Category: Playwrights Project

Two more times

How to describe last night:  At a certain point I was watching a play happen on stage and it was like I was watching someone else’s play, in the sense, I got caught up in watching the play.  But it was my play.  And I wrote it.  And these actors, that made choices that took risks and got vulnerable and showed me different pieces of the puzzle that made up Lavinnea, Caroline, Amy and we’ll call him SteTVHew, WOW!!!  And the people that came, it’s nice to have some in the audience that DIDN’T know me but came out to see this.  And the people that did come out to support that do know me or some of the other creative wonderful people that have been key in making this happen THANK YOU!!!  2 more times, tonight at 8, tomorrow at 2, $10 buys you a ticket in advance.  Thank you. 

2 days out

So we’re two days away from an audience.  And I’m going to rehearsal tonight.  There have been changes, some will get in  and some will not.  It’s amazing that at this late in the game that everyone involved has been receptive and encouraging enough to entertain change.   And I’ve been coming up with the questions I’d like asked during the audience in talk backs.  There is a great article written by David Rush that talks about a model for post-performance discussion of plays and how writers should prepare and things that should and shouldn’t be asked of an audience.  So I’ve prepared those questions.   Here we go! 

"Welcome Home"

In 4 short days, my play will be on a stage, with actors, in front of an audience.  It’s taken 8 years to get to this place.  It’s been an exercise in patience.  It started as an exercise in writing at CSU Summer Arts in 2004.   It started with a character named Lydia.  Then Caroline emerged in another writing exercise.  Lydia evolved into Lavinnea, Caroline’s mother.  The funeral scene was the first scene written of this play.   There were scenes written, patched together and called a play.  It was read publicly at the University Heights Arts Festival in 2006?? in the Diversionary Space.  My friend Anthony read Lavinnea.  The audience, art walk patrons, laughed.  My friend John, a retired writer, told me to pay attention to that.  This was unpolished.  They laughed.  A lot.   I tried to rewrite.  I should mention now that the Summer Arts workshop was my first exploration in depth at playwriting beyond my one introduction to playwriting class at UCSD.  A second draft was written.  Bad execution of play and reading.  Killing off a major character didn’t work.  Play went into hiding.  Kept writing.  The girls kept coming back to haunt me.  John kept bugging me.  Last November he called, cancer came back.  Last January, he produced a staged reading, this time at Twiggs, this time he heard some new stuff before he left us all.  It has now evolved into around 90 pages (we keep cutting stuff out of the play so I’m guessing at this point.)  You all get to see it Friday.