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

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry, can't talk now. Busy. So very busy. Seen my website?

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!

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.

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.

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

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)

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!

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.

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.

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.

when I close my eyes are you there?

When you're not around, your friends still have experiences without you. The blogs tell you it's so.

One Wed at West Haddam High

The first night went quite well. There were a couple line problems and some actor-induced surprises, but I was psyched and the actors were funny and good and the lights looked good. We ran out of seats so the one extra person stood in the doorway and Antonia and I sat in the tiny hallway and watched from the side. I thought it was a resounding success. Maybe in a few months I will be able to see if I can revise it. Is it good? Who knows what that means. Sometimes I think it's super fucking amazing. And sometimes it seems hollow and stupid, maybe because I wrote it so fast. But people seem to like it. I like to think it wasn't a waste of time and energy. Not that it matters because we can't stop...we must go and go and go. One more night and then what? I got to get going on another project. Why am I not writing writing?

The amazing google translator

I've discovered something wonderful. When you use the google translator to translate something from english to another language and back again, it takes your words and creates something completely different. I fed a short play into it. Here's the opening monologue: First the English ED I’ve been careful, always very careful. Before touching a woman I put on rubber gloves. Some women are taken aback sure, when you pull out rubber gloves and dental dams but what kinds of women are those?—women that know they have diseases. And those are not the type of women I want to know in any case. So when people ask me if I’m upset at being a virgin at my age, I say no way. I’m just looking for a clean woman. I am not against kissing—I just want to make sure her mouth is well cleaned first. If she would brush her teeth and then gargle with mouthwash for a minimum of sixty seconds. I, of course would also brush and mouthwash. I like cleanliness, that’s all. We are all dirty. God knows I scrub my hands before putting those rubber gloves on. SNOW translated into Korean and back into English with google. Attention is deep and the ed I ' ve which is, attention it is deep always quite. Before touching the woman, above being born, it put the milky lotion gloves. You at the outside yu with the misfortune gloves but it will be stimulated type guy multi dentistry dam of the woman who knows the disease which will have they the those? The women time, el the E for woman has the aback which is positive and it goes. And they go out and inside the what kind of box the egg is not the shedding of blood of the woman. It is a virgin in my age to turn over and the I ' M it puts, when or it does not talk a method, when the person asking in in me, is like this. Only it searches for the purity one woman the I ' M The kissing which is born? The I about under direction only it was positive, it manufactures and the her mouth it is well cleaned first anh it is not. Her sixty seconds for a minimum in the mouthwash the her and that time when gargle brush quality. I of process, and under mouthwash brush quality. that ' S all it likes the purity which is born. We all more lep c. It went out and that milky lotion gloves before putting the thing above, it removes my hand the fact that it wore, it holds. Oh those milky lotion gloves! In some languages my character, Ed, is "Staple," in another "Wedge," another "And" and another (Chinese, I think) Ed is translated as "Mandrel" which merriam webster says is a usually tapered or cylindrical axle, spindle, or arbor inserted into a hole in a piece of work to support it during machining b : a metal bar that serves as a core around which material (as metal) may be cast, molded, forged, bent, or otherwise shaped. 2 : the shaft and bearings on which a tool (as a circular saw) is mounted. You know. An Ed. Something can be done with this. As long as Google doesn't do something whacked like fix this. If that is even possible. The poetry of the modern age.

public vs. private

Is it worthwhile to document a process or will the documenting and the examining destroy the process? I'm thinking of posting the notes I write when I'm building a new play. Is this interesting or valuable? Will it make me a boor? Does anyone even really care? Do I even care? Perhaps if I did this I would learn something about what I'm doing or perhaps it would stop me in my tracks and make me unable to continue. Also by actually typing up scribbling, I'm making the scribbling permanent and therefore making it harder to change it. So maybe I won't do it. Also I'm not sure the actual process has much to do with what I write down. I think it's more what I don't write down. What stays in there and reappears and reappears is maybe more interesting. Because what I write down is partially just details I think I'll forget and not the meat of the thing, whatever that is.

Start of www.adamszymkowicz.com

What's that? You're a theatre looking for a good play? Or you're a film company looking for a good feature? And instead of going through a pile of submissions you're online randomly surfing? Why not surf over to www.adamszymkowicz.com and while you're at it, why not send me a big bucket of money.