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!

Gay writer or writer who happens to be gay?

First, turns out Edward Albee is still alive.  And, secondly, he's gay.  Maybe it's been a while since I've paid that much attention to this sort of thing, but both are completely true.  At least, that's what Albee says.

Below is a link to an article that was posted on NPR.  I recommend listening to the story.  One gets the better sense and tone that Albee is trying to convey.

Gay writer or writer who happens to be gay?

Before I really get into it, I wanted to mention that I think his mustache looks absolutely dapper.

First, I think that its a mistake to say that "gay plays are wrong" was what Albee was saying.  He wasn't saying anything negative about them.  If anything, he's saying that any time that you put a definition on anything, you're limiting it to just those things.  If something is "gay", it'll always be thought of in those terms.  It's College Philosophy 101.  Albee was making the point that you shouldn't pigeonhole yourself into writing only one different thing.  It's like putting shackles on your wrists and trying to write at the same time.  A limitation is a limitation.

But when Albee describes himself as a "writer who happens to be gay", he's talking about an aspect of his life that he himself says is irrelevant to his writing.  (Sidebar, his observation on Tennessee Williams is spot-on). This begs the question of why mention it at all?  I think that he's perfectly entitled to say that he's gay in any way, shape or form that he wants to say that he's gay. I thought that the wording on it was unique and alluding to hypocrisy.  However, he's careful about the way that he says this and manages to avoid it entirely.

Finally, the man is 83.  He's a legend in American Theatre, he can pretty much say whatever the hell he wants to whoever he wants to say it to.  He's at least earned 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!