Update: DC, Kindle, and QueryTracker Interview

So I've been on the run all week since getting back from DC on Sunday night, just keeping busy with a zillion different things (broken clothes dryer, teaching a worm composting class, lots of snow shoveling, and some writing).  Here's a few quick things:

• The DC trip was great.  As usual, the folks at Madcap, led by Managing Director Shawn Helm, took good care of me and my work. (And so did my friends, Dawn and Chip, who let me crash at their house, and Frank, who drove me home after the Friday show).  On Saturday, we gathered with the cast (Annie Hunt, Kate Hundley, Mike Rodriguez, Jack Powers, and Carl Brandt Long) and director (Paul McLane) around 11am and worked through my new full-length play, Flight, scene by scene, in rehearsal.  It was just the right kind of process for where I am with the script right now--lots of discussion and questions.  Real focused time, to think about the script both in the detailed moments and overall.  At 3pm, we had the reading for a small crowd, followed by a brief discussion.  After going through the script one step at a time, it was useful to finally,read it straight through, and get a sense of flow.   I was left with lots to think about, and took pages and pages of notes, that afternoon, that night, the next day, in the airport.  This week, I've been making more and more changes to the script.
  
• I had a great time at the Madcap Winter Carnival performances.  There's still one weekend left, if you're in town.  I was pleased with how Escape to Wonderland turned out, and all the plays were fun.  The Saturday show was particularly sharp, with a warm, sold-out house.  I was particularly fond of Paul Bunyan vs the Tree Conservation Coalition, a short musical by Shawn Northrip, who wrote Cautionary Tales for Adults and the Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles, which I saw at a Winter Carnival a few years ago and still think is one of the funnier plays I've ever seen.
• My play Blinders is now available for the Kindle, here.  The publisher for Blinders, Original Works Publishers, is trying something new.  I'm very curious to see if people have an interest in buying and reading plays as e-books. 
• There's an interview with me about how I found my new agent for my novels, up on the querytracker.net site.  Querytracker is an immensely useful tool for fiction writers, as they try to find agents and publishers.  They sometimes publish "success stories" about writers who use their site, so there I am. 

That's about all the excitement for me. I should probably start stretching, so I can get ready for more snow shoveling. I like to shovel snow (don't tell anyone), and since we live in Boston, we've been getting plenty of chances this winter.

Heading to DC for Madcap and Flight

This weekend, I'll be visiting Washington, DC, where the Madcap Players are producing my play Escape to Wonderland as part of their Winter Carnival Festival.  They're also putting together a reading of my play, Flight, this Saturday, at 3pm, at the H Street Playhouse (1365 H Street, NE). I'm still working feverishly on rewrite to the play, trying to make the most of the reading opportunity.  We've got a great cast and director--I expect to have fun and learn a lot about the play.  (It's about a young woman who lives in the airport, to escape the trials of life and loss.  Her problems follow her there, in some very dramatic ways.)

If you're around, I hope you'll come join us.

Just Ask (how to get a new play reading)

Next weekend, on Saturday the 22nd, I have a reading of my newest full-length play, Flight.  Madcap Players in Washington, DC,  is putting the reading together, actor/director Paul McClane will direct.  I'm going to be down there to see Madcap's Winter Carnival festival, where they're producing my short play, Escape to Wonderland.  The reason I'm getting this reading:  I asked.

I'm not saying that as playwrights we always get what we ask for (if only that were true).  But sometimes, we need to remember that it's all right to ask for what we need.  Especially if we already have a relationship with a theatre (Madcap staged my full-length play, Constant State of Panic, last January)--we can't be shy.  In this case, I asked for something that hopefully won't be too complicated--they already have a bunch of actors around, they already have a space that's rented and available.  And even more importantly for getting a Yes, we can hopefully use it as a way to increase publicity for the Winter Carnival--my hope is that some people who come to the 3pm reading will stick around for dinner nearby and come back and see the show at 8pm.  It certainly gives us an excuse to send out a few more e-mails.

For me, I'll get to hear my whole play read in front of a small audience, by very talented DC actors.  And, of course, I'll be able to show Madcap what I'm up to with this new play (and I already know they like my work).

There are a lot of one-act festivals out there, and I'd love to see more playwrights work with theatres to do readings like this, where the cost and logistics can piggyback on existing projects, and everyone wins.  It can be a bit of extra expense and organization, but it's much easier and cheaper than putting together a whole staged readings festival.  And it allows the relationship between the theatre and playwrights to deepen, beyond just the production of the ten-minute play.

I'm a big fan of playwrights putting together their own staged readings--it's a way to get what you need, when you need it, instead of waiting around for someone to do it for you.  But working cooperatively with a theatre is even more effective, because it builds and strengthens vital relationships.

be the first to get a ticket for Constant State of Panic

Okay, opening is more than two months away, but just in case you want to be the first one on your block to say you have your tickets for Constant State of Panic, they are now available on line.

The show, being produced by the Madcap Players, runs from January 14-31 at the H Street Playhouse in Washington, DC. Tickets are $20 (with discounts for groups, and there are preview and other discounts, too). It's gonna be a fun show.

Just for fun, let's say that the first person to buy a ticket online gets a free, signed copy of Tornado Siren (my novel). Just let me know that you've bought your ticket, and I'll check to see if you're the lucky winner.

Back from DC

I had a great time workshopping Constant State of Panic with Madcap Players this weekend. Between the friends who hosted me and the well-run weekend events, I felt very well cared for. We've got a terrific cast, who were game to try whatever Gary (the director) and I asked of them, and they asked very useful questions about the play and their characters. Now that I'm home, if I can escape from what seems to be a growing pile of work and papers and meetings, I have a bunch of revisions that need to be made. I'm hoping to be done in about two weeks (fingers crossed).

A few random bits from the weekend:

--I was thrilled to have a production design meeting on Sunday morning with the sound designer, costume designer, and fight choreographer/movement coach. After the Playwriting in 3D workshop this spring (and the next one we're organizing for January), our conversation had a special resonance for me.

--I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we'd even have a movement coach. It makes a ton of sense for this particular play, but just because something makes sense doesn't always mean it's put into action.

--I learned how very useful it is to have a stage manager on hand while you're workshopping a play. I've done these sorts of development intensive weekends before, but this one was even more organized that usual (which has great appeal for yours truly) on the logistics end. On Saturday, Tarythe, our rehearsal stage manager was on hand to take notes and keep us on schedule for the entire day. The notes were e-mailed to the necessary folks that evening. For me, I found that this was reassuring to know that if I missed something, I'd still have a way to remember what was said. And now that I've seen the notes, I can see that they'll be especially helpful as I enter the rewrite phase. I took my own notes, but these complement them well. It was also helpful to have someone keeping watch on the clock, because when the writer and director are having the actors try various incarnations of scenes, it's easy to lose track of time, and folks can get worn out. I liked knowing someone was keeping an eye on us and also making sure we stayed fed and hydrated.

--I brought a video camera to tape a bunch of the scene work we did, especially times when we had the actors improv, with the idea that I can have it with me at home next week, when my memory might have grown a little fuzzy about exactly how things went. I'm curious to see how much of it I actually end up watching (I have about 90 minutes on tape). This might end up being a useful revision tool for me.

I can't wait to see the show when it's fully mounted in January.

off to DC: workshop of Constant State of Panic

So I'm off to DC this weekend to work on Constant State of Panic with the Madcap Players, who will fully produce the script in January. We have two full days to play with the script (and get to know each other better). Sounds like auditions went well--casting is so much easier with a small cast (CSP only needs 4 actors) and we have a designer's meeting set up for Sunday (so I can think about all the things that I learned in the Playwriting in 3D workshop I led last spring). I'm especially excited that I have a chance to meet with the designers so early in the process (and I think there might be a marketing meeting, too. Very cool.)

Sometimes I go into these things with a number of scenes and sections that I know I want to rework, but this time, I'm approaching the visit with a very open mind. I really want to get a sense of who these actors are and hear how they fit in with the play. I'm sure that on the plane tomorrow, when I reread the script again, I'll come up with a few scenes and moments that I want to work out.

Mostly I'm excited to have a whole weekend just to explore and play with this piece that I've been writing for a while now. I hope to come away with a sense of how it will blossom into production and how I want to shape it as it does so.

contract is signed with Madcap Players

It's official--I signed the contract for Madcap Players to produce Constant State of Panic for a three-week run in Washington, DC, in January 2010. They're a fun company, and I've already worked with them on short plays a couple times, and they've done a lot of work by friends of mine. And I'll be going down to DC in early October to spend a weekend workshopping the play, which exactly what I want. I'm pretty psyched.