Saturday, March 20, 2004

Stages, not acts

Been writing little notes to self at the top of each scene. In bold. Pep talks about each scene. Seems to work... the technique sort of lets you put up temporary scaffolding and sandblast the idea until all the crap's off it.

If you get a chance, check out The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. This is the investigative reporter that Michael Moore and the like get some ideas from. It's important to have balance in your diet.

The meaning? Of the heading up there? Ah. The phases of the new life are stages, so the acts take on those stages. that's what that means.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

Open Rehearsal

The focus was to honor all of the actors with a script worthy of this group, you made it look great and sound great and you should hear that as soon as possible.

Always thank the one with the thankless task first. So thank you to the hard-working and *fluent* Karin, doing the thankless task of reading stage directions. Larry gracefully switching between BEARER 1 and DAMIAN. Colleen, the Russian embassy needs a translator. Joe, you put Chiron in a Leisure suit and gazillionaired like a gazillionaire… imagine if it were “three-sexillionaire” (3 with 18 zeroes). Kimberly you made everyone want to take Japanese drugs (big surprise). Kirsten you found the cuore (heart) of Vera. Chris you picked the damn script up cold tonight and brought us the character of Net. Matt, you got us in there. Courtney made sure people found the place. Thank you all.

The play is by no means finished, but what we heard tonight was material that will for the most part survive, possibly cut down (cutting is a favored way to improve a script).

The actors took the material and were able to fly with it. That means the indirection is there, the voltage is in the wire and actors can take the material and make it their own.

The hard work is starting to pay off. But coffee break's over, time to get back on my head.

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

An early draft is out there

Sent the early draft - pre first draft - to the cast for the open rehearsal. It's 9 scenes, from the fugue at the beginning through 8 more movements. At this point, if I hear it works and it's off the beaten path, that's what I need to hear. If it doesn't work, I'll fix it. It's a complex piece and it's lucky there are so many seasoned players in the group; what they got tonight is a workout... but it's going to be fine.

Questions I plan to ask Friday -

1. Are we starting to get the stuff across?
2. Some characters are boldly drawn and others are a little blurrier, depending on how close they are to the focus. Who are these people?
3. The story moves against a world hanging in the background. Mortal Coil is a whole world, but if you live in a world you don’t go round talking about it, you’d just live there. Are the rules of the world clear?

... and surely more questions will come.

Monday, March 08, 2004

Open rehearsal Friday March 12, 7:30 PM

Mortal Coil will have its first public presentation by Praxis Theatre Project NYC at an open rehearsal Friday, March 12 at Champion Studios, 257 West 39th St., NYC, 7:30 PM. If you have been reading this blog and now plan to attend, please shoot me an email at jude@pipeline.com, as seating is VERY LIMITED.. Plus, if you email, I'll get you on the mailing list so you can keep abreast of things - there is an open reading and workshop run of the play coming up!

Back to pages!

Sunday, March 07, 2004

La Vita Nuova

Small details can be important. Example, Vera receives messages that appear in her mouth; someone or something has rewritten her genes and activation sequences. Among the genetic changes, her body is manufacturing messages on rolled up paper, which are brief snatches in Italian from Dante's La Vita Nuova. Net is there to translate these for her (until he's not).

These messages foreshadow the stages in her character's evolution as she changes from human into whatever the changes made to her genes designs. La Vita Nuova.

Monday, March 01, 2004

Now it's about pages...

There is an open rehearsal scheduled for March 12. I'd like the cast to have at least two days with the script beforehand. Admittedly some things are still going to be rough, but many things will also be exactly the way they'll be in the finished script.

For about two weeks now, I've been focused on only one thing: Turning pages out. This has been a full-time, 3-day a week job (I also work a full-time job in the computer industry, so it's been a balancing act).

There are already 55 pages done, all keyframe scenes are in except the climax. Following please find my writing schedule for the next two weeks. Scene shapes are also done for the scenes that stitch the keyframe scenes together, so now we just have to write those. Page counts are very approximate.

(Hopelessly quotidian! But writing is more than just thinking stuff up. It's bone-crunching work.)

Monday 3/1 - The party - (6 pages) Desperation 1 (4 pages) and Desperation 2 (6 pages) -
Tuesday 3/2 - The Road 1 (5 pages) - Weird creatures
Wednesday 3/3 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Thursday 3/4 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Saturday 3/6 - The Road 3 transition (3 pages) and Donna Morgan death scene (9 pages)
Sunday 3/7 - Entering the Safe House (5 pages) meeting Kate (5 pages)
Monday 3/8 - Rewrite climactic scene (8 pages) and complete Scene 1 (4 more pages)
Tuesday 3/9 - Review and tweak Opening and climactic points (2 more pages)
Wednesday 3/10 - Research and weave in poetry quotes, fill in jokes, gaps and expletives, Proofread
and TURN IN DRAFT to CAST and MATT

When I deliver on this schedule we'll have double the number of pages almost - 111 pages - but still be well under the two-hour limit. If I fall slightly short of that, I'm not going to kick myself. Nor will anyone else.

I know, if I'm going to be *this* entertaining, you might as well tune in to "American Idol." Or better yet, go out and see a bunch of other great new plays - too bad Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase just closed, that was a good one.