A Midsummer Night's Success!!!

So, it got down to crunch time and wasn't able to do the live-blogging as much as I was hoping that I would be able to (I know I did four posts but that was just for the writing!)  Skipping the play festival and getting to when I went to bed at 1am Sunday morning, I slept until 2p the following afternoon.  Then, I went back to sleep.  Woke up, had three tours last night and then went back to sleep.  8am, back at work... well, I say work, I'm writing on my blog now...

The festival was a complete and total success!  The fundraising, the organizing, the turn out to participate and the turnout for the show itself was awesome!  I spoke to the audience before the show began and it was the first time that I was nervous speaking in front of a group in I don't know how long.  Below is a list of the things that I loved about the festival and some things that I would change for next time:

JUST A FEW THINGS THAT WERE AWESOME

-  People doing things that they had never done before and being totally successful at it.  Bill Cooper and Morgann Daniels had never directed before.  They had done some pretty impressive work.

-  People moving out of their comfort zone and being totally successful at it.  Ruby was pretty nervous about doing the show.  But she pulled through and was a great success.  You have to remember, that the audience doesn't want you to fail, they want you to succeed!  That's why they come out, that's why they donate or pay for the ticket!  It takes a sick bastard that wants to see the tight-rope walker fall into the net.  You don't play for that crowd.

-  Everyone, the audience and the performers were ENJOYING themselves.  I think that the flaw of my early days in theatre was that I took everything so deathly seriously.  I had a hard time enjoying myself and it stressed me out and theatre seemed to be more of a masochistic ritual than a pleasurable experience.  And here I was, stressing out, getting even more gray hairs, but in my heart I was enjoying myself.  Hopefully everyone else was too.

THINGS THAT SHOULD BE TWEAKED FOR NEXT TIME

-  There should be stricter guidelines for the writers.  The theme was okay (and a decision that I'll stand by), but the chance to the use the line was thrown away in some cases.  This may sound strange, but if there was more consistency in the sets, the table and two chairs, the transitions would have gone a bit smoother and not have had as much to worry about.  JinHi had also suggested that there be a dedicated stage crew for the set.  That's for next time.

-  I should have a second banana that can take over when I need to take a disco nap.  I find that I'm more effective when I'm awake and when I'm not awake, things tend to go the wayside.  A right hand person could take over for a little bit and that would mean that everyone would kind of have to know the schedule of everything that was going to happen.  Which leads me to the next point...

-  Things seemed to go a little bit better when I was very explicit and direct.  Something that I know I find frustrating about processes is when the person in charge is kind of wishy-washy.  I think that as the producers there were some moments, where I wasn't being clear and that can lead to frustration and whatnot.  My concern was being too dictatorial when I really wanted everyone to express themselves and have a degree of destiny throughout the process.  However, I think that there's a balance that can be struck.  At least, I'll have a chance next time...

A common question that I got throughout the festival was "Are you going to do this again?"  At first, the question was hinged on the success of MNPF, but when I arrived with Morgann to get everything set up, JinHi was already primed for a sequel.  To put it mildly, everything with the MNPF was a success, so JinHi and I are planning The Winter's Tales (tentative title), another 24 hour 10 minute play festival slated for this January, kind of as a beginning to the theatre season of 2012!  Stay tuned for details.

All said and done, I'm really pleased with the way that the event had turned out.  This was a good coming out event for the UpStart Theatre Company and I can't wait for more events like it in the future.

Again, thank you to everyone who was involved in the event, directly and indirectly.

Live Blogging from the Event! A Midsummer Night's Play Festival! Part 4

The actors and directors are already hard at work on the scripts.  Gabe, Peter, Thomas and I got a little sleep (speaking for myself, I might have gotten about an hour).  Such is the nature of the event.  I find comfort in being tired in a theater...

I'm working on the order of the shows (proving to be a little elusive).  Sheila Lynne is very generously grabbing props for us, as well as Kimmi and Jason.  Later on, I'm going to be working on getting a sound list together, that way it'll be a fully fleshed out productions.

Morgann Daniels and Bill Cooper are directing for the first time.  They seem to be having a good time of it (which is ultimately the point!)  Also, new writers as well.  Kimmi and Molly Hall have not written dramatic scripts before, so there are some fresh and talented faces here on the cusp of creation!

Stay tuned for updates!  And be sure to come out tonight and see how it all turns out!

Live Blogging from the Event! A Midsummer Night's Play Festival! Part 3

The plays are written!  Right now, they're printing off and I should be able to close my eyes for about an hour and a half before the directors show up!

Some of the writers are pulling double duty.  Peter Griffin, Thomas Houston and Gabe Reynolds are also acting in the plays as well.

It's going to definitely be a challenge, but we have a lot of talent working at the plays.  Its going to be a great show.  The Who is playing out the evening.  Thought that was worth mentioning.

Now, we just have to wait for the directors and actors to get here.  There will be some running around for props and costumes during the day.  Programs will be taken care of by Creative Approach (they also printed the poster and the postcards, really really excellent work from them!)

Be sure to tell your family and friends and the neighborhood dog!  The show's tonight at 8pm!  Don't miss out!

Live Blogging from the Event! A Midsummer Night's Play Festival! Part 2

Approaching 2am!  Switched over from the Johnny Mercer station on Pandora to Cee-Lo Green.  This is about to get real!

We have the first draft of one play completed.  Jason Arons was the first to cross the line.  He's got a great script and is working on the final draft now.

Even though it's just ten pages and they've been working since about 830pm, they're not all done at this point.  But there's a good vibe with the writers.  They've talked with each other, running ideas by each other and having a good time.

I'm pretty tired.  Its great talking with them about what they've written.  It's great being in such a creative and hard-working environment.

More updates to come!  Stay tuned!

Live Blogging from the Event! A Midsummer Night's Play Festival!

We finally got the internet working after about six hours (hah!).  Truth be told, we didn't really put that much focus on it until just now.

At this moment, six writers are working on plays for the event.  They've been given a theme (still a secret at present!).  The coffee is brewing, the snacks are available and I hope that the new found Wi-Fi connection doesn't distract the authors.  They have until 6am to write the plays.

The directors and actors are trying to get some sleep (I assume that's true.)  Bill Cooper, local talent, is taking a director position.  I'm excited for him!  He's never done it before, but part of the purpose of the festival is to get people to do stuff that they haven't done before.  Thomas has the best writing process that I've seen so far.

I'm writing a little bit myself.  Not going to stage it, but it serves as a remind to some writers, especially the one's whose name begins with a "P" and ends in "Eter Griffin" will focus on the work at hand.  Plus, any chance to focus on writing is a good thing.  The sound of a keyboard hard at work I find truly comforting.

At 8am tomorrow, the directors will show up, get their scripts, then call the actors and get cracking at the work!  It's going to have a fun show and I'm hoping for a solid turn-out.

There should be some more updates later on.  Stay tuned!

A Midsummer Night's Play Festival's in the Paper!

So the papers are in!  Two articles, one from Connect Savannah by Bill DeYoung and another at the Savannah Morning News by Linda Sickler are up on their respective websites!  Below, I've included links:

Connect Savannah: The show must go on... quickly.

SMN: A Midsummer Night's Play Festival to present plays created in just 24 hours.

As a side note, I don't think that I've ever really interviewed well.

But, most of all, I want to thank Bill DeYoung and Linda Sickler for taking the time to ask me questions and publish articles about the event!

In regards to the Truth Is Soap during the event:  I'm going to be live-blogging the entire time.  I'm going to post regular links over to Twitter and Facebook, so look out for that!

Biography on a Ray of Hope

So, the last thing that I had to do for Testogenuis festival was to send a bio to them.  With everything that I've had to do in the last week, it fell to the wayside.  I'm writing the bio and for the first time I'm streamlining my career down to just writing.  And two things occur to me:  first, this is the first time that I've written a bio that focused on me as a playwright.  Second, the bio could be depressing as hell.  I mean, here I am calling myself a playwright when this is the first time that I've gotten a professional treatment.  I thought about the stuff that I had mostly written, sitting incomplete in files on my computer.  I thought about the rejections that I've gotten in the past.  The last time that I've had a play produced was by my own college and I had picked them to be produced.

The last professional treatment was at the Youth Playwrighting Festival in 2006 at the Horizon Theatre in Atlanta.

But then I thought that this was an opportunity.  This isn't the summation of my career, it's the notation of the beginning.  Writing "The Errant Knaves" took some work, but it did get done.  It's possible, I'm capable of it.  They're not mostly unfinished plays, they're opportunities, they're chances, they're beginnings.

It's been a crammed last couple of weeks, between moving, two jobs, graduation and everything.  A Midsummer Night's Play Festival is happening this weekend (!!!) and I couldn't be more excited for it!  Things are coming together and life is good!

Going to go write something now!

And, as usual, a picture that I find when I Google "budapest theater".

MNPF, The Errant Knaves, the Odd Lot and An Evening With Cthulhu

Hello there, blogger world!  It's been a while since my last post (God, I hate reading that in other blogs but I can never say that it's not true.) but I have been quite busy as of late (Cliche!).  Started to get in the groove of things with the day job, working harder in the evening for the tours AND re-discovered an addiction to the game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.  But that doesn't mean that things are working and coming to fruition!  It's one thing to have all the ideas but they should be implemented at some point.  (Looking at the right side of my brain re: Journey musical.)

Right side of my brain:  ... what?

First, the fundraising for A Midsummer Night's Play Festival was a total success!  Kickstarter is an excellent website and I'll definitely use it the future.  It was my first time using it and a lot of friends and even some people that I didn't know chipped into the final effort.  I might have to turn to them to get the funds raised for the Journey musical but I see that as more of an Internet wide campaign.

I'm really happy at the level of support for the festival (link will send you to the event page on Facebook; please invite yourself and others)!  Everyone seems to want to participate or chip in or something to that effect and it's great having a community level of validation. Now the festival is less than two weeks away.  Posters were handled today as well as postcards.  Get in touch with me if you're going to have time to throw the posters up around town!

The Errant Knaves in NYC is going well.  Shaun, the director, is a really outstanding gentleman who's keeping me very well informed about the progress of the play.  I also sent him a snippet of another play I'm working on called Here Are The Rules.  I believe that I've mentioned here before.  Haven't heard back from him in the last week, but no news is good news.

He's very open with me about what he thinks of the play (which is generally supportive with moments of  confusion and a lack of clarity on my part) and he has a dynamic approach with me.  Because I haven't really established a coherent style as of yet, I have to explain a lot of the choices in the play.  That actually works to both of our benefit. It makes me more critical and careful of my choices and Shaun gets a chance to find out what the 'eff I'm talking about.

Last week, I had a run at the Odd Lot.  Pirates of the CarODDbean.  Love working with these actors.  They are engaged, not trying to be funny by themselves and they're happy doing what they are doing.  They have become a true ensemble and that's always a wonderful thing to see.  Improv terrifies me.  All performance does, in a way, but there's something about improvisation that scares me terrifically.  I wish I didn't have the work schedule that I do, that way I could play with them on a regular basis.  If you haven't seen them at Muse Arts Warehouse, DO IT!  They're open most Monday nights, check the website for show information.

Last but not least, I'm working with Sheila Lynne, Chris Soucy and others on an evening reading the work of HP Lovecraft.  In my head, I'm calling it An Evening With Cthulhu.  That's pending approval from Sheila, but if it goes through, I'm totally copyrighting that shit.  I'll post more about it as the details come in.  But end of July!  At Muse Arts Warehouse (naturally!)  Mark your calenders... Do it...

And, at the end of this post, we have the poster as designed by the illustrious Morgann Daniels.  Faustina Smith donated $200 to get her hands on this puppy!  Thanks to Morgann and Faustina!

Designed by Morgann Daniels

A Midsummer Night's Play Festival: SHARE THE LINK!

Had an awesome dinner last night with the cast of The Boys Next Door.  Chris Stanley shall forever be one of the most kind and generous souls I have ever met.  After the dinner at Alligator Soul (one of the best meals I've had in Savannah, FYI), we went over to Club One for drinks and karaoke.  I did sign up for a song (To Make You Feel My Love as done by Billy Joel) but it was getting too late and the day job came too early.

But it's really nice to be amongst peers and colleagues.  Maybe that's putting college words on people who are just friends, but it's nice to experience a kind of night life every now and again.

The fundraising for A Midsummer Night's Play Festival has begun.  Already had some donations, but still a ways from the goal.  Below is the link for the fundraising website, Kickstarter:

http://kck.st/gKZcRK

Give what you can and pass the link along.  Naturally, I'm going to try to annoy everyone to death with raising the money.  The more you donate, the sooner we are to making goal and therefore, the sooner I will stop asking for it.

But very happy about the outreach that many have done already, offering their services helping set-up the event. Not just happy, but kind of touched.  It's good to get this kind of encouragement with events.  Makes me feel that I can do anything in this town but... well, let's take one thing at a time.

One last note:  if you're interested in being involved in the event, through writing, acting, directing, please go ahead and let me know.  I'm making lists of those expressing their interests at this point.  I haven't settled on the number of plays until I get a better idea as to the number of people involved.

Keep watching this space for more updates.  Again, SHARE THE LINK!

A Midsummer Night's Play Fest!!!



Me!  Fuzzy in the background!  Yay!



Had a pick-up rehearsal last night at the Bay Street Theatre for "The Boys Next Door" (buy tickets here). God, it was a lot of fun.  It was insane.  Sped through it, played around with the scenes and just haven't laughed that hard in so long over a play.  We shifted from being silly and goofy to trying to get through the lines as fast as possible.  Awesome.  It's a great show with some top-notch actors.  If you didn't get a chance to see the show last weekend, you should definitely try to come out this time around.  Worth it!


Yesterday, I got the approval from JinHi of Muse Arts Warehouse  that her space was available on June 10th and 11th.  That is the weekend of the Midsummer Night's Play Festival!  In 24 hours, six ten minute plays will be written, staged and performed for the genearl public!  Put it out as an event on Facebook (it must be official now, right?)  In the same vein, there's going to be a Kickstarter campaign that will begin at the end of the weekend.  The requested amount of funds is going to be pretty small (relatively speaking?) but me at Peter Griffin are working on the details. 

Do spread the word about the Play Fest.  It's going to be a lot of fun and it would be astoundingly awesome if people from every different theatre company in Savannah were to come out and participate.  There will be space in the program to advertise for your upcoming events and whatnot.  Plus, you'll be cool. And isn't that what it's all about?

So, keep watching this space if you want to know more about the event.  And you'll be sick of me shaking the internet collection plate for fundraising BUT if you participate in the event, you'll get lunch taken care of for you.  That's right.  Lunch. 

The day of the event... not, you know... tomorrow.

"Last word" has to go to the Bay Street Theatre and the production of "The Boys Next Door" running tonight, Friday and Saturday.  This is your last chance to see a wonderful story told!  Don't miss it!

Directors Say The Darndest Things!

Directors tend to be a particular bunch.  One of my favorite jokes has been:

Q:  How many directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A:  Well.... does it have to be a light bulb?

Not all director chairs have an Hitchcock-Psycho background to it.

90% of the directing game is communicating with the actors about the images and moments that you want to create on-stage.  It's not just knowing what you want; It's about relating the idea so that everyone can understand.  One of the worst things that I've heard a director say, to an exasperated and frustrated cast, after weeks and weeks of rehearsal was "If you could only see what I could see."

Now, like most people, directors can have a little trouble getting across a particular point.  Everyone goes through the struggle to find words.

The most memorable experience I have with this was back in high school.  Senior Year, I was in a school edition production of Les Miserables.  There I was, dead on the barricade, the student revolution failing on cue.  I can't remember how many students there were, maybe ten?  I was among the oldest, with the age spread going from maybe 12 to 18.  Kids can be fidgety and we had rehearsed getting shot in slow-motion for the millionth time because, well... kids can be fidgety.

Not our production, but pretty close...

Our director shouted out from the darkness, with all the power and force that she could muster:

"DEAD PEOPLE ARE NOT ALIVE!!!"
Naturally, this just made things worse.  We all started to laugh, insanely so.  And it's still funny about ten years later.

I remember asking the question several months ago on Facebook:  What's the most ridiculous thing that you've ever had a director say to you?  I still have some of the responses.  I try to put them in as much context as I know.

I was in a production of A Christmas Story at Muse Arts Warehouse (albeit too briefly).  JinHi, one of my favorite people ever said a mildly silly comment:

"So, the way that this department store is set-up... in... this... living room..."

Another production, this one I wasn't involved in:

"C'mon!  This is theatre!  Do what you would do in real life!"

This was a famous one at my alma mater, University of West Georgia:

"Bold choice!  Cut it..."

This last one I have comes from an acting class that a friend of mine was in:

"Okay, you're both Muslims and there's one piece of bean pie left... GO!"

So, if you have a story about something crazy a director has said during a rehearsal (or ever), leave a comment and do share!

Artistic Fiber in the Water

"Workshop" with the actors yesterday went well.  Wasn't looking for feedback, just wanted to hear how everything sounded in new mouths and brains.  It sounded awkward as hell.  Not because of the actors but because of how I wrote it.  BUT some crucial points were brought up in my own head.  Thanks to Peter and Katie for reading through it.  Especially, Katie given that she had no heads up about the reading.  And Peter made a good comment off-hand.

To TestoGenius Festival Website! (To the TUBES!)

Had the first read-through for The Boys Next Door last night.  It's a weird way of putting it, but it's great working in a "regular" play.  That's to say something with a little structure, no music, just a plain and simple story.  I haven't played a character like Jack in a long time (if ever) and I'm looking forward to it.  Lots of monologues too and that's always a good thing.

It's a wonderful feeling in general.  It's like with the coming of spring, there's been a Spring Awakening for me and for everyone around.  It's like artistic fiber has been put in the water... don't quote me on that metaphor.  I feel good about writing and acting and, if things go my way, directing as well.  I miss directing already, it's like quitting smoking; I can feel the withdrawals in my arms.

Also, have a interview on Monday for a 'real' job.  Hopefully that works out.  That way, my evenings are free for these kinds of artistic endeavors.  You never know how things will work out, but at least, if I get the job, I would have the peace of mind to create without worrying about creditors and the like.

Wish I could go see Frost/Nixon at Muse Arts Warehouse this weekend.  Won't have the time do so, but it's always important to support local awesome.  Really excited for Chris Blair too.  He's worked hard for a very long time and I'm sure he'll tear the thing apart.  I like that there's something consistent in Savannah.  At least in a sense.  There's more than one group with more than one project coming down the pipeline.  What's more, I get the feeling that things are only going up, in quantity and quality.  Here's hoping!