Into the busy season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.