Suddenly the Fringe (part 2)

So there I was; had read the script before. It wasn't perfect, but it took a Robert Frost poem dead serious and was, well, odd. And odd was good. Most definitely.

Re-read the script and did a whole bunch of charts. I knew blocking a show, with little other directorial input, and without those critical one or two weeks taking the script apart together, would be a challenge. But it was going to get done.

Showed up the first night and spent, as I figured, a good 45 minutes on scene 1. A pretty short scene. Adam got nervous about time, but I reassured him if the first scene in this situation took less than two hours, we were in good shape. He was concerned we'd not get through half the script - in his mind beginning of act II - by end of the four-hour BlockFest I. I said, don't look at it that way, there are 75 pages in the script, 75 minutes onstage. Halfway was really page 35. And that was still in act I. He was reassured.

I had lots of nutty ideas to open the script up. We used commedia characters, we used weird positions onstage, we talked about burying treasure and finding it - to me the heart of comedy. We got to page 35.

It was a getting a play on its feet by the seat of its pants. But it was up, halfway, and it was working.

Suddenly the Fringe (part 1)

Well, the Fringe is pretty unfair to writers. It's unfair to everyone. Yet it's there, it's big, it's loud. And when anyone anywhere is making a big fuss over theatre, how can one not?

I'd co-produced a reading of Adam Klasfeld's Good Fences Make Good Neighbors at a Chashama space a few months ago - and to say that, really, I just helped that poor hard-working guy get space and took care of a few other assorted things. The kind of stuff I'd rather not do if *I* had a reading going up. At the time I'd offered to help him with directing but he didn't need it. He had a director already.

Adam decided to put his show into the Fringe... his director was on board. Gave my standard pre-Fringe warning. Same thing always happens, once they've decided to do it, it's going to get done.

Three weeks before show open - around the beginning of August - he called. His director was gone to England - paying work. For some crazy reason, I volunteered to block his show and get it on its feet. We had two days.

New Fall Project for Sanc...

Working with Phil on the new commissioning project, which will commission 6 writers to work with an artist in another discipline - think "visual arts" or "music" - to create original works that describe the process of creation. A bit of synaesthesia perhaps... or insights into the mind of these insane people we call artists. Hopefully.

sanctuary ready to go...

After all the waiting, finally last week we got the Dept of Edu approval to proceed with our incorporation... and today I finalized the signatures. That pile of checks from all those wonderful donors who have wanted to support sanctuary... will shortly be depositable.

Exciting... well, I think so anyway. Possibly elicits yawns from other artist friends for whom hacking the real world holds less appeal.

love directing...

a friend - adam klasfeld - who's also a terrif publicist - wrote a play i admire titled Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, about to go up at the Fringe. His director moved suddenly to England - no fault of Adam's of course. He was in that weird position, not enough time to find another, unable to really have time to do it himself but feeling obligated. I'm stepping in to help as a "consulting director" - to do blocking, coaching, traffic cop stuff. Tho it doesn't pay and won't garner me more than a "co-" credit, no matter... I really love doing this.

I'm delving into the script... it's a fun piece but also very meaningful. Starting out with a basic visual concept, I think the piece is about "seeing: not seeing" and am basing the visual and movement vocabulary on this.

Of course I have to run it by Adam first... he's my "boss" on this project...

:-)

Fourth ND no go

well, fourth time I've applied to New Dramatists and not gotten that happy letter. I really like those guys, and wish I could count myself among them, but not this time, alas. This just after, the day before, I got a rejection from ATL for a 10 min piece. I thought they liked my work, I even got a Heideman nod last year, but apparently they've changed the literary staff over and I have to start again. That's how it is every year with ND; you never get the same group deciding who gets in year to year.

Can't say I'm that familiar with most of those who *did* get in either... but I'm sure they're wonderful.

Next year this time, if all goes well - and there's no way to tell if it will, but - I'll have more time to work on marketing.

When the future looks bleak...

People turn to the past. Perhaps that's the driving force behind the aural memory project, something I've been doing since 2000... hm... interesting... since Bush was elected. Well, our sitting president - tempted to add an H to that at risk of being childish - represents a lookback philosophically, but aside from that it's just advancing age or whatever.

Nut of it is to recapture the soundscapes of various periods of my past... pop and non-pop music, soundtracks, theme songs, sometimes even ad jingles... to reproduce mental states long trod over by newer engrams. Theory is that within each of us is every alien person through which we phased as we grew, and using secondary sensory tools (since vision is "primary") we can sneak up on our minds and recapture our previous alien mental states. Useful for writing.

The actual performance would be to assemble the old songs and sounds package them together to typify a particular moment in personal time. Then play them and regenerate the old mental state, or at least a simulacrum of it, and using that old me for a writing purpose.

KESTIN - IM Conversation Play. Have fun with it.

by Bob Jude Ferrante

Note. This is material is copyright 2005 Bob Jude Ferrante. For performance licensing information please contact jude@pipeline.com.

KESTIN (23:43)
There are three examples of this. The first is when they are right next to you, and you can smell their breath. The second is when you're in the salon and the Asian girl is really tearing up your cuticles. The third... well, there isn't a third.
KESTIN (23:51)
Hello?
KESTIN (23:53)
Got a call. Back in probably 10 mins.
KESTIN (23:56)
That went well. You there?
KESTIN (23:56)
Just checking. I guess, well, your away message isn't on, so just thought...
KESTIN (23:57)
You're probably getting a snack.
KESTIN (23:58)
Maybe I'll just go get a snack. If you see all this, I'll be right back.
KESTIN (01:04)
Went to the kitchen. Looked at the food. A lot of food. Five different kinds of cheese. None of them the same color. In a couple it’s the wax but there is one that's dark green somehow on its own. Then I thought, I'm too fat. When I was young I was buff. Wasn't everyone buff? Bet you were buff.
KESTIN (01:05)
Going to bed. Beat anyway.
KESTIN (01:26)
Can't sleep. The cat controls the bed. The parakeet was recently elected president of the spare room. They ll soon sign a non-aggression pact and kick me out of the apartment. Wsh you were here to read me.
KESTIN (01:27)
I'll go rotate, throw phases. A moon in the place of too many suns.