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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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Sep 29, 2005

scene 13 from play in progress

THIRTEEN (SYLVIA in streetlamp.) SYLVIA This is how it was. I decided I would set about to understand him even if he didn’t want to show me the parts of him I wanted to see. The boy had led his life as an enigma, never letting anyone see more than they had to. But I was an investigative reporter. I would crack this wide open. With a sledgehammer if I had to. Something you should know about me if we’re going to continue—sometimes I use a sledgehammer when a hand is all that’s necessary and sometimes I use a hand when maybe a word would do. Tonight was one of these nights. I didn’t know how to choose—what were the rules to this venture? What were the signals? The body language? I tried to pick someone who appealed, who seemed lonely, someone who had shoes I liked and who walked in a way I wished I walked. Someone different, someone better. (SASHA appears in a streetlamp) SYLVIA I saw her and immediately knew she was the one. What did he say? That it must feel right before it feels wrong? It felt right or it felt something—something buzzing and nice and scary all at once. SASHA Excuse me. SYLVIA Huh. SASHA Do you know where there’s a liquor store around here? SYLVIA Ummmm. There might be, uh. (SYLVIA leans forward and kisses her. SASHA backs away and then slaps her.) SASHA Don’t you ever do that! Don’t you ever do that! (SYLVIA crumbles to a heap on the ground.) SYLVIA I’m sorry. I’m sorry. SASHA (backing away.) You just shouldn’t do that. Don’t ever do that. (Exit SASHA.) (SYLVIA sobs.) (On the other side of the stage in another streetlamp, ALICE is walking alone. BOBBIE approaches her. SYLVIA continues to sob.) (BOBBIE and ALICE look at each other. They stop. They continue again towards each other. They stop. It is almost like a dance. Then they are together and they are kissing. ALICE’s eyes are closed. She becomes elated, he, more depressed and then he is gone.) ALICE Oh. Wow. (A loud sob from SYLVIA.)

Sep 28, 2005

Bananiaregalia

You may remeber a pst I recently posted about a banana problem. I just got a comment from someone in France who will remain anonymous toting a banana guard. Who knew such a thing existed but more importantly, is it worth the 6 bucks?

Sep 26, 2005

PT

I just got an email from a theatre in LA whose work I have seen and enjoyed who is doing a closed reading of my play Pretty Theft next week. If I were rich I would be flying to LA to see this reading. I am not rich.

Just a quick note to say

Congratulations to Sheila and Soph. The wedding was beautiful yet laid-back and we got to make wishes on rocks. The late night party was a super blast function. I wore a hat. Dancing and drinking was performed by all. I'm sure others will be posting pictures soon.

Sep 23, 2005

Go Rolin Jones!!

Can I recommend to you New Yorkers The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow--wonderful. Saw it last night for 10 bucks. The production, direction, score, lighting, set, all top notch. I can't remember the last time I saw such a well produced play. But more than that, it's beautifully touching and funny. It's not the kind of play that teaches you something and makes you rethink the world but the kind you immerse yourself in and are moved by. The humanity of it that Jones is able to illuminate. It's the best thing I've seen in a long time.

Sep 22, 2005

Learn from my mistakes or What's that in your pocket?

Bananas do not travel well. You might see a banana on your shelf and think, “hey why don’t I take that to work for lunch.” If you’re like me however, you might be taking the subway which might be cramped and your bag may be jostled. And when you get to work your yellow banana that had only a small brown spot might be completely bruised and brown and you would see what I see now. That bananas do not travel well.

Catholic (not to be confused with Callaholic)

NY Times article about the a Vatican Ban on homosexual priests. As someone who was raised Catholic, I am always a little surprised at how emotional I get still about the stupidity of the Catholic Church. "The irony is, if you look at the exact ages and seminary graduating classes of those priests who were convicted of sexual abuse in the past few years, they were not on the whole people who entered seminaries in the 1980's, when there began to be more openness about homosexuality," he said. "These were people from the old closeted days" "So what the church is doing is repeating, in a weird way, the conditions they had before that gave rise to the abuse crisis." I still don't know why priests are expected to be celibate and also are often expected to give marriage counseling. And why can't women be priests. It's a self destructive thing, limiting even more who the priests will be and part of me wants the Catholic Church to self destruct and another part of me wants them to be benevolent somehow.

Sep 20, 2005

An Open Letter to a Stranger

Why are you trying to do my play without asking me first? What's wrong with you? Don't you think I can use google too? I will get you. Watch out.

Sep 19, 2005

I'm burnt out

I'm watching too many plays--writing too much. Working too of course. I'm totally burnt out and need to work on the screenplay more and rewrite Pretty Theft and also find a time to have my life and think and talk about things that aren't theatre related. Everything in my life is all scheduled out and all takes place after work. My week fills up and then my writing and living time is swallowed up too. How do other people do it? Do they not have a day job? And huge loans to pay back from school?

Sep 16, 2005

piece from play in progress

(BOBBIE finishes typing and takes the paper out of the typewriter. He hands it to SYLVIA who reads it silently.) SYLVIA This is what I remember from the page he handed me. “Where were you?” it said. BOBBIE (Quoting from the page) Have you been here the whole time in the corner in the shadows sipping your lager? Me, all I feel are clusters of light, the rat a tat rumble of oncoming headlights, fireworks, bonfires, incredible stabs of concentrated heat hurtling towards my eyes. “Even death can’t find me here,” I think, as your stale breath seeps deeply into my lungs. You are no beauty or at least open-handed I can count twelve or more with tauter looks whose tongues I’ve touched. And you, steeped in the corner for five minutes, seven hours, ten years, who can say how long? How long? Your angles, curves, brush of lash, stiff lip on edge of glass. When did you sneak in under the line of mine to flip the switch? Don’t know how you did it. Didn’t know it was there but it’s like an extra sense opened up or a new way of living like learning you can breathe underwater or understand binary code. All the ones and zeros suddenly crystal. It’s dim here but my irises are jagged, prickly, straining to make sense of the oncoming flood. The flood envelops me if I chance to let a glance graze you so I try to look at you only when you’re distracted and looking far away from me. It hurts less that way. SYLVIA Then he took the page from me. And from nowhere produced an empty wine bottle, and rolling the page up, slipped it, smooth as can be, into the bottle and corked it.

Projectile

What I didn't tell you was about my first day of class. I left work early so I could get my required Tetnus shot before class. Now I'm not good with needles and have a history of sometimes fainting. This time I didn't faint. However, I did projectile vomit all over my pants, all over the floor in the heath center, probably all over the nurses (or are they doctors?). They were very nice about it and lent me scrubs to wear to class--or the pants anyway. I had some bright blue pants for my first day of playwriting class. Because of my vomiting they decided I didn't have to have the hep b shot, explaining to me I could only get it from blood. "Like from sharing heroin needles?" I said. "You may have noticed I don't like needles." They also reminded me that I wouldn't have to get another tetnus shot for 10 years. I plan to spend the next 10 years being bitten by dogs and stepping on rusty nails. Hell, what do I have to worry about?

Sep 15, 2005

Plot and Story for Film and TV

For you screenwriters or TV writers, an interesting blog post about plot and story from Kung Fu Monkey aka John Rogers. Thanks to Ripley for pointing this out.
type failure into google and see what's the no 1 hit. Thanks to mike daisey for this.
So Teri Parker who I went to Columbia with has asked me to be one of 7 artists to correspond with some kids she's teaching about theatre--in theory they will ask questions and I will know the answers or I will ask you, the blogosphere and you will tell me. Anyway, I am mailing off a packet of info now to the good kids of Greenville, SC. Leave me a comment when you get it, kids. Adam

Sep 13, 2005

Grrr.

She was the kind of girl who would make a plaster mask of a tiger to practice her mask work but when it was formed and painted it would simply sit on her bedside table. Beside it you might find a book of untouched Mac Wellman plays. At three in the morning on the day before a big audition, she would get inspired, perhaps, and she would put on the mask and growl while reading Albanian Softshoe or Cellophane. Sometimes this girl seems more productive than me.

Sep 12, 2005

Thanksgiving, already?

It's about that time of year again--the time to think about that Thanksgiving Play you want your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders to perform in front of an invited audience, perhaps in a classroom. Where will you find this play? Why don't you run over to Dramasource and buy the play yours truly wrote on commission for his older sister. I just lost whatever downtown cred I had, didn't I? Oh well. With each copy you purchase, you will put 60 cents into my pocket (minus the 20 percent agent commission). I could use your 60 cents. If you want to just give me 60 cents and want to forgo purchasing the Thanksgiving play and paying my agent, well we can make that happen too.

Big Congrats To J and K!!!

Sat I attended a party to honor the marriage of J and K. Being a talented group of people, many of the attendants got up and did touching pieces in their honor. I wish I had had the impulse to get up and do something in front of the group (or the content to share) It's nice to see love. And the wedding sounded ideal. I unfortunately came to the shindig with a headache. What's best for a headache? Why beer of course. I left with a bigger headache. Now I'm back at work after a three day orientation hiatus. The real world is much harsher than the soft lights and large open spaces of Juilliard.

Sep 9, 2005

Blog review from AZ

The best review I've ever received About my short play Save Oh. But my favorite was Save. You know how I sometimes talk about how such-and-such is a "perfect" story? Save is a perfect story, perfectly told. Thank you jamiam from livejournal. Note to Larry: You see the kind of self congratulating posts I am forced to put up? Get me that article I commissioned.

Sep 8, 2005

Juilliard Days

Except for having to get a physical at 9:40 tomorrow morning and possibly having to get some shots of some sort, Juilliard is a magical dreamworld so far. Keep in mind I have not yet begun classes, however, there is plenty of talk of support. Free photocopies. Free mailing. Free classes (if I have the time, which I probably don't. Rehearsal space is available apparently. Also some amount of money will be given to us. Any amount of money thrills me to the core. And apparently there will be help with our professional lives--advice of course, help with where to send plays perhaps phone calls made on our behalfs. They basically said to us today tell us what you want--challenge us and we'll see what we can do. and we all get golden chariots. I spent many hours watching actor monologues today--I am bleary-eyed but saw some good stuff some mediocre stuff and some great stuff. Tomorrow I will see many more actor monologues.

Sep 7, 2005

today

Today is Juilliard orientation where I will get much needed orienting. A tour, perhaps some registration. Today will culminate in a school picnic. Yum. And of course they will tell me all the secrets to success and happiness in the theatrical world. Last night T-Dawg had a going away/birthday party. He goes off to Austin, TX to perform in a new Dan Dietz play. He will be missed here in New Babylon. Bonne Travails T-Dawg!!

Sept 10 in Philly come see my death play

There will be three Death plays presented this Saturday night, September 10 as part of the closing night of the First Philly FridgeFest. Where: Spirit Wind 213 New Street, Philadelphia (one block north of the Ben Franklin Bridge) (take Market-Frankford line to 2nd Street and walk north) When: 6:30pm onward Other performances include: ==>songs by Kurt Weill ==>MY SIN, by New York performance artist Toni Silver ==>Fly by Night, the culmination of a 24-hour playmaking experiment ==> Death plays by Adam Szymkowicz, Sheila Callaghan, and Sam Wallin ==>and musical performers TBA

Sep 2, 2005

photo from New Orleans

or this

The white couple "found" some food in a grocery store, the black man "looted" it.

Katrina Aftermath

I'm so pissed off about the way this disaster is being handled I can't speak. Michael Moore says it much better than I ever could. Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag. Or Paul Krugman at NY Times about how this was preventable. Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening. What is wrong with you, Mr. Bush? Why aren't you taking care of your own people? I am so angry.

Sep 1, 2005

Dear Apple or Microsoft or Google or Someone,

Alright, here's what I want. A camera phone with radio that is also an ipod and a pda. That way I can hook it up to my computer and while it uploads photos it has taken, it downloads my calendar, address book and songs. And I want it to be small and have a multi-use headset with really good sound quality that I could also use to record my voice or a concert. and I want this machine to be really cheap so I can somehow afford to get one. Is that too much to ask?