May Day Play Day: Open and Shut (and a link to the script)

10:48pm, Saturday. Well, the show has opened and closed. I had no trouble staying awake, thanks to good performances and a Red Bull right before the house opened. All four shows went well. We had a receptive crowd, close to capacity (which is especially impressive considering it's Memorial Day weekend). My show went second, and it held its own with the other plays. My actors did an especially fine job, really bringing in some emotional depth in front of the audience. Moments that I'd been doubting came off very nicely, and the first half of the show really sailed by. I can see where I need to cut at the end, but even so, it was a powerful play, and not one where you'd say, Oh, well, what would you expect, he wrote it in the middle of the night.

This afternoon, I was just so exhausted when I got home. I felt like the play really sucked and how were we going to pull it all together in time. Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine. (Tracy says I was exactly the same the last time I did this event.) The nap this afternoon helped a lot.

I got back to the theatre, mid-way through our tech. Unfortunately, we lost some of the fun sound stuff I'd hope to have at the beginning, just because the CD player wouldn't cooperate. Oh, well. The actors were pretty solid on their lines by the time I got there at 6, and once tech was over they ran it three or four more times.

Here is my cast (photo from last night: Shaun Butler, Kyla Astley, and Mikey DiLoreto).

Kudos to them and my director, Brian Anastas, for working their asses off all day and night (and being completely off book on a 15-page play by 8pm). Thanks to Mike Manship and Colleen Rua for sponsoring the whole event.

I don't usually post my scripts online, but I know folks have been following the growth of this play. So I've posted the script on line: click here to see a pdf of A Bright New Morning. I'm still sleep deprived, but this is pretty much the script did tonight, plus a few small additional cuts.

I definitely learned that I'm not good at cutting down a script on no sleep. Lots of other lessons, too, but for the moment I just need to get some sleep.