Sitting in the audience when you are the playwright

So, today, I went to the play festival to see our play “A Dummy’s Lament” (I am co-writer) performed in full production. We were one of six plays chosen, so that is a great honor.

The play is a comedy, so that is new territory for us. But it was fun.

This is the cast. From left to right:

Cody as Archie; Jacob as The Professor; Graham as the dancer; and the play director, Jack.

The story is, Archie is a ventriloquist’s dummy (played by a human male, but the character is a dummy), and The Professor is the one always trying to keep Archie out of trouble. Archie can’t get a date. The last date he had was 1847…because he lives in a box, and doesn’t get out much, you know.

The dancer dances by, with a ‘female’ dummy, and Archie falls in love.

Thanks to everyone who made the project a success!

You’re invited…

to the Judith Karman Hospice Short Play Festival in Stillwater, OK on March 29 and March 30.

Tickets are $12 and go to a good cause.

Our play, A Dummy’s Lament, which is a musical comedy, will be performed!

We are thrilled and excited. The initial play idea and execution came from my writing partner, and the original song and musical cues, came from me.

***

Playwrighting has really taken off, and this is thrilling. I made the semi-finals for another play festival, and received notification yesterday that I didn’t make the final cut, but still…it’s so fun to have gotten that far.

I had a play “Young and Beautiful” scheduled for a reading this past Wednesday in Seattle. I was a nervous wreck all day. By evening, I was a blithering idiot. Who knew that this, THIS would be the thing that makes me nervous? I was a basket case–upset stomach, and the whole works.

It’s funny. I can go and perform, whether singing or dancing or acting or comedy or emceeing, or whatever, and those things don’t bother me. At all! Give me a microphone and an audience and I’m home. Since that’s 180* opposite of most people (people seem to fear public speaking more than they fear death???), I’m really out of my realm of comfort zone, and my interpretation of what’s normal. I didn’t perform in that Seattle play, nor direct it, nor cast it. I only wrote it. I wasn’t in the audience that night. But, still, from so far away, and on the day and at the time, I was a nervous wreck.

The only comparable emotional thing I’ve been thru is playing the music at weddings. I HATE weddings. I think I’ve played 7, and I said “No more!” Actually I think I said “No more” after 5, but I got conned into 2 more. Weddings and wedding music make me soooo nervous.

Evidently, being a playwright will affect me that way too. Who knew?

This whole creative journey takes you to places you didn’t know existed.

When I told my co-writer how nervous I was, she said, “Then we won’t do this.” –meaning playwrighting. Meaning–it’s not worth the toll it takes.

I thought about that for 4 hours. It is TOTALLY worth the toll. So, what, if I’m sick and upset on the day? This is still super cool to do, and to have happening!

I’m rather disappointed in myself that the music aspect of the creativity hasn’t taken off yet. (I want a couple more completed master tracks before I kick music promotion to the next level.) But still..I’ve been at this for years, and it just kinda lays there.

So, if playwrighting is working, and I have the abilities as a composer…then why not combine the two? I took an idea I had bouncing around in my head, and will adapt it to the stage, and I started thinking about the music. I had one song, in my catalog, that fits the theme. I have ideas for 3 more songs, for that project. So….a Broadway calibre musical comedy is on deck.

***

I want for my work to go large. Things have happened, and things are happening, but the big break hasn’t happened yet. Those times when everything seems dark (the past three months of winter), and you can’t see or feel any signs…what do you do? I just keep going. When you can feel that you’re on the right path…that’s when it’s easy to keep going. It’s when you can’t feel, when you are so completely alone, that’s when it’s so difficult to keep going.

Slingshot Series, downSTAGEright, Seattle, WA, March 19

Here is your invitation to the Slingshot Series, from downSTAGEright, in Seattle, Washington, for March 19, 2014.

It starts at 7:30. My play, “Young and Beautiful” will be performed @ Studio 140 at the Inscape Arts Center (815 S Seattle Blvd, SODO Neighborhood)

I soooo wish I could be there! If anyone is able to go, I’d love to hear about it/see your pics, etc.

When I told  a friend that playwrighting was “taking off”, and I told him how many locations had chosen my plays to be performed, he said, “I guess you’ll be buying a lot of plane tickets!”

How cool is that?

THANK YOU!!! to the talented producers, actors and staff at downSTAGEright, for this amazing opportunity!

***

In other work…gee…what’s going on? My writing partner and I are about to finalize a screenplay. Then we will finalize a full length stageplay. Solo-writing, I’m about to finalize a screenplay. So, when winter time happens, and my creativity slows down, somehow…this time, the writing kept going. I try to play the piano or play the guitar, and nada. It’s asleep. Acting or performing, or creative things where you go out and use your body…it’s not working at all. But…and this is new territory…the writing never went into hybernation. All winter long…it kept percolating. (When I get rich and famous…and WHEN I no longer have to have a day job, I want to try going to a warm environment for the month of January, and see if the creativity still shuts down. I don’t know if it’s a product of wintertime, regardless…or if it’s related to the cold weather.)

Music is my first love. I started this creative life based on music.

The lastest EGOT winner: His profession: He’s a songwriter. I am thrilled for him. I’m thrilled for anyone who achieves their creative goals. But part of that makes me feel like a failure. I haven’t made music happen yet.

So…for music to be the thing that hasn’t taken off yet, it bothers me. Gee…what can I do about this problem? Well, playwrighting is working, right? I started a dark comedy, stageplay…musical. I had one song in my catalog that works for this project (unpublished and unheard by anyone else.) I’ve been dabbling with composing on 3 more songs. I’ll aim for 8 to 10 songs for this project. So…if that’s what it takes to get the music heard…okay.

The play that will be performed late this month (not the Seattle event, but the next event), has an original song in it. One of the characters breaks into song.

So, I bid you a happy spring (depending on your location…if you’re in Australia…happy autumn!). May all your creative dreams come true!

The last glimmer

“Young and Beautiful”

I got an email.

A play of mine, “Young and Beautiful” will be performed in Seattle, WA, March 19.

To say that I am blown away, is an understatement. This is the 4th play that I’ve written/co-written to be chosen to be performed. I’ve only been at the playwrighting thing a little over a year.  And it’s happening?

I’m shaking my head in disbelief. I’m happy and thrilled, but of all the stuff I do, this is the thing taking off like a rocket ship? Playwrighting? I enoy it. It’s been a top priority for the last year. But, I didn’t see this one coming: playwrighting, I mean.

We wrote our first play, a musical, perhaps 4 years ago, on a whim. We saw a call for entries, and thought, “Hey, we can do that!” So, we did. But, it’s a tough one to produce, so ? ? ?

I’m still pitching that one, but when you do a project and it goes nowhere, are you really on the right path? So, then November a year ago, we saw a call for entries, for a 10 minute play. Why not write one and give it a shot? Yeah….our 2nd attempt….it got chosen. My writing partner was rather sick at the time, and I was beginning to wonder if we’d get the project done under deadline, and we submitted it with perhaps a day to spare (but we worked that project–believe me, we worked it and worked it, to perfect the writing.) Then it got chosen and performed in March of 2013. So…gee this is fun. What else is out there? So, I start writing solo plays and we start co-writing more plays.

The BIG one…is a full length, and we’d been working on it for 4 years. Somewhere last summer/fall, it had bounced around in my head enough, and it was time to start typing. So…THAT one is happening. But, in the meantime,  we can write little plays, right?

***

I’m trying to “make it” in many fields in showbusiness. Making it in one field is quasi-impossible. But I seem to think I’ve had this calling, and I’m supposed to do all this. This is the purpose of my life.

Even when outside forces affect you to an extreme, and it seems like it’s insane to do all this and try all this…I still believe this is my purpose in life. I have bipolar tendencies. Perhaps all creative people do. Let’s just say that an even keel isn’t really part of my repertoire. I bounce from one extreme to the other.

But, it all comes down to the definition of “making it”.

But, how do you define “making it”? I look at these acceptances on plays, as rungs on a ladder. At this level, it’s prestige only. There’s no money involved. But…having had 4 plays chosen…that means…”yeah, this chick can write!” So…maybe these rungs on the ladder get us to a higher plane.

It’s no secret. As a playwright, I want to make it to Broadway. Actually, I think as a playwright, I write something in every project, for me to act in. So, yeah, if you’re gonna dream, dream big. My writing partner keeps asking me about things related to limitations. (Is this too long? Not enough characters? Too simple? Too complex?) I keep saying, “Of all the stuff we do, the theatre has the fewest restrictions. It’s the most open and so much is happening in theatre right now.”

When I first started this creative life, my first goal was to write songs, for other artists to sing. I couldn’t sing at the time. Oh, I sang, but not well. Then you think, “I want to write a book.” So, you write, and fail and adjust and write. Then came filmmaking/acting. Now, playwrighting.

Playwrighting

I’ve been playwrighting quite a bit these last few weeks. So, that is the front-burner project at the moment. And I’ve had to push other things back…which is fine. Each project will have its own priority; its own time; its turn to shine.

But, the playwrighting project…whew! This is, without a doubt, the hardest writing project I have ever undertaken. I think it’s a safe bet to say, it’s the hardest writing project I will EVER undertake. We’ve had this in works for 4 years. 4 years ago, we developed the story, the plot, the premise, the characters. And it’s taken 4 years of sitting in my brain, bouncing around.

I didn’t know it was ready to come out. All I knew, for those 4 years was…this is hard. I don’t begin to know how to approach this project. I know what the end result needs to be. Do I have the writing chops to  accomplish it, as it needs to be accomplished?

Yes, I could write it. But, would it be good enough?

So, the other day…two weeks ago, I was very angry about something else– very, very angry, and I didn’t know I was going to work on this play. I didn’t plan it, but i went to the computer, and bam! It was ready to come out. I wrote 30 pages that weekend. I’ve worked on it, in bits and pieces these last couple of weeks.

Today I wrote 13 pages.

I’m far enough along…to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If I can just get the first draft built…that’s the hard part. Getting the structure there. I think of playwrighting like building a skyscraper. I need to get the steel beams in place, the floors level, the solid foundation laid.

After that, we can tweak, add to, subtract…that part is secondary. The “dressing up”. But, the foundation has to be there: plot, pace, character, structure, meaning, pay-off(s).

For each writer, their process is different. I love to hear about each writer’s process. For me, I think of stories I’ve heard about writers who: make themselves sit at their desks from 9 to 5. Even if they don’t accomplish one usable word, they have that discipline.

I am the anti-that.

Something…a project, sits in my brain for whatever time it needs to sit there. When it needs to come out, it tells me. There have been times, when I stop on the sidewalk and write something down. When I pull off the side of the road and make notes.

But, mostly, my process is about doing something else, with the physical body, and letting the mind wander. Part of the time, yes, it’s about 100% focus. But, part of the time, it’s about doing something else actively (washing dishes always seems to get me over that tiny hump), and then coming back to the computer. I might go play the piano or take a walk. For years…years…driving was the thing that made my mind get to that ruminating place. Somewhere around 2002, I figured out how to get to that brain ruminating place without driving. I can go for a walk, and still “work” on whatever creative project I have going.

One writing buddy once said to me, and I quote it often, “Writing is 90% thinking and 10% typing.”

So, to the writers out there: What is your process? How do you make this work for you?

It  took me years (decades) to come to the conclusion, there is no right or wrong way to do this. You have to find what works for you.

[I just hit spellcheck. On the above sentence, I had typed “there is no write or wrong way…”

How’s that for a Freudian slip?]

LOL

Peace 🙂

Playwright!

My co-writer and I received word this week…an original play of ours is going to be performed!

This is soooo cool! It’s virtually impossible for unknown playwrights to get an unknown play performed.

But, yet once again, we managed to pull off the impossible. I’m going to have to re-define “impossible”. There’s this laundry list of things I want to accomplish in my creative career, and I keep being able to check items off of that list.

Anyway, the play is called “Beth”, and it’s due to be performed at a charity event benefit, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Sunday, March 3. I’ll post more specific details when I have them. The event benefits the Judith Karman Hospice, so this is for a very worthy cause.

We have other plays we are working, all of which lead up to our “big” project–the one we’d love to get to Off-Broadway and Broadway. So, this is a step in that direction. We love theatre. We love acting. We love other creative people.

***

The good die young but not always. The wicked prevail but not consistently. I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre.
—Helen Hayes