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1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

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May 24, 2005

Tuesday in the shadows of something larger

It's been an interesting week and it's only Tuesday. Monday I attended the annual Pulitzer Prizes ceremony. John Patrick Shanley sat at table 3 and I sat at table 24. So close, yet so far away. Also in the news, Kitchen Dog will be reading my play Nerve on Sunday June 5th. I am also starting casting soon for a new york production of the same play. Thirteenth Street Rep will be doing it and although it will be a non-equity event, it will run 8 weeks for 3 days a week. Does that seem to anyone else like an incredibly long run for a two person play? I wonder how hard I will have to work to get an audience in there or if that is a task I am willing and able to take on. I also had a great meeting today which I won't talk about here but could be really exciting (for me) if it works out. If it happens I'll let you know. If not, well I'll just be disappointed and will not speak of it. Kristen and I are going on a road trip to VA for a long long weekend to visit her brother and his wife. Her mother will also be there with her stepfather. They're all great and I'm looking forward to it. I don't know if you've ever been to Charlottesville, but it is sweet and relaxing. I plan to run and maybe write some but probably not. We will sleep on the floor on the porch I am told. But I will bring an air mattress. Oh yes, I will. http://www.adamszymkowicz.com

May 18, 2005

America's Manifest Destiny: Outer Space

"Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon." Is this disturbing to anyone else? I think it's common knowledge that our weapons are not as accurate as we'd like them to be. Now we'll have them in space as well where things are more likely to go wrong. We've been wanting lasers in space for a long time. Finally! Let's get on this people. "A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words of an Air Force plan." Does the FCC know about this? This is Bush's next project isn't it? We got to combat terrorism and the best way to do that would be to have deadly radio waves available from space. We have to show that we are the greatest nation--not in terms of health care or economy or education or the environment but in space warfare. The future's so bright we gotta wear--AHHH watch out for that laser!

May 17, 2005

a smidgen of angst

I'm sitting here with my gluestick gluing letters shut for a living and outside everyone is in their powder blue robes, graduating. Exactly where I was a year ago. Now I have this lucrative photocopying job and I can't write. Why can't I write right now? I'm stuck. I'm not sure what to work on next or how to work on any of them. I'm sick of waiting for them to come but what else can be done? Something good has to happen soon.

May 13, 2005

Go to Pillowman

I cannot recommend it enough. It is dark, scary, upsetting and absolutley watchable. We got standing room seats for 25 dollars and although not everyone may want to stand for 2 1/2 hours, for me it was worth every penny. It makes me feel better about the state of Broadway. This show pulls no punches and despite what Isherwood says it is much more than just a story. I think it brings up a lot of worthwhile questions. But go see it. right now. go. really. go.

May 10, 2005

Ask somebody to love you/It takes a lot of nerve--Paul Simon

Also don't forget to come to Dallas to see my play, Nerve read. You are cordially invited to attend a reading of my new play, Nerve, a dark comedy about falling into a relationship on a first date. When: June 5 at 7:30 Where: Kitchen Dog Theater, 3120 McKinney Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204 http://www.kitchendogtheater.org http://www.adamszymkowicz.com

May 9, 2005

Short Plays Going Up

May 22nd, my short play, High Noon will be produced at Boston Theatre Marathon. Starting June 2, my short play, Film Noir will be produced in Toronto at Cabbagetown Theatre's Slaw Festival. June 11th, my short play, Save will go up in Michigan at the Heartlande Theatre's Play by Play Marathon. Then in Sept Save will be produced by Bloody Unicorn Theatre Company in Arizona as part of their Queer Women's Short Festival. Also America At War will most likely be performed along with some other political plays at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Of course with my unlimited funds I will be flying from event to event, staying in four star restaurants and taking the audiences out for drinks afterwards. Hope to see you there! (I should be putting these on Upcoming and perhaps will when I learn how.) More to come! (Hopefully)

May 7, 2005

1st scene of new play

ONE (Lights rise on BOBBIE’s mostly-empty apartment.) (BOBBIE sits at the desk, typing on an old non-electric typewriter. A beer sits on the desk next to the typewriter.) BOBBIE’S VOICE When you have visions—visions that beat at your brains while other people are talking, when you hear screams--synapses won’t stop crackling and blood pumps--the pounding don’t stop pounding you look for an exit to start the ending or search sideways in vain to extract a distraction but even then what will curls of hair give to you, hips and breasts, lips sip out of you in a moment distract what abstraction pounds-pounds ‘til you steal— The night is a foundation for crumbling, the boy thought to himself. He dressed in haste, pulled the hood on his head and he took to the street, boot in front of boot to find her. Who would she be tonight? Last night she was brunette, red-lipped and serious, mouth curled around a tiny white smokestack, long leopard-fur coat collecting snowflakes on its tips. When she stopped in the streetlamp, he was there. He was a boy and she was not afraid. She took a drag and he took her lips and all her smoke and sadness drained into him. She gasped in the kiss and the snow fell on her lashes. When she opened her eyes, he was gone. That night he took his silver pen knife from the drawer of his desk—the only furniture he owned. He opened the blade, splayed his left hand on the desk and stabbed himself with the right. (BOBBIE stops typing.) BOBBIE No! No! NO! That’s not right. No one would do that. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s so fucking . . . (BOBBIE stops himself, takes out a knife, and stabs himself in the hand. He yells out in pain.) BOBBIE Ahhhhh!

May 5, 2005

It aint no MASH 4077

His goal, he said, is to convince his listeners that the abuse of innocent Iraqis by the American military is not limited to "a few bad apples," as the military would like the public to believe. "At what point," he asked, "does a series of 'isolated incidents' become a pattern of intolerable behavior?" I don't understand how we can let this happen. People who have done nothing are imprisoned along with suspected terrorists. Innocent people are shot or abused and the privates and the floor washers take the heat for it. Or no one takes the heat. Of course these are kids who have already been there too long with not enough armor, not enough soldiers and not enough guidance. Clearly not enough guidance. And all their friends are blowing up beside them and the enemy look like the civilians. It just makes me furious the way we wage war. And the idiotic things that happen in this country. Why can some suspected terrorists buy guns while others are shipped off to be tortured or killed? And according to iraq body count, at least 21,447 CIVILIANS have died in this war. How many of our civilians have died? Because Iraq has nothing to do with the 3000 people who died in the WTC. Nothing. And what can I do? Nothing. I wrote a couple of plays. I'm sure as soon as Bush reads them this matter will all be cleared up.

Party to start all Parties

Went to the Clubbed Thumb party last night and let me tell you plainly I flitted around like a headless drunken bird hopping from high quality short theatre piece (flit flit)to cooler of beer (flit flit)to conversation with theatrical luminary (flit flit)to cooler of beer. It was like that for hours and it was lots of fun. The only problem was that it gave me a wonderful hangover. Kristen decided to stay sober at home and I'm sure her day will be much smoother than mine. Clubbed Thumb really knows how to throw a party. You heard it here first.

May 4, 2005

Ugly

No one likes the ugly apparently. Of course the article never mentions how you measure ugliness. Is there a scientific ugliness tool they have in Canada that they might be able to share with the rest of us? And of course maybe the children have become ugly because the parents let their children do whatever they want and so they keep falling down out of trees and shopping carts and breaking their faces. The other underlying assumption is that grocery stores are incredibly dangerous places and that by tying your kid into a shopping cart, you are protecting it. In any case, it's pretty cynical. On a mildly related note, I'm getting sick of movies that have no ugly people in them. (or normal for that matter.) Commercials are just as bad. Sometimes you just have to rent an English film just to see normal looking people onscreen. I think having a blog has become too much responsibility.

May 2, 2005

weekending

The weekend started with a cast party for the exquisitely mounted One Wednesday at West Haddam High. We drank way until past the three o clock time. Fun was had by all. Then on Sat it was a Callaghan party-bring-your-own food and share it and play a game where you guess the first or last line of a book (kind of like balderdash) and drink late until at least the one o clock hour. Fun was had by all. Then on Sunday, there was a reading of my play Nerve at 13th Street rep on Sunday. They read the hell out of it. And afterwards a talkbalk which I let myself be talked into. Fun was had by all.