Go See Paranormal (if you're in Boston)

Seriously, go see Carl Danielson's play, Paranormal. Why? Not just because Carl is my friend, fellow Rhombus member, and a very talented writer. But because it's fun. I don't know that it will change your life, but it'll make you laugh. And not many plays feature a character who is as much of a hoot as K'THarr the Warrior Bunny (played by Neal Leaheey). Though this is a low-budget production, Carl and his sound and light designers pull off some really great tricks that add to the whole magic of the piece (which is important when making a play about paranormal stuff).

It's cheap, too. $15. And did I mention that it's fun? (And I did not even come close to falling asleep, which is high praise.)

Paranormal runs this week and next at the Factory Theatre in the South End.


Here's a description:

"I am K'Tharr, a Grulark Warrior-Bunny from the planet Trepmal-thok, and I would give my life to defend you!"

With those words from a six-foot tall bunny-shaped alien, Krista
Maclay, burgeoning psychic, is thrown on a journey beyond the normal
human world in which she meets Elvis-impersonating aliens,  invisible
annoying bodyswappers, a moody yet endearing psychic boy, and a
long-dead former best friend who forces her into an epic psychic
battle for free will.  "Paranormal" is a sci-fi comic fantasy
juggernaut for everyone who doesn't see why someone couldn't be a
zombie, a pirate, and a telepath at the same time.

Duchess of Malfi at Actors Shakespeare Project (Boston)

One of my goals this year is to start seeing more theatre again (especially now that I'm on the StageSource Board, maybe I'd better step it up a little). Though they have an outstanding reputation, I've never managed to make it to a show by the Actors Shakespeare Company--this is due to a lack of time, lack of money, and the fact that I often fall asleep during Shakespeare. All playwrights are supposed to revere Shakespeare, and I am amazed by most of the plays (I was in a Shakespeare company in college), but it's not my big passion. The falling asleep thing isn't necessarily related to Shakespeare--as my family will attest, I'm pretty good at falling asleep in the evening in front of the TV, or in the middle of a conversation. (It's my superpower.)


Last night, I made it to Duchess of Malfi to see the Actors Shakespeare Company at work (though this was Webster not Shakespeare, their first departure from the canon). It was opening night and I had free tickets (which helped).

I did not fall asleep. Not even close. There's lost of love, lust, murder, betrayal, and just plain nastiness on stage. And I was in the front row (which doesn't always keep me awake, I confess, but instead makes me embarrassed when I do nod off), and there was no way I could doze. The play was intense and the acting generally pretty sharp (Bill Barclay as Bosola was a standout for me). I definitely recommend the show.

The staging, a long carpeted rasied runway between two massive sets of double doors was really sharp--set, lights, and sound worked to clarify and enhance the play--I'd love to have this team work on one of my full-length plays.

The space, Midway Studios, is pretty interesting--a theatre carved out of an old mill/factory building in the Fort Point Arts district. Big old wood and iron beams all around, and not bad sound qualities at all. Plenty of space. I could definitely imagine some of my plays staged there (especially God's Voice).

The only negative of the space is that it's a pretty long walk from South Station, which can be both cold and deserted. If I was ASP (not that they've asked me), I'd consider renting or borrowing a 15-passenger van, and set up a shuttle between South Station and the theatre. It'd be a way to make more direct contact with patrons and make sure that people actually got to the theatre. Get a big magnetic sign to put on the side of the van, and it'd serve to advertise the show as it was driving around.

Once the audience is trained to come to this spot, this might no longer be necessary, but you want to get rid of any excuses people have for not attending. (Of course their next two shows are in different spaces, which confuses me a little. ASP has no trouble getting audience, because they're pretty darn good, so maybe they don't worry so much about audience training.)

My other minor quibble was snacks (not that they asked me about this either). If I'm out on a cold night to the theatre and need strength to help me stay awake for Act II and get home, I need good snacks. I paid $1.50 for some little cereal packet that wasn't worth $0.25. Brownies and cookies are where it's at. And not factory ones either, but home baked or bakery versions. Good snacks help finish off the evening (and make money).

Anyway, it's a good show. Go see it if you can (but bring good walking shoes and your own chocolate).

2008 Round Up, Part 3--creative input

Okay, this is really the last post about 2008. I'm a number guy and a list-maker (mildly compulsive, perhaps...), so the end of the year is great time for tallies. I keep track of how many books, movies, and plays I take in every year, which I look on as sort of creative compost for the mind.

Here's how I did in 2008:

Movies watched: 46 (my goal was 52, but I coached my daughter's travel soccer team this year, which meant I coached about 20 games and ran about 40 practices. All that time has to come from somewhere.)

Favorites: Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, Juno.

I had a goal of reading a handful of screenplays, but came up empty on that one.


Plays (and readings of plays) watched: 14. (In the old days, before kids, I might see 75 plays and readings in a year, but that's not possible anymore. Plus, this year, I intentionally dialed back some of my playgoing--I just needed a break (my goal was only 12). This year, I'd like to see a lot more. Luckily I have a StageSource membership, which gets me access to free tickets, because, to be honest, I can't afford to buy tickets to plays very often (see previous post on income).

Favorites: An Ocean of Air by Rough & Tumble, and the Rhombus plays in the Six Views Festival we put on.


Plays read: 9. (my goal was 4. Which I know is very unimpressive, but I've been more into reading books than plays lately.)

Favorite: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts. Intense, high-energy, and obviously theatrical. Reading Doubt by John Patrick Shanley was a big disappointment for me--it just seemed so theatrically uninteresting, and though the stakes are high, part of me felt like it's getting done a lot because it's really cheap to stage (small cast, no set). (Heresy, I'm sure.)

Books read: 29. (my goal was 24. I'm a slow reader, sad to say. And busy with a lot of stuff (see above).)

Favorites:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
• Into the Wild and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• The New Kings of Non-Fiction edited by Ira Glass
• Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
• Master and Comander by Patrick O'Brian
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
• Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

I know that's an excessively long list of favorites (especially since I only read 29 books) but I liked all of these a lot. It helps that Tracy reads more than twice as much as I do, and knows what I like, so she filters out the other stuff. And I've gotten terrific recommendations from friends.

So that's a bunch of the stuff that went into my head. I'm curious to see what will come out in 2009.

update: good/bad

I'm still making excellent progress on my novel revisions. I have a deadline--I need to get Part I, about 90 pages, to my fiction group by October 12th or so, so they can read it for our October 30th meeting. Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.

Unfortunately, my play, Recognition, did not make it through to the final week of the T Plays. You should still go see it, if you haven't. The final set will make for a very fun evening. I had a great time making my play for the production. And after bringing it to my Rhombus playwrights group on Monday, I was able to make more changes and I feel like it's in excellent shape, and I'm sending it out now.

Speaking of sending out plays--we finished the Submission Binge #13 this week. Many, many hundreds of plays were submitted by the group (I myself sent 33 plays and 11 queries in the month) and lots of information was swapped, good news shared. I managed to get through the Binge (the challenge is to submit a play ever day for 30 days) without missing a single day, and I even kept on going for an extra two days. (Who knows, if I send something out tonight, that'll make 33 days in a row.) It's nice to have a chance for a breather, but I miss the constant positive chatter of the group (though it's still pretty active, even between Binges).

Points Off the Board: contract tales

Had an odd experience this week. I was doing a little self-googling, and found out that a company had decided to produce a script that I'd sent them, although they hadn't let me know yet (their web site made it apparent that it had already been cast). I got an e-mail the next day, informing me that they'd picked my play.

I didn't make a big deal out of the fact that they should have waited to be sure I agreed on terms before making plans. After all it was a pretty low-key festival, just two performances.

However, it's my policy not to allow my work to be done for free (unless it's a reading or charity event). So, when small theatres send me those e-mails, saying "congratulations, we want to do your play," I respond: "thanks, I'm very excited. Do you have a contract that you usually use, or do you need me to provide one? Oh, and how much are you paying the writers?" Or something like that. (This is usually just a problem for short plays. I haven't had this happen for a full-length play yet.)

Often, they write back and say, "Oh, well, we're a small theatre and hadn't planned on paying the playwrights." Now, these companies are used to paying royalties to produce "The Odd Couple" or "Fences" or "Oliver!" But they thought they might not have pay to this time around.

Almost every time, the company agrees to pay me a small, nominal royalty. Often they end up realizing that they should pay all of the writers. We're talking $25 for a weekend, or sometimes $50 or $75 for a two-week run. Vastly underpriced. But I'm a professional playwright, the work is good, and I should be paid. Only a few times have companies decided they won't pay, and when that happens, I say, "well, then you can't produce my play." (This has happened three times so far.)

I think playwrights need to think of themselves a lot like landlords. (I've been one.) Landlords rent out their property to all sorts of people, who then add their own furniture and gear and make it into a place of their own. But it's still the landlord's house. And the landlord gets paid first. He doesn't care if you have money for food or your car payment or your electric bills. The rent comes first. And if you don't pay, you can't live there anymore.

Theatre is not a collaborative art, when you're talking about playwrights and completed scripts. Sure the developmental process is heavily collaborative (including the first production or two). But after that, the playwright is generally removed from the production process. She rents out the script upon which the theatre company will build its production. She gets paid, no matter what. If the play is published, the publisher collects the royalties from small companies before the curtain even rises on the first performance.

Anyway, back to the story: so this small company responded to my standard response, saying that they'd consider paying me, but they never sign contracts for one-acts. I thought that perhaps they were thinking that I meant a complicated legal document, rather than a fairly simple licensing agreement, whose sole purpose is to state what rights are being licensed and state clearly that we both have the ability to enter into this agreement (it was a Dramatists Guild simple agreement), so I sent a copy.

I have no idea if they even read it. But they reiterated, they don't sign contracts. I responded that while the terms might be negotiable, the use of a contact was not.

They decided not to produce the play.

I still haven't figured out why they'd be unwilling to sign. I was pretty disappointed. Sometimes it really gets me down to have to haggle with small theatre companies over these fundamental issues. I'm not trying to get rich, I'm just trying to get treated professionally (and at least help cover my costs). I've been doing this for a long time, and I'd sure like to be negotiating over slightly larger issues.

Good News: Lost Oasis in Central Park

I just got a signed contract for my one-act play, Lost Oasis, to appear for 16 performances in June in New York, in Central Park. I don't have all the details yet, but it'll be produced by Ciona Taylor productions.

This is a script that I wrote for my theatre company, Chameleon Stage, in Colorado, quite a few years ago, for our initial site specific series, Theatre in the Wild. It's a play that I've always enjoyed, but I really haven't sent it out (it can be done inside, but it's best performed outdoors) (and thus it hasn't been produced). This seems like a good match for it. I hope I'll have a chance to get down to NYC to see it. There's just something cool about saying, "my play will be produced in Central Park."

Winnie the Pooh and Missing Pieces from Grown Up Theatre

Yesterday started out wet, for our sixth day of rain. When the sun finally appeared in the sky, we, of course, had tickets to go spend a few hours inside a dark theatre.

My seven-year-old enjoyed the production of Winnie the Pooh at the Wheelock Family Theatre, a fine professional theatre within walking distance of home. The set was colorful and elaborate, with a huge tree filling half the stage. The costumes made for cuddly a Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, etc. And the show was well-miked (some of the actors were children, so this was important) so it was easy to hear what was going on. The actors were energetic and engaging. The bees were a neat effect, and the kids liked it when Pooh flew in to the air with his balloon and (spoiler) Tigger jumped out of the birthday cake at the end.

The adaptation, by Kristin Sergel, seemed a bit odd to me. Kanga is new to town, and everyone is afraid of her because she's a neat-freak, and comes hauling her own bathtub and soap. By mid-show, she's kidnapped Piglet, cleaned him up and won't let him go. Later Roo runs away, and Rabbit and Pooh basically decide to hold him hostage and swap him back for Pooh. Who thinks of this stuff? (I'd better go check the original books, I guess.)

Probably my biggest problem with the show is that it ran about two hours, including intermission. My son, who has definite problems sitting still, ran out of sitting power at around 1:45. Overall, the show served as good practice for kids to get used to going to theatre, which is, I guess, part of what children's theatre is for.

The show reminded me that in many of the small theatres where I tend to work, we just don't get (or don't choose) to spend enough time and effort on the spectacle of theatre. Watching children's theatre reminds you that we need to have something interesting to look at on stage. Something colorful is nice, if you can swing it. I do my fair share of complaining that big theatres spend more on fancy sets than they do on royalties to playwrights, it's not always wasted money. Small theatres could do a lot better and are cheating audiences of an essential part of the theatre experience (yet another reason why people don't go to plays).