Rehearsals well under way

Rehearsals are going well... a little creatively chaotic (after all we have a fairly difficult 2-hour play with original songs to rehearse in five sessions - you have to admire these guys for their enthusiasm, talent and efficiency!).

It seems that the ideas and tableaux in the play seem largely to be borne up in rehearsal, and as always there are hundreds of deeper things there in the script that make it funner and funner to work with as you rehearse - some of these are intentional and some, at least overtly, not.

But it's apparent there's a static block of a scene sitting in the middle of Act II... so I've now cut another character (Donna Morgan) and am back to my writing room to completely rewrite that entire section. The best part of it is that watching the rehearsals has given me a set of clear ideas on exactly what to do. Now it's just a question of making it, and making it fun.

And the beat goes on...

Have received lots of notes from several colleagues as well, plus there are my own observations and the notes from the reading itself. Quite a lot to digest, and have to confess it's been a good break from working on it, as the necessary distancing between the script and my sense of ownership occurs. At this phase, to rewrite, I must elicit a certain brutality -(Faulkner's darlings-must-be-killed; that means watch out for ETIOM - Effects That Impress Only Me...).

Tuesday, met with Peter Papazoglou, director for the next phase - workshopping the play before an audience over the next couple weeks.

Over coffee (at Starbucks) Peter had very incisive comments re structure and lots of logic questions.

You know, I spend entirely too much time talking about my approach. But what might be interesting: the approach has been somewhat story-mystical, if that makes any sense. It’s largely been world-building and character voice. The thinking was, we needed a really present world to 'set' the story (gemologically) best. Logic can suffer with that approach. Once you know the sense of the world, and the way the characters talk and feel about each other.

Been a quiet phase, but things are about to get hot again... cranking a new draft to the cast by mid-weekend. Been experimenting with a new character, one of the genetic scientists who built the Bush. Strong chance, he could be scaffolding soon. There are so many dimensions to this world that I must leave out of the play. There is enough to this fictional world to make a whole series. Hmmm....

First draft *IN*

Dancing the night away... finally got through a complete draft. There's holes, sure, but we're ready for the reading TOMORROW NIGHT. Sent a copy to the cast and then spent the entire day today working on the draft, polishing and rewriting several scenes in Act I, especially scene 1 - which lost 10 pages today, glad to say - removing notes and other scaffolding, and then got back to work smoothing Act III scene 3, the climactic battle scene. Sounds funny to think there'd be a climactic battle scene in a stage play, but there ya go, doing all kinds of crazy time here. In about a half hour, will send the reading draft out to everyone, and call it a night. Do something brainless - or possibly brainful, like watching Robert Altman's Nashville - what a flick!

See some of you tomorrow night... hope all this malarkey was worth it. All for love, all for love.

character reflection

The New Life has a menagerie of characters... one of the things decided when i realized we'd have 9 actors involved at the idea stage was not to restrict the number of characters we could have arbitrarily. (as it would happen, the number 9 has special significance for dante in the poem behind the title, so there's a near scary confluence there.)

So in the middle phase, there were suddenly over 20 principal characters in the play. Madness! The audience would need a scorecard, tons of doubling means lots of context shifts for the actors, making the play harder to realize. not that hard is always bad. but in this case, the play is ambitious in so many ways, and with the sometimes timid response difficult scripts get from some theatres, one must do everything possible to give a play a chance to see the stage again. What to do to solve this, reduce the number of characters?

Went through the script over the past month, telescoping characters and was able to reduce the number to 18 this way. Looked for another way to make a change to clarify and simplify. And it hit me. Matt had given a note during the open rehearsal - that there was a tiny influence of the Wizard of Oz in the play. As you'll recall, in the "set up the world" long first act before the inciting incident, the people Dorothy meets (Mrs. Gulch, Dr. MarVell, Hunk, etc.) are played by the same actors who later become the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard, and the Cowardly Lion. And there are links between the Kansas characters in terms of how they're played. That was it. Though I'd have the same actor playing multiple roles, I'd link the characters they played, so that the core characterization and verbs could be highly similar. Bingo.

tiny scraps when whole cloth not available

Just an observation whilst writing; when sometimes I can't write a whole scene through, instead I make little scene bricks. Sometimes they're specific to a situation, which means they can only be used in one place; other times they're specific to (usually two) characters talking to each other, which means they can be assembled into many places in the play; sometimes this requires adjustment to make the arc clear for that moment.

lots of interesting stress starting of course... the project is due for a reading April 15. see you there, I hope, same place as the open rehearsal, Champion Studios, 257 West 39th St., NYC, and same time - 7:30 PM. RSVP to me at jude@pipeline.com. Love to see you there; if you can put up with this blog, which is dry, think of how much more fun you'll have at the real thing, the play that's developing underneath the blog.

the atrocity of this future world

A fellow playwright whose advice is impeccable helped nail one aspect i'd been trying to bring out... how to rationalize Vera running instead of staying put and trusting the system. There's something fishy about it, they way they won't admit how much damage the rebellion is really doing, won't even allow the rebellion ten minutes onscreen. Her mention of the Rebellion is censored. The society they live in, despite its benefits and amazing possibilities, is also built on lies and death. There are a couple of possible atrocities they could commit. Sacrificing Mortals to add to their extant virus information - so they can track viruses across the Cities... that's one possibility. Or perhaps there's a worse, 22nd century form of genocide. Well that's a happy thought. How cheery this play is. It's just non-stop wads of cheer.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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