Ken Urban's group blogging their rehearsal process

http://thecommitteetheatre.blogspot.com/

Ok, so I am started writing something new, a kind of show I've never tried to write before. I don't want to be too specific because I don't want input yet but I am very excited about it and if it works I think it could be very good.

I'm also reading this book "This is not a novel" which is mostly about various artists, when and how they died, what they thought of one another, bizarre facts about them and about art. It's adding up. Part of what I'm getting is that there are so many different specific ways to be an artist. Some people didn't start writing until late in life. Some have a tremendous output and some have very little. Some were hugely successful in their lives and are now unknown and some are famous now but were unknown or poor or both when they died.

It's something to think about. For me it's mostly affirmation. I just have to keep doing it and not care what people think. and work hard on the next one and the next and the next.

PT in Sept

A workshop production of Pretty Theft by Adam Szymkowicz Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel with Stephen Davies, James Patrick Davis, Maxwell Angello De Paula, Ravenna Fahey, Anna O'Donohue, Jasmin M. Tavarez, Leigh Wade

Where: room 306, Juilliard (65th and Broadway) When: Sat, Sept 9 at 1pm and 6pm Sun, Sept 10 at 2pm Mon, Sept 11 at 7pm

There is limited space. Let me know if you want to go and I'll put you down.

I keep discarding what I've written and starting over. I have a couple things I want to write but am not sure I'm ready to sit down at the computer with them yet. Their skeletons are still being built.

Went to a rehearsal last night of the workshop production of Pretty Theft going up at Juilliard Sept 9. It's going really well. Let me know if you want to go and I'll let you know how to get in to see it.

40 yr old

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405422/

I saw the 40 year old virgin and it's really really funny. the previews made it look stupid but it's actually really a progressive comedy in terms of the casting and social criticism not to mention it's really funny. Judd Apatow is a genius. He created Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Seth Rogen and Steve Carell are also pretty amazing but really it's an ensemble piece. I highly reccomend.

Stop the occupation

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Get The Motherfucking Snakes Off the Plane

http://impeachbushcoalition.blogspot.com/

Get The Motherfucking Snakes Off the Motherfucking Plane

http://www.impeachbush.tv/

Reprinted with permission—this is part of a message Patrick Gabridge posted in a discussion over at playwrightbinge yahoo group. Very wise words Mr. Gabridge.

“ . . .It's not realistic to expect that your early work will be universally loved and produced. Writing plays is a tough thing, and it takes years to get good at it, and even then you still write stinkers (or at least I do). Also, as you build a body of work, it's so much easier to get productions, because you know which work is better and more likely to get picked (and people notice that you have a track record). I have a pretty sizable collection of short plays, but I don't submit them all with equal frequency. Some are stronger than others.

I would think a beginning writer would be lucky to have an acceptance rate of 5% (1 in 20).

Sometimes I talk to fiction writers, and they talk about how they got so many rejections, 15 or 20, before placing a piece. That must makes me laugh. I just added up the numbers in my database, and I've had about 704 rejections of play submissions since 1990. I don't mind getting a rejection, because I know that I'm doing my job (of sending plays out) and the theatres are doing theirs (reading the scripts and making decisions). I'm much more perturbed by theatres who never respond (I've done my job, but they're shirking theirs). The percentage of folks who respond can be quite high.

I must say, I'm a bit befuddled by the focus so much on rejection. Almost all of a writer's submissions will be rejected. That's just the way it is. If it's going to drive you into deep depression, you're better off being in another business, because it never goes away. My rule with rejection letters is: read them once and file them away. I don't dwell on them or study them. If they say something nice, I put them into a file for follow-ups. If they don't, I put them in a file that doesn't require follow ups.

The best way to stop being bothered by rejections is to get lots of them, because you're sending out lots of scripts. This means you're doing your job. A rejection is not cause to need a shoulder to cry on, it's just a sign that you should send out something new.

By all means, if a script is rejected time after time, maybe you'd better get the message. Maybe it's time to stop sending it out. (Not everything we write is pure genius. Except perhaps Mr. Levine.) Write something new. Write something better.”

Americans are idiots

29 is the new 22

Back in rehearsal. Back to life in NYC. Back to work. I work in administration. Administering. To the photocopier.

Welcome Malachy Walsh, my former roommate and a hell of a writer to the blogroll. (The Lit Dept) I know i don't alphabetize and that makes it hard to find people even for me but I will continue not to alphabetize or organize the blogroll in any way.

Dear Readers,

I have been approached to advertise on my blog for cash money. Should I do this? I did not start blogging as a money making venture but god knows the playwriting is not raking it in for me. ( not that this will allow me to quit my day job either)

What do you think? Is it morally bankrupt? I don't think it would affect my content in the slightest. but it is annoying. Ads annoy me. And I don't like capitalism but i do live in capitalist-daddy america and can't and I enjoy having money to pay rent and I enjoy owning things and being able to eat out sometimes.

Also I've been charging Matt Freeman for sometime to have his link on the blogroll. Sorry Matt.

got to sneak some writing in

I'm not complaining, I swear. It's just that I've been in rehearsal nonstop since may and I just had one week off in the woods sleeping in a tent by the most beautiful lake. At nights it was 50 degrees out and there was the threat of bears and my cell phone didn't work and my computer was home at its desk and it was wonderful relaxing adn it was calm and quiet and peaceful and nice and now back to the day job and now back to rehearsal. not that I'm complaining. this will make 4 full length plays this summer. And I have a stack of unproduced plays that for years I've been trying to get people to do and many of them will still never get done I'm sure but now when it rains... well I'm very tired right now. I don't know that I can stand it. and I love it and I can't handle it...and the day job and the day job, oh that day job. i'm back. how are you?

My friend Enrique got into Brown with a play called The Danger of Bleeding Brown. I feel this is no coincidence and so I am writing a new play called

Princess Grace Strolling Down Cherry Lane with Jerome and MacArthur and Eugene O'Neill and Other New Dramatists On The Way to the Summer Play Festival.

I'm off. See you in a week.

Photos by Zak Szyszko from Food For Fish Production

So yes, I've been busy, it's true, but the writing has gone out the window. It is true I've written a scene or two but I have no idea why I'm writing them or what they're about and I've already discarded one play (for now at least) and I have this problem where if I'm not writing I get edgy. I'm edgy. K and I are going camping for a week in the Adirondacks this next week so you may not hear from me for a while. Partially I'm annoyed because I used to be overflowing with stuff and I would have so much I would just throw stuff up here that was related to nothing, just doodles of words that I enjoyed and now I don't have those available. Not that I know you all were enjoying them, but not only do I have a responsibility to myself to write but I feel a responsibility to you too, misguided though that probably is.

self restraint muscle and you. or why I never do the dishes. Sorry, K.

http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19460829-12332,00.html At first glance, research of this sort is a comfort to those of us not exploding with raw talent. The science seems to back up the writer Kingsley Amis's well-known advice that "the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one's trousers to the seat of one's chair". Why, in that case anyone can write a book. Yet a small problem remains; namely, the problem of keeping the seat of one's trousers applied to the seat of one's chair.

Interesting conversation about marketing and theatre over at Matt Freeman's

thanks to Ripley (RIPPED) for this

http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre

AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER By Doug McIntyre Host, McIntyre in the Morning Talk Radio 790 KABC

"So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period. "

"I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money."

"With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask? "

Jesus was not pro war?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?ex=1154664000&en=304c373abd2cc406&ei=5087%0A

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

Creepy images that were not intended as such, Part 1

Coming Soon

A workshop production of Pretty Theft at Juilliard (no sets, lights or costumes but probably some Juilliard dancers and definitely 7 excellently talented Juilliard students)

Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Saturday Sept. 9,1PM and 6PM Sunday Sept. 10, 2PM Monday Sept. 11, 7PM

Mark your calendars and tell all your friends.

Last night was the closing of Food for Fish but I don't have any of those pictures yet so here are some photos from the closing night of Nerve which I never posted.

Word of The Day

Misodramist (mi SOD ra mist) noun One who hates playwrights

"You can't take that critic seriously. He is a misodramist"

Finally we have a specialized word we can use to shut people up and accuse them of something at the same time. in the past we've had to resort to calling people racist or unamerican or woman-hating or uncouth or pedophiliac.

In this PC world we live in (switch to Mac, people), I believe this term will catch on like wildfire.

a small request: Will you please call up your electric company and ask to switch to green energy? It takes a minute and your children or someone else's children will thank you for it. Please. seriously. It's getting pretty hot. The glaciers are melting. Seriously.

Also only 3 days left

Last week to see Food For Fish

another scene--first draft as always

(Sound of crickets. CELISE digs while SABRINA and ADELE relax and drink beer. They are more casual, sans hardhats. There is a body, DAVID, lying nearby.) C I don’t know why I always have to do the hard work, just because I’m the strongest. Yes, I have amazing genes which give me huge bulging muscles. I have terrific endurance. I’m seemingly tireless. I’m like a machine carved out of steel and iron and set to maximum efficiency at all times but why does that mean that I have to do all the heavy work? A Keep digging. C Isn’t that deep enough? A No, no. Keep going. C That’s plenty big. It’ll fit. S No. She’s right. It’s got to be deeper. C I hate you both. S Why me? C I dunno. Cause you’re there? S Yeah I hate myself too. (takes a drink) (Pause) C So Adele, you going to tell us or what? A Do you really want to hear? C It’ll pass the time. S I mean you have to tell the story. A Alright, alright. First let me say I’m sorry or whatever. I shouldn’t have done it. Right. And now that that’s out of the way… I was provoked. I was provoked over and over and I just had enough. Last night he comes over and he goes right to the refrigerator without a hello and drinks my orange juice right from the carton. I yell at him to get a glass and so he pours it in a glass, drains the glass and then he leaves it in the sink. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked him not to leave the glass in the sink. S So what did you do? A I picked up the glass, smashed it on the table and used the biggest shard to slit his throat. He didn’t even see it coming. C That’s messy. A I know. Took me forever to clean up all the glass and blood. S Did he scream? A He gurgled. S Well, that’s something. C Is it deep enough now? A Let’s give it a shot. (ADELE and SABRINA pick up the body and put it in the hole.) A That should be ok. C I guess you want me to fill it in now. A Could you? C I hate you both. (CELISE begins filling in the hole)

a post from Johnna about a Steven Dietz workshop: Don't think in images. Think in motion. Poets and prose writers can see a chair in a room and write about it. They can describe the colors of the chair, the structural composition, the physical reality of it, the ideas is evokes. But a playwright's job is to look at the chair and imagine the motion around it. Who just sat in it? How many people this week? Where did it come from? Did they buy it in China on their honey moon? Is this the last chair she held the baby in? Etc. This is how you begin to see story. You don't describe objects or locations-- you try to see the motion around them. and also this line: If someone tells you something in a scene, nothing is happening in that scene. Get in late on all your stories and even on the scenes-- it is okay to begin where other writers would put the climax-- it is often preferrable to start at the climax.

future of cars

thanks to Mike Daisey for the link. The trick? The Tesla Roadster is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries -- the same cells that run a laptop computer. Range: 250 miles. Fuel efficiency: 1 to 2 cents per mile. Top speed: more than 130 mph. The first cars will be built at a factory in England and are slated to hit the market next summer. And Tesla Motors, Eberhard's company, is already gearing up for a four-door battery-powered sedan.