All These Things I've Yet To Do

No word yet from the TestoGenius Festival.  It's understandable; they've had a long period of time for submissions and probably had a lot of them.  Still anxious to hear something, but I can be patient.

I went ahead and made a list of play festivals that I'm going to submit to this year.  I think this is the year that I'm going to submit to Humana/Actor's Theatre of Louisville and for the Essential Theatre in Atlanta (run by Mr. Peter Hardy).  What's cool about them is that they may not produce your script, but they like to see "who's on the radar".  Seems like a good thing, in any case.  All said and done it's quite satisfying submitting work and knowing that it's going to be read.  At least, I say that now.


I've also been thinking about the plays that I've been working on for the last couple of years.  Including the Odyssey musical, there have been at least three other plays that I feel the need to work on.  One was done, one was almost done, one was never set to paper.

The next submission is going to be at the Well Theatre (note:  not the Wells Theatre) in  NYC.  They are also looking for short plays, full-length and also sketches of plays.  If I'm looking at the right theatre, they're about to do a production of Henry V.  The executive director said that the play was is ideal for our company because, at it's core, it's a play about a young person taking on a responsibility that he is not quite prepared to handle.

Article on that production...

Every time I find a website like Broadway World or even the Arts Section of the New York Times or the Theatre Loop for Chicago Tribune, I get motivated.  I mean, writing is something that people are capable or doing.  And I have such a strong desire to do it, I'm happy when I do it, it seems like something that I should do more often.  It's why I like the blog because now that I share that out loud (in a sense), I feel that it becomes true and then it becomes gospel.





So, in the six weeks, I am going to be moving twice.  Probably won't have that much time to update (which is fine) but hopefully afterwards, I'll be able to finish another piece.  Deadline for Well Theatre is April 15th.  I think something could be sent by then.

Also:  I've seen that I've been getting views from Hungary on a pretty consistent basis.  I like this, I'm tickled by this.  So, I've been googling "hungary theatre" and putting up what I find.  Today, I found this:

Theatre of the Poor and a New Intensity

For those of you that don't know, this is Jerzy Grotowski.  Ask me to spell it but don't ask me to pronounce it.  I'd have a very hard time with it.  He was a Polish theatre director in the 1960's that did something called Theatre of the Poor.  I'm going to be reading more about it, but conceptually, I'm intrigued and I want to do something with it.  Focus on text and acting, not so much about visual design, little set and props.  In some cases, the actors would use their bodies as an extension of props.  And given the economic conditions, it seems to have a practical element as well.

I was never one for big, huge fancy sets.  I remember writing a play in high school and deliberately writing that the costumes should look cheap.  There wasn't supposed to be a pretension as to the way that the story was being told.  I remember being called out on it, asked "Why did you make that choice?" and not being able to answer.  Grotowski would have had my back...

So, the idea of taking ancient scripts and plays and re-working them in true 1960's counter-culture fashion has a lot of appeal at present.  Also want to workshop a play at present but that would have to wait until AWOL is over with.  Just need to find the right body of work to play around with.  Don't really want to mess with the Bible or The Odyssey since I'm already working with that.  I'll keep positing on it.

In other news, "Situations" is in great shape and I can't begin to talk about how excited I am for the kids and for the show!  I'm really looking forward to spending that much time in a theatre.  There's something about being exhausted in a theatre and spending entirely too much time in one that feels at home.  Comfortable.  Right.

I got some writing to do.  Feels good to say that.