Apr 26, 2007
last weekend for Pretty Theft in Seattle
First Weekend for Food For Fish in Los Angeles
and on monday reading of my play Incendiary
Apr 25, 2007
Apr 24, 2007
the first half of my scene adaptation for the Dream Chain
Adam Szymkowicz
Act 1, Scene 1
(SEGISMUNDO in a spotlight wears heavy chains that
restrict his movement. He is shackled, weighed down,
and sad.)
SEGISMUNDO
Misery! Woe am I! Woe! I have seen from the jail
window the calm water, the laughing children, the
flowers in bloom, birds of many colors—I don't know
their names—if they see me with a book, they take it
away before I can learn the difference between a
sparrow and a hawk. They don't want me to know things
in case . . . in case I might do something. You don't
know what I could do. Misery! All I know is misery.
Woe. Woe. Woe-Woe. The day I was born they knew to
put me in shackles. Before they washed me off even,
I was in irons. Cleanliness don't come before public
safety. I'm a menace, you see. Look real close.
Can't you see I'm a menace? They could see it in my
eyes. They could hear it when they pressed their ears
up to the womb. They learned something then I guess.
Don't get too close. I'm not safe. I'm evil. They
tell me I'm evil.
(ROSAURA rides in on CLARIN's back, a riding crop in
one hand and reins in the other. She is dressed as a
man. CLARIN wears a clown nose and, besides ROSAURA,
carries two heavy suitcases. They do not see
SEGISMUNDO.)
ROSAURA
Whoa! Whoa! Hold up there, horsey!
CLARIN
I'm not a horse. I'm Clarin.
ROSAURA
I'll say you're not a horse. A horse is quick and
intelligent and brave and strong.
CLARIN
Right. I'm none of them things. I can't even neigh
proper.
ROSAURA
You should have thought of that before you shot our
horses.
CLARIN
They were moving too slow.
ROSAURA
They're moving much slower now.
CLARIN
I hate Poland. Remind me again why we came to Poland.
ROSAURA
I have business.
CLARIN
Right, what does that mean? And why are you dressed
like a man?
ROSAURA
It's better to dress like a man.
CLARIN
Yeah but no one will believe you.
ROSAURA
Everyone will believe me.
CLARIN
No one will believe you.
ROSAURA
Clarin!
CLARIN
I mean you're not very manly.
ROSAURA
Is it because I'm so beautiful?
CLARIN
No, that's not it.
ROSAURA
You don't think I'm beautiful?
CLARIN
Are you propositioning the help?
ROSAURA
Clarin!
CLARIN
Because I heard rumors, sure, but I never thought--
ROSAURA
Let's look for a place to stay.
CLARIN
I guess I could sleep here and you could sleep over
there. Or I could sleep over there and you here. Or
I guess if you wanted me to sleep with you I guess I
could make an exception because it's only you and me
here alone and I'm lonely and you're lonely and I'm a
man and you're a woman and your hair looks quite nice
in this light if I squint, like this.
(The rustling of chains.)
ROSAURA
Shh! What's that?
CLARIN
I don't know. Don't let it ruin the mood.
ROSAURA
Is this a building?
SEGISMUNDO
Woe! Woe is me! Misery! Sadness! Oh-Woe!
ROSAURA
Did you hear that?
CLARIN
No. Take off your pants.
(ROSAURA enters the building and CLARIN follows,
undoing his belt. They stop when they see
SEGISMUNDO.)
SEGISMUNDO
Why was I built like this? Why? I was born this way,
don't you see? My heart they say is the largest heart
ever found in a person's chest. When it beats, it
shakes the walls. They are terrified of it, which is
why I'm here. Or it is my eyes. My eyes they say are
more destructive than any hammer ever made. Birds
fall from the sky if they chance to look at me
head-on. Or my voice. The wild beasts I the
forest, in the ground, in the ocean all tremble when
they hear the sound that can come from the back of my
throat. Or it was these fingers.
ROSAURA
Fingers.
SEGISMUNDO
Or this skin.
ROSAURA
Skin.
SEGISMUNDO
Or this tongue.
ROSAURA
Oh!
SEGISMUNDO
What was that?!
ROSAURA
He's so beautiful.
CLARIN
He's OK.
SEGISMUNDO
What's that? Who's that? A spy? Who sent you? Have
you come here to beat me?
ROSAURA
(stepping forward)
No.
(SEGISMUNDO grabs her in his large arms.)
SEGISMUNDO
I can't let you live.
ROSAURA
No!
CLARIN
Let her live!
SEGISMUNDO
What, another one?
CLARIN
No.
ROSAURA
Please, sir.
SEGISMUNDO
You shouldn't have heard me.
ROSAURA
But, your voice. It made me feel—
(Romantic music begins to play. ROSAURA touches his
face.)
SEGISMUNDO
I've never been touched like this.
ROSAURA
Your skin is so rough.
SEGISMUNDO
I've never felt like this.
ROSAURA
Your body is so warm.
SEGISMUNDO
I don't understand what's happening.
ROSAURA
Your eyes are so strong.
SEGISMUNDO
I feel a rising in my chest, a swelling of my throat.
It's like the first moment of something unexpected.
ROSAURA
I feel it too.
SEGISMUNDO
It's like something I can't explain.
ROSAURA
I can't explain it either.
SEGISMUNDO
Stay here with me.
CLOTALDO
(Offstage)
Intruders! Intruders!
(The music stops)
CLARIN
Oh, shit!
ROSAURA
What's going on?
SEGISMUNDO
You're not supposed to be here. No one is supposed to
see me.
ROSAURA
Not ever?
SEGISMUNDO
They will kill you.
CLARIN
They will what?!!
(CLOTALDO enters shouting followed by armed GUARDS.)
CLOTALDO
Intruders! Seize them
Apr 23, 2007
come see it
By Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Kip Fagan
Apr 30 at 7:00PM
at Ars Nova
511 West 54th Street, just west of 10th Avenue
The event is free but rsvp's are a must. Rsvp at
rsvp @ arsnovanyc.com
Incendiary is the comic tale of a combustible group of
people. Elise is a pyromaniac fire chief. Jake is the
police detective investigating her fires. Carrie is a
therapist who's trying to get a client to quit some
truly destructive behavior, and Gary is leading the
life of a somewhat ineffective corporate spy. As the
smoke begins to billow and the sparks begin to fly,
they're all about to find out that love is the most
incendiary thing.
----------------
SEATTLE, one more week of Pretty Theft
LA, Food For Fish starts next week
Apr 20, 2007
from monologist Mike Daisey on his show in Cambridge
disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian
group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to
physically attack my work by pouring water on and
destroying the original of the show outline.
If you'd like the full story, it's at the top of my
site:
md
Apr 19, 2007
Theatreforte
Pretty much all the theatre blogs around organized by
location (although they believe Travis is writing from
Texas)
shows to see
http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/131140
and Suburban Peepshow
Apr 16, 2007
hack hack, sniffle
announcement as I did last year, however was still
aware of what time it was being announced because it
took place in the building I work in.
Got two rejection letters. they were both very nice
rejection letters. the kind you want to get if you
are going to be rejected. I'm getting a lot of these
lately. It's both encouraging and discouraging. I
was swearing to give up playwriting forever and then
immediately sitting down to work on my new play--both
in a dayquil haze.
It's so hard. Why is it so hard?
Apr 15, 2007
Matt Wells
new RAT/national indie theatre collective.
Apr 14, 2007
Apr 13, 2007
the list
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/10/treasury_depts_250pa.html
"The list is 250 pages long. If you do business with a
person on the list, you can pay $10 million in fines
and go to jail for 30 years. "Doing business" can be
as simple as selling one of those people a sandwich.
Not an anthrax sandwich -- like a roast beef on rye. "
Apr 12, 2007
Class
agreement the union and university made (I'm an office
worker at a university). I haven't had an increase in
pay since October 2005. I will be getting an increase
finally and it will be retroactive to Feb of this
year. But it's 3 percent. Looking at the schedule
for the next five years according to the agreement,
there is no way we will ever get ahead of inflation.
I mean part of the reason I have this job is to pay
off student loans. It's not a job I have because I
love my work--it's a job for the money. And as jobs
for the money, it sucks, quite frankly.
I am able to pay the monthly installment on my huge
loans and buy food and see occasional plays but I have
nothing left over. I am breaking even. The only
money I have been able to save was the small amount
I'm making from royalties.
So that's my life right now. How are you?
Apr 11, 2007
ny times article
"It is a misconception that the differences between
men's and women's brains are small or erratic or found
only in a few extreme cases, Dr. Larry Cahill of the
University of California, Irvine, wrote last year in
Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Widespread regions of the
cortex, the brain's outer layer that performs much of
its higher-level processing, are thicker in women. The
hippocampus, where initial memories are formed,
occupies a larger fraction of the female brain."
and this:
Such experiments do not show the same clear divide
with women. Whether women describe themselves as
straight or lesbian, "Their sexual arousal seems to be
relatively indiscriminate — they get aroused by both
male and female images," Dr. Bailey said. "I'm not
even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they
have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and
most choose to have sex with men."
Apr 10, 2007
these times
http://lucaskrech.livejournal.com/
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-enemy-of-people.html
"I confess to having been furious that any American
citizen would be singled out for governmental
harassment because he or she criticized any elected
official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is,
in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the
First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of
constitutional government. This effort to punish a
critic states my lecture's argument far more
eloquently and forcefully than I ever could."
Apr 9, 2007
Please mark your calendar
April 30th at 7pm. Kip Fagan will direct. Hope to
see you there!
2007 nytr
piece in it. Check it out. It's a very cool book!
plugs for other people
tomorrow
http://matthewfreeman.blogspot.com/2007/04/dream-of-ridiculous-man-tonight.html
Second, see James Comtois dance around without a shirt
on. Really.
http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/2007/04/opening-tonight.html
Third the soho rep writer director lab.
http://jasongrote.blogspot.com/2007/04/soho-rep-writerdirector-lab-reading.html
class
http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/whatever_happen.html
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. As a
playwright, I am writing from a certain point of view
which is MY point of view. It comes from where I grew
up and how I grew up and the people I know and how I
see all those factors. I was raised Catholic. My
father's family was Polish Catholic. My mother's
family was all sorts of English, Dutch, Scottish but
basically the culture she came from was a Protestant
American culture, though she herself was not praticing
Protestant.
Both my parent were teachers who taught in public
schools, my mother high school math and my father 5th
and 7th grade--specializing in science. My father
also started a series of businesses while teaching
full time. He built picnic tables then he opened a
video store in the mid eighties, then he started
buying houses. Basically he's a workaholic. Both my
parents are now retired but he is still buying houses
and working on them and then trying to resell them.
And so through lots of hard work and smart investment
he is doing quite well financially right now, or at
least much better than a teacher is expected to be
doing.
So basically my point is that I grew up in a house
that was a hard working house and also not exactly
working class and not exactly not working class.
(I've spent many hours roofing). I went to a public
school and a public university. I grew up in a small
town in Connecticut, which is something that is hard
to explain unless you too grew up in a small town in
Connecticut. And I think a lot of my small town view
of the world remains as well as the idea that I have
to have a day job (not to mention the grad school debt
that I'm currently saddled with, which makes my day
job necessary.)
Based on the way my parents worked and worked, I am
likewise working a day job and doing my best to write
plays as my other job. It's what I'm expecting myself
to do and it's also incredibly tiring. And while I
know that I do tend to write more when I have a full
time job, I also have a lot less time to write.
I know I would be more focused on my playwriting if I
didn't have a 9-5 job. And I know that it would have
been helpful if I had gone to undergrad at Princeton
or Yale or somewhere that had had a theatre major--
course when I was applying to school I didn't know I
wanted to be a playwright. But if I had gone to an
Ivy league school I think I would have a clearer
picture of the wealthy people that make up New York
audiences. Six Degrees of Seperation is a fantastic
play but it's not a play I am equipped to write
because I am not of that world.
And so sometimes I wonder if the wealthy theatregoers
are interested in what I have to say. Is my point of
view something that would interest them? I am not
Jewish. I'm not writing about people living on the
Upper West side. I have a certain unique point of
view and some of that has to do with growing up where
and when and how I did.
Considering the price of theatre tickets, the off
broadway and broadway audiences are and have to be
wealthy these days.
At the same time, I want my plays to be produced in
small theatres throughout the country. I want my
plays to mean something to the actors in Michigan who
are holding down day jobs and then come to rehearse at
night.
And I want to find a way to make a living writing.
Because I'm so very tired. Especially on a Monday.
Apr 6, 2007
explain this to me
anything and I do do work at work. i swear. Just ask
the pile of completed work. but someone please
explain to me how my amazon sales rank was around 2
million yesterday and now is at 126,643. I mean I
know it doesn't mean I sold a couple thousand books
yesterday but what does it mean exactly? How is it
possible for something to fluctutate like that?
OK, sorry for bothering you. Go buy my play.