learn that, out of some 170 productions reviewed by Helen Hayes Award judges for the 2008 season, Andy was nominated as one of the six best lighting designs during the season for "1984" (which, he said with no bias, was pretty spectacular). And another nominee was for a show on which Andy worked as assistant. All in all, a pretty good year for our son, and we can't wait to hear how April 13th (awards night) works out!

Early 2008 Short Plays, Greensboro

2009-02-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

I was able to fit in a visit last Thursday night to the black-box stage of the City Arts Center in Greensboro, where twice a year, short plays written by members of the Greensboro Playwrights Forum are produced. This was my third visit, and there is always something interesting going on with one or more of the plays -- the number performed varies from presentation to presentation.

This set of shows had seven scripts by six authors, and a wide-ranging group of actors, some of whom I had seen before. Dick Strohmeier, a KLT regular, was in one of the shows (and did well, I might add), and Randy Morris, who has acted and directed with KLT in addition to others, authored one of the scripts, called "Copyright." In my subjective opinion, it was one of the 3 best in the show, though one must have to be a fan of "dark" drama to like it a lot (I am, but I also know that many theatergoers are not.) It was a two-person show, and particularly well acted by the female actor.

Compared to the past two I have attended, I didn't find quite as much to like in this one, though that was more script-related than acting-related. Though there was one script I might have liked better if one of the actors had projected better and been more articulate.

Nevertheless, esp. as I am trying my hand at some short scripts myself, it was an interesting 1.75 hours in the theater, and well worth the suggested donation of $5.

Recent shows

2009-02-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

We're firing up for another round of playgoing as I await word on a variety of play projects out there in the world, just awaiting a status report.

Recently, we took in "Virtue of Fools," presented as part of the Greensboro Fringe Festival at Open Space, and including Neil Shepherd, Ken Ashford and Cheryl Ann Roberts in the cast. We thought it was quite a mature script for a young woman recently graduated from college, and very much enjoyed the performances even if the audience was, well, compact. In discussion on the way home, we found what we considered to be some holes in the storytelling, but still, it was an interesting night of theater that held our attention. Can't say that about everything I see!

We also took in "Black Pearl Sings!" at Triad Stage Saturday night, and found that to be well-written and performed as well, taking one to a place one did not know particularly well. The point of it was: it had GOOD performances, if one stronger than the other in our opinion. Yet, the vast majority of a fairly large audience stood at the end for an ovation. See diatribe below about standing ovations.

Next on the slate: the short plays at City Stage, also part of the Fringe Festival.

On the standing ovation

2009-02-02T11:06:00.000-08:00

I do not claim any kind of originality or claim to premiering this thought. I believe, for instance, that the New York Times has written on the subject in recent years. But having once again recently been at a show where it occurred, I am reminded of the temptation to vent some frustration.

If you are a theater-goer or attend other performing arts activities: a standing ovation is SUPPOSED to be reserved for a truly outstanding individual or group performance, particularly in the live theater. And believe me, those opportunities DO occur, and they deserve to be rewarded by a portion or the entire audience rising to their feet and clapping/cheering/dancing or whatever.

Nowadays, that doesn't happen so much. Sadly.

If EVERYONE stands up for EVERY event they attend in the theater, the whole risk/reward system of the potential standing ovation becomes so watered down that performers basically have to show up and not fall off the stage (unless the script requires it) to get the S.O. And that's just not the same. If ANYONE gets a standing ovation, how do performers know if they are truly special?

I encourage you to consider that next time you're in the theater and deciding whether or not to stand up with the rest of 'em. If it was not a truly outstanding collection of performances, don't do it. Just say no. Resist the temptation, even if you're surrounded by standers. Somehow people have to learn that standing ovations are selective, not for every single show. Really! I kid you not.

"Good LIfe" hits the road

2009-01-19T06:46:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned in the last post, my actor friends gave "The Good Life" a great reading a week ago, and pummeled/pestered/passed along -- I'm looking for the right verb -- "shared" a number of thoughts about the play's logic and ending. I took some time to assimilate those ideas, then went after the script to see what I could do.

I'm pleased to announce that I think the rework was successful. The last two scenes have undergone a fairly major change, but, I think, for the better. And then after all the touch-ups throughout, I printed it out again, let it sit for two days, then looked it over again last night. All those facelifts have now been incorporated -- and the script is in the e-mail ozone. A good friend of ours has a place she'd like to share it, in case that arts center might want to make it part of their upcoming season. Wow. That would be something.

Anyway, it's back to her for her own review, then we'll push it on to her contact.

In short, more waiting to come!

And I do love waiting. Especially as other places I have scripts, some of which were supposed to have made their selections by now, haven't. Or perhaps they have and simply haven't told those who did NOT get selected. But they haven't posted their choices on their websites, either, durn 'em. And so, as usual ... we wait. Maybe something will surface this week!

If nothing else, another script is "done" and the Steelers won. Things could be worse.

It was a great reading!

2009-01-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

I have to say that it is such a pleasure to bask in the post-experience bliss of having hosted, along with my lovely wife, a reading of a new script by actor friends and acquaintances. There was also a lively and informative discussion of the play itself afterwards ("The Good Life," full-length play #3) that offered some great ideas and adjustments that I will make to the script before it gets sent out.

Cheryl, Lee, Ken, Myla, Macon and Tana -- plus my live-in actor, Kathy -- you know who you are, and please know that you're appreciated. It may take me a little while to beat it into submission, but your reading and your reactions will help me to formulate some new thoughts on the fine tuning of the script and, I feel quite certain, make it a better play in the end. Thank you!

And as we are nearing the mid-point of January, I feel reasonably certain that some kind of news, pro or con, from several of the submissions are bound to break just about any time. Fingers are crossed, except, of course, when keyboarding, like right now.

I continue to think (or is it dream?) that 2009 is going to be the year when some of my words are going to spew forth on a stage, here there or somewhere. And I hope that's a good thing!

Excited about the new year

2009-01-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

We have, fairly peacefully, slipped from 2008 -- which I think most folks won't miss -- into 2009. For Kathy and me, it included a first: attending a theatrical performance timed and specifically meant to include a welcoming of the New Year. It was apparently Open Space Cafe Theatre's second year to do so. It was a premiere production of "Miss Gulch Returns," which will return itself for a regular run at the Theatre from January 8-24. Along with a piano player, it stars Macon Shirley in a one-man musical that studies the post-"Wizard of Oz" life of the ornery Miss Gulch of the movie. Fun, cute lyrics, not the easiest music in the world to sing -- we had fun, and they simply stopped the second act for about ten minutes to ring in the year.

For me, now that we've made it to 2009, there should be some information forthcoming over the next few months about the various shows I've written and put out there, starting - hopefully - soon. Further, a group of hardy and hearty friends will be at the house on Jan. 11th to read through "The Good Life" for me. Immediately thereafter, or as soon as I can make final brush-up changes, I have a place to send it for a possible review/possible production, which even if it doesn't pan out, is exciting.

Then some fine day, I need to get back to work on the started-but-a-long-way-from-done full-length and 10-minute play ideas I have floating around. Though I have some paying non-fiction work I must get completed before much will progress on those projects!

Looking forward to a good 2009 of playgoing!

Revisions the latest

2008-12-15T07:12:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Waiting ... um ... patiently.

2008-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

I truly wish I had something earth-shattering and exciting to write for the blog, but right now, I've been too busy on home and yard and other home and yard and "real" (i.e., paying) writing projects to do any new writing on the next play (though it got a little "head" time a couple days back that might turn into a title and a clearer direction).

Instead, I'm waiting on some kind of word, some day, about all the various possibilities to which I have sent the two completed full-length scripts, and the one ten-minute play. There is a vague chance I might hear something about one of them BEFORE January 1, and then one of the places makes its choice ON January1, so at least some kind of a status report should occur by then.

And meanwhile, as mentioned before in this blog, I wait. Gah.

I do have a week away in December, however, which could be productive both for the play writing and some other pieces I will be working on (paying work, yay!). And then some friends will help, as they have before, with an out-loud reading of play #3 in mid-January. That should be both fun, and put me in a position to touch that script up and try to put it out there, too.

And then, maybe, one of them will crop up on a stage somewhere!

A little free time is great

2008-10-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a bit because my wife and I were busy planning and packing for our 30th wedding anniversary trip -- eight chiefly dry days in Ireland, including Dublin, Waterford, Galway and the Connemara peninsula. Fun trip, didn't hit anybody in the rental car, lots of pints of ale and a few good pub visits. Though Ireland has less by way of pubs and more that are like a pub but presented as a bar/restaurant.

And as I have found before, sometimes a few days away from a computer and other chores is good for the brain. By the time I got on the plane back from Dublin to Philadelphia (7.25 hours flight time), I had an idea for a 10-minute play, and by the time I got off the plane, the first draft was completed. It got typed in once back at home, and read/timed, and added to slightly. Now it is more or less finished. Love it when things go easily!

I had determined already that no script was doing me any good gathering dust -- and then once everything I had "finished" was sent out somewhere, I quickly decided that I needed MORE material to take advantage of the various contests/competitions out there in playwright world. So now working on getting that reading moving on "The Good Life," and have a new 10-minute script I can get in the works somewhere. It almost feels like progress!

And we move on

2008-10-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

Well, as I've probably already stated, writing is a challenge in itself, and then there's the joy of trying to do something with it when it's done. Unfortunately, I received the news yesterday that the county Arts Council once again decided not to give me a grant to produce my first play. Too bad. I'm going to be interested in seeing who DID get the grants, after all the glad-talk that encouraged me to submit again and, in effect, put that script in limbo for another very long six months. If once again, there was no literary grant at all, I might just be, um, lightly perturbed. [Addendum: as it turns out, I was not the only literary grant request, but once again, the "panel" failed to give ANY support to a literary project.]

But if nothing else, it put me in action to research and continue pushing the finished scripts out the door to other potential readings/productions/reviews locations and gather from online sources additional possible future outlets. I had actually mailed "Conversations" to one new play contest several days ago, and "Faith" went in the mail to another location late last night. Even negative responses can, I guess, be a form of inspiration.

Meanwhile, I started working towards a private reading of "The Good Life" and maybe, after other work gets done, I'll be back to the new play as well. There seem to be a fair number of theater company new play-reading ops out there. Now I just need additional material if this concept is ever going to become a reality.

Don't fight the muse

2008-09-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

If there's anything I've learned in some 35-plus years of writing, it's that I should try my best not to fight the muse if and when it shows up to inspire some piece of a project.

Lately, though, I wish it could be better at timing itself.

Although just a ghost in the mist had started to form itself in my head last Tuesday while in D.C. regarding the topic, theme and setting for my next play, it actually began to jell right in the middle of watching a fine first preview of a brand new play at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md. last Wednesday night. Why? I have no idea. But we certainly enjoyed "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents," based on a book of the same name -- yet I walked out of it able to articulate to my wife how I saw the next play shaping up. It's hard to maintain full attention to "A" when your head is also shaping up "B" at the same time.

So though I have done a little bit of thinking on that play since last Wednesday, it wasn't until we were in the final half-hour of "The Night of the Iguana" at Triad Stage on Saturday night that one complete line that will fit into the new play popped into my head. I then had to fight between watching the play and not forgetting the line until the play ended and I could get back to the car, find a notepad and write down the line. I really, really didn't want to lose it.

So it's upbeat that I'm getting inspiration at any time, any place. But as I commented to a correspondent recently, couldn't it be during a shopping trip to WalMart instead of during a play I really want to watch undisturbed? Ah, well, beggars can't be choosers.

Pretty good week so far

2008-09-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I have to say that it has been a pretty productive play-related week since we arrived in Washington DC on Saturday afternoon. First, we were able to take in a dynamic production of "1984" at Catalyst Theater, at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (where Andy works his "day job" and also designed lights for this show). Last night (Wed.), we saw the first preview of a new play, "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" (which was a book first), and really enjoyed it, too -- and again, Andy was involved, as ALD to Beverly Emmons.

In the meantime, I have had time in fits and starts to wrap up the second draft of "The Good Life," and passed it along to a few of my trusted readers for thoughts and commentary. Then starting sometime (often, it's hard to track down and remember the precise time), the basic concept, at least, of a possible play #4 began to form in my head and by last night after the play, I could actually articulate it to Kathy. This is always an exciting moment for me, since my usual assumption is that I'll never have another play- or book- or story-worthy idea.

And then I do. Thank goodness.

Also along the way, first at "1984" and then at Tunnicliff's, a popular bar at Eastern Market that is esp. popular on Wednesday nights late for the area theater crowd, I had a chance to chat with the artistic director of the Source Festival -- and now have submitted my 10-minute play script to the Festival for possible consideration for 2009. In 2008, they got 700 submissions, so I know the odds are formidable. But as I've no doubt written here before, if you don't submit, you got nothin'. So off it went earlier this afternoon.

Progress! Gotta love it.

Creeping up on them

2008-09-16T14:18:00.001-07:00

Not really much to report at this moment, except that I am creeping up on a couple of developments. First, I am partway through a review and update of the third play script ("The Good Life"), hoping to add a little length to it and make some adjustments (a character's name just changed, for instance, and one first reader made a wise formatting suggestion). Anyway, it's coming along and may be completed by week's end.

Second, it's now in the second half of September, which means I have only two weeks or so before getting the good or the bad news about the Arts Project Grant. This could mean disappointment, or a good tightening of focus between October 1 and the end of April. And a first production on stage. That could be cool.

On a personal note, my son and fiance Sarah cooked dinner for us last night in Washington, D.C., and we had a truly pleasant meeting with her parents as well. There's a fun wedding gathering coming down the pike in October of next year. We look forward to it!!

Growing some patience

2008-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

As a person not overwhelmed by in-depth patience, I find sometimes that the process of writing and trying to get published or produced seems like an eternity. Which is why I've been trying to grow some patience and understanding that the gap between finishing a piece and hoping to see it on stage can be a long thing indeed.

But I am also learning that, every bit as much as full-length fiction writing, it is just the nature of the beast. Send it out and forget about it, and move on to something else. That's just the way it has to be.

Case in point: I just mailed a copy of "All About Faith" to a New Play Festival in Greenville, SC, which I discovered thanks to the invaluable aid of Kelly Wallace. I'm quite well ahead of the deadline for the 2009 event (final due date is Feb. 1, 2009). But it might as well go now; I'm not planning to change it anytime soon. But when does the decision get made about what will be read during the Festival? August of next year. Ayiiee. That should wear me out, waiting to hear about that!

But it's not really much different for the festival of 10-minute plays in Louisville, to which I submitted my 10-minute script not too long ago. That's going to be a wait, too.

And I have moaned here before about the formerly long-seeming wait from May, when I submitted a grant request, to end of September when grant recipients are announced. At least that one's growing closer to a yes or no answer. It's that not-knowing status that can be so tiring. But again, gotta get used to it. Somehow.

Meanwhile, steps are being taken towards a more-finished script of the latest play. I should have a goodly amount of time next week to give it some undivided attention. And then maybe show it to a few more readers, see what they think. I hope.

A matter of length

2008-09-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's difficult, for me anyway, when I am drafting a play to have anything more than a general idea of how long the text will "play" on stage. So when I finished up my first draft of "The Good Life," I figured I was pretty much there. Not. What I determined after giving it an out-loud read-through -- usually my first step after the first draft -- is that it isn't as long as I want it to be.

So now, in addition to making all the fixes I determined in the process of hearing it out loud AND timing it, I'm better prepared to understand that it needs more new writing work to better explain the story and make it longer at the same time. Kathy, my intrepid first reader, also had some very useful thoughts on some additional concepts and extensions that she perceived.

End result: it's going to be a little while longer now before I'll be ready to show this to anyone else. But that's the way it is with writing some times. As I well know.

Very close indeed

2008-09-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, although I already have some adjustments and suggestions to follow from my first reader, "The Good Life" has reached the point of completed first draft. All the pieces now tie together, even if some need a little filling-out and until I've read it and timed it, I won't know how much I need to add to reach a desired length. But that will come soon enough. It's just great to be at a point where the story is basically there, it just needs brush up and detailing. Yay!

Creeping up on it

2008-08-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

I shouldn't overstate the importance of finishing a first draft of a new play, because after all, that's just the beginning of the work. Then, one must read it through out loud and fix all the clumsy parts one can find, and make sure it all flows together. Do a little timing to see how long it runs. Then let some folks read it over and make suggestions. Then contemplate a reading gathering to see what it sounds like in other voices and interpretations. Then, maybe, you're close to a finished draft.

But all that being said, it is still exciting to me, now on the third time through this process, to be within a few pages of having a complete story. (I'm not counting the ten-minute play, since that started off as just an exercise to see if I could do one, and literally, the first draft took six hours to write. There wasn't much time to even contemplate the "process" on that one!)

Anyway, "The Good Life" has almost been glued together. At some point, there will be reading and timing and editing, but I'm always thrilled when something in my head makes its way to being, for real, on paper. And it's almost there.

Starting to apply some glue

2008-08-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

You just never know when the time, a clear slate and a visit from the muse will coordinate, but after some years, you learn NEVER to deny those factors when they happen.

On Sunday and Monday, I'm pleased to say that the writing karma was on my side and I was able to complete the first draft of the second scene of the first act of "The Good Life." What does this mean? As I envision it, it means I have one more scene in the first act, and the opening scene of the second act, left to complete. Which implies that I'm two-thirds of the way through the first completed draft of the play.

Given the way this play has come along (see earlier post), in bits and pieces, this also means that I'm beginning the process of glueing together the ending of the show, much of which was written BEFORE the beginning of the play, by adding words to the start of the show. Eventually, I see them meeting somewhere in the middle. Wouldn't that be nice?

Anyway, nearly all of the characters in the show have now been introduced or "used," as the case may be, with only one more yet to be rolled out, and she'll make her appearance in Act Two, Scene One. In short, I pretty much know what needs to occur in the final two scenes to be written, though of course, characters sometimes have a way of taking you to unexpected places along the way. But when you're this far along, you have that feeling of relief that the thing is actually going to come together as soon as you find the time, and the inspiration, to finish the glueing process.

Writing in bits and pieces

2008-08-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

It may be only me, and it may only interest me, but the process of writing is a fascinating thing.

For a lot of my writing, the toughest part is getting that first sentence, or paragraph or two, on the page or into the computer (yeh, being old-fashioned, I still do a fair amount of writing, or at least STARTING writing, with a pen and pad of paper). For articles, short stories, press releases -- those can often roll right off after the "start" is done, even if I go back and revise the start later on.

Of course, a lot of the "head thinking" part is done by the time those first words get corraled.

But that process, and a lot of my writing in general, tends to be very linear in nature. Write the start, write the middle, write the end. Let sit, then go back and revise. Pretty straight-forward, even if sometimes it's very hard and other times very easy, and for no good reason in either case.

This latest writing permutation, plays, started off much the same way. The first play, "Conversations in a Cafe," was very linear, too. I started it at the beginning, worked through the middle, and came up with a closing, even if that was later altered somewhat, and expanded.

"All About Faith," play two, was also chiefly that way. I had a vision basically of how the play was going to end from early on, but still, it didn't get written until a lot of the rest of the play was in the bag. And even at that, a line or two was added to the original ending when it floated into my mind. It may be -- I don't recall -- that the original ending, though, was on paper or in the computer before Scenes Three and Four were fully fleshed out.

So perhaps there was a transition from "Conversations" to "Faith," and further to the latest effort, "The Good Life." Which has been just about anything BUT linear in nature.

A lot of my writing is in bits and pieces, too, but by that, I mean that I write a sentence or a page today, and then it may be a week or more before I write the next part. Or I can get on a roll and write a scene in two days, as happened with "Faith," for instance.

With "Good Life," though, I have written bits and pieces all over the place in the course of the play. For instance, today, I "finished" the play. The final two scenes are more or less complete, and I know exactly how it will end. It might get adjusted, but the play essentially is "over."

However, I still have a huge hole in the middle of the play. I essentially know what will happen in those scenes, but the writing is still missing. And really, I had written most of Scene Two of Act Two before I ever went back and wrote Act One, Scene One and the start of Scene Two, which are done. But I still need the end of Scene Two, and a Scene Three if there will be one, and Scene One of Act Two.

What does this say about my writing process on this particular play? I have no earthly clue, except that at least it's getting written in SOME fashion, even if out of order. I do find it pretty exciting when I finally "glue" the scenes and pieces together into some kind of a whole. But maybe I should just smile and accept that things are not always linear, and maybe that's a good thing.

Exciting news

2008-08-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to report that I actually spent a couple of hours working on play number three on Friday, but that's really not important at this very moment.

I will take a proud moment's step aside from play-writing stuff to announce that two theatrical individuals have announced their intention to be wed. Although we had some advance notice (though no level of certainty), our son, Andy, and future daughter-in-law, Sarah Denhardt, called us from Culpeper, Virginia this morning, where they were overnighting and enjoying a brief getaway from the nation's capitol to inform us that they were officially engaged. Andy is a working lighting designer, assistant lighting designer, electrician and other theatrical-lighting-related taskmaster mostly in D.C. Sarah has acted and directed and is now the manager of special events with renowned Arena Stage in D.C., a huge job currently as Arena is wholly renovating its spaces and preparing for a grand reopening in a year and a half or so.

We are just so excited for both of them. The wedding itself is anticipated in the fall of 2009. Wow!

Talking is Good

2008-08-04T10:39:00.001-07:00

Despite my chief drive and desire to be mostly hermetic in nature, shunning company and chatting to myself and my cat throughout the day and my wife when she can escape the office, there really are times when company and talk can be beneficial (as long as the talk isn't politics or specifics of religion).

Saturday was a good evening, with a number of volunteers and performers of Kernersville Little Theatre gathered for their annual banquet/meeting/ awards ceremony. It was a good year and the awards were quite inclusive, which I think is great for all concerned. Support your volunteers, and they will support you.

Afterwards, some folks gathered to wet their whistles with a beer or two, food, snack or whatever. It's this kind of meeting of those with a theatrical bent (or who are theatrically bent, either way is fine) that gets my discussion and creative juices flowing. And since then, I've had my head back where it belongs -- focusing on what is going to be happening, and what needs to be done to make those things happen, in the new play script. Yes, I have a couple of articles on assignment, but not much more can or needs to be done on either at this particular moment. So, the re-focusing at this point is quite helpful. Thanks, theater folks! You know who you are.

Sometimes, interviewing is fun

2008-07-31T14:15:00.001-07:00

At the risk of this sounding as odd as it actually is, I'm a freelance writer who periodically writes magazine articles about people and events, which in turn requires calling people on the telephone (as a stranger) and asking them questions.

I am also a person who doesn't really like calling up strangers on the telephone and asking them questions. It almost always turns out just fine, and productive. It's the act of picking up that phone that bothers me, until I actually do it.

Today was one of those days that the end result was just delightful. I am working on a piece about Piedmont Opera's upcoming production of "The Light in the Piazza." Earlier this week, I chatted on the phone with the author of the original novella, from 1960, on which the musical was based. Who set the hometown of the family in the story, for reasons all her own, in Winston-Salem, N.C., which of course makes the musical a perfect choice for Piedmont Opera based on setting alone. (The story's action takes place in Italy, however.)

Today, I got not only to chat with the artistic director and resident conductor, Jamie Allbritten (he's currently in Colorado, however), but with Adam Guettel, the musical's composer, who was kind enough to give me time to talk about how he found the story and made it into a six-Tony-award-winner of the 2005 Broadway season. For a smalltown resident in N.C., it's just not every day I get to do that. And how wonderful is it to get to write about the theater as part of my paid work? Among other things, I've been able to do a three-part article on NCSA's "West Side Story" production in Winston-Salem Monthly, and more recently, a Triad Stage profile of "Bloody Blackbeard" in Greensboro Monthly.

It's totally excellent, that's what it is!

The only downside to this whole experience is that Piedmont Opera did not consult with me when scheduling this production, and the three dates in mid-October fall right in the middle of the time Kathy and I will be out of the country. Darn it! Though I will probably make up for it by seeing a Samuel Beckett play in Dublin, so that should work out as a fair compromise.

Learning by playreading

2008-07-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

Given some of the past stories, it was with at least a little bit of trepidation that I signed on as one of a group of volunteers who undertake reading, and then advising, the Kernersville Little Theatre board concerning plays worthy of the theatre group's consideration. But thus far, it has been an enlightening and educational experience.

As has been noted earlier in this blog, Kathy and I are "active" playgoers, so yes, we do see quite a few plays on stage. But the interesting thing for me about the KLT playreading assignments is finding one's way to plays hitherto unknown to me. A good example is "Dinner With Friends," a script that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize -- perhaps a year or two before I was paying as much attention to theater as nowadays, but still, I suspect I should have heard of it. It's making the rounds of the committee right now, though my personal opinion holds that it is not a KLT type of show. Nevertheless, I liked it very much and would enjoy seeing a production of it somewhere, some day, in the right hands.

Equally, some works that are not (IMHO) destined for Broadway greatness are entertaining to me and, by extension, the average current-day KLT audience member. Some are older (Headin' for the Hills, "a hillbilly comedy," dates to about 1950 but still has a humor I think our audience would "get," along with accents they would accept versus, apparently, British accents) and some are newer, but that's OK, too.

We are not destined to agree in all cases, either. One member saw Neil Simon's "Dinner Party" as a good opportunity for us, not perhaps his greatest comedy, but certainly adequate. I on the other hand saw its original production on Broadway, in the hands of name actors such as John Ritter and Henry Winkler, and thought it was flat and not really all that good. Was it just that production? Or would KLT founder on the same problems that the pros faced? Again, it's a matter of opinion. I'd be wary of it; others may well feel differently.

Choosing plays that will hopefully be successful in production takes a group effort, and compromise. We may not always get it right, but I feel this group has the best interests of the overall organization in mind at all times. Naturally, we try to be realistic about the interests of the audience as well.

And it's a learning experience, too!

Interesting copyright questions

2008-07-21T06:29:00.001-07:00

I haven't yet reported that we went to see "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell" at Stage Two of Barter Theatre, up in Abingdon, VA, a couple of weeks back. Although the story of the play sounded extremely similar to "Moonlight and Magnolias," which others had heard of and was apparently read by the KLT playreading group, to my surprise it is by two authors with names that don't match the playwright's name for "Moonlight ..."

I'm not quite sure how a copyrighted play can be written about a very specific set of events -- three people locking themselves in an office for a week to churn out a workable script for the movie, "Gone With the Wind" -- and then another play be written about the same set of events that somehow doesn't impact with the copyright on the first play. I suspect that, since only a few of the facts of that week are actually known in the public domain, perhaps the two scripts are measurably different in interpretation of what went on in that office. But still .....

Anyway, we saw this show and found it entertaining, amusing and relatively short, following the noticeable trend in some current scripts (such as "Doubt" and "Blackbird") to run 90 minutes or just under that, even with an intermission. Responding, one assumes, to the limited attention span of modern Americans.

Some day it would be interesting to read the two scripts back to back and see if they are really all that different, or one is funnier/more successful than the other, or what. But at least now I have seen one version of that story, which certainly is funny at points!

Rejecting and rejection

2008-07-14T11:32:00.001-07:00

I caught an interesting bit of a piece Ken Ashford put up on his blog ("The Seventh Sense")recently that was notes from "rehearsing a musical" (in my opinion, those notes applied to more than just musicals!!). It basically states: A director is someone who should be 100% open to listening to comments from everyone and anyone -- and should be fully prepared to reject 80% of those comments afterwards.

It's my humble opinion that there should be a corollary to this law for playwrights. While many of the thoughts and comments I've received from individuals on my first two plays have been interesting, useful or at least have caused reflection and reconsideration, that is certainly not universally true. At the bottom line, creative works are the author's vision, and you have to try to a certain extent to continue to be truthful to that vision, but yet with as much objectivity as you can possibly muster.

This is a long lead-in to reporting that my hopes for "All About Faith" with a theater company in Washington, D.C. did not bear fruit. There were just too many differences between the reader's viewpoint on the play and my own conception, and belief, about the play, what it is about, where it is set and so on. So along with accepting that it did not entirely work for that individual, I still had to reject that particular set of commentaries and continue to believe in the play as it is written.

We'll see whether that holds up in practice! If I hear the same comments over and over again, I'll have to reconsider my stand.

Nevertheless, I have had many a year of rejection of articles, stories and novel-length works -- and in many cases, at least the articles and stories eventually found homes with someone who read the piece a different way. It's not the first, and probably far from the last, time for someone to say "no" to a work of mine.

So now the script is with two other theater companies, both in N.C., for a look, and I have some feelers out to other places. So far. It won't do any good sitting in a pile of scripts in my office or as a file on my computer. I have faith that "Faith" will come home to a stage somewhere, somehow, some time.

Meanwhile, the ticking clock on notification, one way or another, of the "Conversations in a Cafe" grant request is ... two and one half months. Tick tick tick.

More playgoing reports

2008-07-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

Kathy and I completed our round of the 25 Ten-Minute Plays at the Source Festival on Sunday night with the longest of the three rounds, Group C (it had nine plays; the other two had eight each; and it had one of the longest-not-really-10-minute offerings). While we enjoyed most of them, we felt that the A and B groups overall were stronger. But the acting continued to be outstanding. It was quite an event, and we were pleased to have made the effort. We also caught dinner beforehand with Andy and Sarah, who were just back from a wedding gathering in New Jersey. Fun!

Monday was spent driving to Pittsburgh and chatting the evening away with my mother and brother; most of Tuesday was spent with Mom, and then Bob joined us again for dinner Tuesday night. Wednesday was on the road to Abingdon, then we caught "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell," a comedy, at Barter Theatre last night. More fun! Oddly enough, though the story line sounds extremely similar, it does not seem to be the same play as "Moonlight and Magnolias." Intriguing. Anyway, we enjoyed it. Then, this morning (Thursday), we made our winding way across Highway 58 in Virginia and then down into Ashe County. Lovely weather here today!

Sixteen down, nine to go

2008-06-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

We took in Groups B and A of the Source Festival Ten-Minute Plays at 5 and 8 p.m. yesterday (Saturday), here in D.C. where we temporarily reside. It's pretty neat: they have a "talent" who works the crowd in between the plays as the scene set is changed, and they put an intermission in the middle, too. Some of the shows have been very good, and thought-provoking in many cases, and others so-so but still not bad. Overall, however, the acting in the first two segments has been just about universally stellar. And as always, we have enjoyed watching Andy's work on the lighting design.

This evening (Sunday), we will return to Source for Group C of the shows, after meeting Andy and Sarah for dinner up that U Street area near Source. Fun as always riding the Metro around.

What's also been pleasing for me is that the ten-minute play I wrote initially just for the exercise of it seems, to my biased opinion, to be at least competitive with most of the ones we've been seeing. Who knows, maybe even the 10-minute play has some hope of a future!

It's all over in 10 minutes

2008-06-26T08:37:00.001-07:00

This weekend, Kathy and I will be taking in the three flights of 10-Minute Plays that kick off the annual Source Festival in Washington, D.C. Andy designed the lights for all of them (there are 8 mini-plays in each of the three flights). I've seen (once) the 10-minute plays put on by the Greensboro Playwrights' group, and they can be fun and entertaining and enlightening, too. We'll see how the D.C. group does. I understand from the web site for the Source Theatre that they chose these 24 from something like 900 submissions, so you know the competition had to be severe.

Just for the experience and a skills test, I tried my hand at writing a 10-minute play myself. I had always thought it might be tough but, fortunately, I had an idea. That always helps. So though it is not quite finished, I did a first draft and read-through in one day, and I kinda like it! I'll see if I can get it to run right at 10 minutes next.

On the trip, meanwhile, in mid-week, we'll see a show at Barter in Abingdon, VA, purely for the fun of it. The show is based on the true-life circumstances of David Selznick and two writers locking themselves in an office for a week to churn out a workable script for a little movie called "Gone With the Wind." Should be amusing!