Good News: Lost Oasis gets another chance

This Saturday is the last day for Lost Oasis in Central Park, but I found out today that it looks like the show will get a reprise in the undergroundzero festival, in NYC, on July 28, at 3pm. I'm not sure of the exact location yet. All reports are that the show is going quite well, and I'm glad it'll be able to continue a little longer (assuming the actors can all do it, etc.).

Saving myself for Michael

Sicko comes out in wide release on Friday. There are a whole lot of people spending a whole lot of money trying to tell me what to think about it before I've seen it (quite a few of them would prefer that I don't see it at all). So at the moment, I'm on a slightly careful media diet, avoiding reviews and commentaries. I even turned off an NPR piece that was going through the film blow-by-blow giving the thumbs up and thumbs down on each of Moore's claims. I'd like to hear that after the movie, but such news pieces miss the whole narrative aspect of Moore's films, and why they're successful. He tells an interesting story. (Yeah, it's often manipulative. Hello, it's a movie.)

Is Michael Moore a egotistical blowhard? I guess so. Sometimes. Does he have a point of view? Hell yeah, he's not a newsman, he's a filmmaker and an agitator, with strong opinions and a sense of outrage.

I've really enjoyed his films. (I think I liked Bowling for Columbine best.) And I love how he's managed to survive and continue to stick it to the Man, despite the big ton of bricks the establishment has dumped on him over the years.

I can't help but admire his ability to work the media (even the parts that hate him) to get exposure for his films. Anyway, I'm looking forward to making up my own mind (and dragging my wife with me to the movies).

Minnows

I was at a small lake this weekend, for a little family reunion. The kids and I were trying to catch minnows with some butterfly nets. After 35 years of trying to catch little fish, I've finally figured it out. A quick swipe straight down over a cloud of minnows, press down all the way to the bottom, and drag back towards me, netted me a few inch-long fish almost every time. We caught exclusively little perch, except for one itty bitty catfish, which was really cool. We dumped them all in a bucket and watched them swim around. Later, after a great deal of patience, I also managed to catch a six-inch sunfish. By far the biggest fish I'd ever caught with such a tiny net, larger than I thought was even possible.

This is what I do with theatre--writing and sending out lots of short plays for small productions. I have fun catching them, a sense of triumph even, but they aren't exactly going to feed me. Every once in a while, something really interesting and unusual happens with a small production. And often I'm not sure that I have the right tools to land the big fish , but with a great deal of patience and many, many failures, sometimes I do catch a medium-sized fish, one that might not make for a whole dinner, but at least a few mouthfuls. And it feels like I caught a whale.

8 Random Facts about me meme (I'm slow)

I was tagged by Laura for this meme on May 31, and I'm just really, really slow.

Here are the rules of the house: Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers and notify them that they have been tagged.

Here's what I can think of:.

1. I have moved 18 times in my life. (10 as an adult)
2. I've won prizes in competitions for building with legos (as a kid) and for juggling (as an adult).
3. I was on the MIT Rugby team, for all of one game. (Problems: I was too busy writing my thesis (a screenplay), I didn't like beer, and I weighed about 145 pounds.)
4. On paper, I'm a Master Urban Gardener. Which means I took an eight-week class and I used to help run a community garden in Boston. But I'm not really an expert. I don't have a garden now, and I really miss it.
   
5. I was once used by Mario Cuomo to make a political point. He was visiting my dad's small biotech company, and his advance men told him that I was attending MIT, so in front of the reporters he asked about my plans, and stated "this is why we need to improve our state's colleges, so young Mr. Gabridge doesn't feel like he has to go out of state." Or something like that. He was a really impressive guy in person--super smart.
6. I've never been skinny dipping.
7. I once played Rip Van Winkle in a local TV commercial for a mattress company.
8. I have a habit of acquiring musical instruments that I can't play. I currently possess a guitar, a harmonica, a trumpet, a violin, and a recorder. (I can play the guitar and recorder a little.) I used to own a clarinet (jr. high orchestra), too. I'd really like a banjo, with the hopes that I would somehow be inspired to learn it, or that I would magically just pick it up one day and be able to play. (My wife is skeptical of this plan.)
   

It's hard to come up with 8 bloggers who haven't already been tagged by this . I'll tag: Dan, Dave, Mirror Up to Nature, Meron, Ghost Light, Playgoer, Matthew and Johnna.

5am Habit

So far I've stuck to my plan of getting up at 5am and writing for the past two days. So far so good. (I'm planning to sleep in on weekends.)

I'm a fan of early morning writing, because my mind is clear and I'm still in somewhat of a dream state. I've found I can make it easier if I stick to these rules:

• Set my my laptop (or blank pad of paper) in place the night before. Pencils and dictionary ready. The tools are all ready to go. The desk is clear of crap besides my work.
  
• Make sure my e-mail program and internet browser are closed and I don't open them.
• I take a tiny bit of time when I go to bed to prepare for the next morning, just giving a conscious thought to what I'll be working on, or re-reading the section I need to edit.
• I often will listen to music on the ipod, so I don't hear the rest of the household waking up.
• I don't usually stop for a snack or drink, because I try to get to the desk as quickly as possible.

Both yesterday and today, everyone else got up late, so I was able to put in a full two hours or more each day. Good stuff. (They all know I'm a lot more pleasant when I get my writing in.)

5/5 Meme

Malachy Walsh tagged me with a meme started by Laura.

...its purpose is to get people talking about their passion in life. It’s called the 5/5 meme. Five questions, then pass it to five people. “Expertise” could be your profession, hobby, or area of intense interest.

If I haven’t named you specifically and you would like to do it, feel free. I’d love for everyone to answer these questions. I’ve named five just to get it going.

Remember: This is a “get to know you” meme. It’s supposed to be breezy and fun.

1. Name your area of expertise/interest:

Writing. I have experience in a lot of different kind of writing--novels, plays, screenplays, articles, newsletters, non-fiction books (okay, proposals anyway). I also have a strong interest in helping writers figure out how to market their work (hence starting Market InSight, and the Playwright Submission Binge).

2. How did you become interested in it?

I got involved in theatre because of my mom, who acted and made costumes for community theatres. I started acting and working backstage with a small professional company. When I was in college, on a lark, I wrote a short play and submitted it to them. They decided to produce it. It was a great experience, and the rest is history.

When I was in college at MIT, I took a class called "Creative Seeing", where we made a short video project. I loved it.

I was lucky that the public response to my early plays and films was so positive (as was the process of making them). If it wasn't, I probably would be a computer geek right now.

(Confession: I also played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons in high school, and that taps a lot into basic storytelling skills and desires.)

3. How did you learn how to do it?

I got a super 8 camera and started making short films that we'd show at dorm parties, and people loved them. I took classes (which weren't inspiring), made some 16mm shorts (which taught me a LOT), and spent a summer working part-time as a cameraman for a TV news station in upstate New York (Plattsburgh). I read all the books I could find on screenwriting (which was pretty much only Syd Field back then), took a class at NYU (though couldn't get into grad school there, and couldn't afford/didn't want to attend Columbia, which let me in at the last minute). Basically, I wrote a lot and started submitted. Many years later, I got an agent and worked a bit with a producer, and that taught me a lot, too. Lots of learning by doing. (And watched a TON of movies and broke them down.)

For writing plays, again I learned by doing. I've never taken a playwriting class (though I took a bunch of creative writing classes in college). But I acted in high school and college. After college, I self-produced my first full-length play as an Equity Showcase in NYC. Later in Denver, I co-founded a theatre company (Chameleon Stage) which I helped run for a few years. I was up to my neck in all aspects of theatre for years (I ran playwrights' groups and organizations, facilitated readings, directed plays, ran sound and lights, etc.). My first play was produced 20 years ago (isn't that a scary thought?).

How did learn to write other stuff? By trying it. I thought it would be fun to make radio theatre, so I wrote a grant and produced four half-hour radio shows (we sold three of them to NPR). I love novels (isn't that like saying I like air?), and wanted to see if I could write one, so I did. It took a long time to get it published, but I liked it enough to try writing another (I'm in the middle of it right now).


4. Who has been your biggest influence?

In terms of plays, when I was young, I was a big fan of Pinter, Beckett, and Ibsen. Plays by Anthony Clarvoe and Ping Chong and Caryl Churchill were important to me. The Denver production of Hunting Cockroaches by Janusz Glowacki has always stuck in my head. But really, I've been most influenced by the other writers (and our director, Mark Higdon) in Chameleon Stage, and the writers in Rhombus, my current group. These are people who have pushed and challenged me year after year.

I started writing screenplays under the spell of the Coen brothers, Spike Lee, Coppola, John Sayles, Oliver Stone. I'm a big fan of Charlie Kaufman and Alan Ball.

For novels, there are so many writers I admire. Toni Morrison, James Baldwin. I love Nick Hornby right now, and Jasper Fforde, and Anne Tyler. As I kid, I grew up reading science fiction, reading all the Heinlein and Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke I could find. Narnia and Watership Down and Lord of the Rings drew me in completely.

My friend Mark Dunn is someone who I look to. He wrote plays, a whole bunch of which are published, then wrote a great novel, Ella Minnow Pea, followed by more novels, non-fiction books, with more to come. He's one of my role models.

5. What would you teach people about it?

Hm. That's a tricky one, isn't it. (I've read some of the other folks in this meme, and they offer such good advice.)

There's two different parts to my answer, because there are two different parts tothe question:

1) I'm not sure how to teach someone how to actually write. From my experience, it's something best accomplished by practice and repetition. Write something, get it produced or published. Write more. Write more. For the actual writing, part of the goal is to get good enough at the basics (being comfortable coughing up words out of your brain in a coherent string) that you can get the hell out of your own way. In some ways this gets easier, as you practice, just like typing. However, in some ways this gets harder as you've written more, because there are more external pressures and it takes more energy to silence the internal critics they represent. Real writing happens when all the voices of self doubt and criticism shut the hell up for a while, and you're able to listen to the story and characters all by themselves. You must write in a state of self-delusion--you must believe, at least at first, that what you're creating is worthwhile and fantastic and thrilling. Sometimes it's just crap, and you'd better be able to write absolute crap and not assess its inherent crappiness until after it's on the page.

2) I've thought a lot about what I can teach someone about how to be a writer. In addition to writing, my hobby is thinking about the discipline and mind set and marketing that it takes to be a "writer" in the sense of someone actually working on creating a lifetime body of work for a public audience.

In this sense, I'd suggest that people who want to be writers:

• write a lot
• have a regular schedule
• make friends with other writers (playwrights need to know directors, actors, and producers, too)
• submit widely
• remember that getting rejections means that you're doing your job
• remember that for most people, it takes a very long time to build a writing career. We read about the exceptions in Newsweek and in the New York Times. Even most of those writers have been working their asses off for years in order to appear to be overnight sensations.
• Don't confuse poverty or riches with quality. Not all great writers are poor and unknown. Not all rich writers are hacks.
• Expect to want to quit often. Even if you start to taste success. If you quit, you only have to answer to yourself. If you think you can live with that, you might not want to start. (However, since you're only answering to yourself, if you quit, you can restart anytime you want.)
• Reaching a wide audience requires talent, hard work, and a lot of luck. I know many many writers who have the first two ingredients, not so many who've gotten #3.
  

(That seems like more than enough.)

I'm not sure I know five bloggers who haven't already been tagged by this (some aren't writing about theatre). I'll tag Dan, Dave, Mirror Up to Nature, Meron, and Johnna.

My Summer To-Do List (recipe for madness)

Here is the list of all the things that I intend to do this summer. (The kids' last day of school is tomorrow!)

• Get up at 5am every weekday and write for 90 minutes. (Mostly on new novel.)
  
• Finish the non-fiction book proposal that I'm working on (with a collaborator) and get it out to publishers.
• Proof Tightly Bound for Brooklyn Publishers (due Monday, so I might actually get this one done). It took some work, but they finally agreed to publish this collection of my short plays for women.
  
• Send out a bunch more screenplay queries.
• Take the kids outside to play every day.
• Take the kids on an excursion every other day (though they'll be in camp in August) (try to find places where both the dog and kids can swim)
• Read a novel every two weeks. (sounds easy, right?)
• Read Anna Karenina (might take more than two weeks. I've already had to take back the copy I had from the library. I read the first page. It was a really, really good first page. This time I'm just going to buy a paperback, so I won't rack up so many overdue fees.)
• Read the new Harry Potter. (We've already paid for our copy, but I'm third in line in our house to get it. Luckily my wife and daughter are very fast readers, so I won't have to wait too long.)
  
• Strip and paint the wood window in the bathroom. (been putting this off for months)
• Hang up the pictures in my office (we've been here a year, no more excuses).
• Build built-in shelves in my office.
  
• Blog regularly. (Do better at reading and commenting.)
• Practice playing the guitar. (Maybe finally take a lesson?)
• Do mini-soccer skill drills 3x per week with daughter (for both of us--I just started playing a weekly Sunday morning pick up game, and have discovered that my skills have not stayed at a the same place I left them when I last played 20 years ago, and that my 40-year-old body could perhaps get in better shape).
• Do a little French language brush-up (with daughter who will start class in the fall).
• Do some funky dancing with my son to my the James Brown Greatest Hits CD that I got for Father's Day (we did a little of this today already).
• Do some work on my new on-line project that will help change the way writers get information to market their work. (Top secret for now.)
• Help son keep learning how to read. Math practice, too.
  
• Send out a handful of play submissions.
• Nap (as needed)
• Contact whoever is in charge (Mr. Intelligent Designer?) and arrange to have 25th and 26th hours added to the day.

That's about it. Shouldn't be too tough. And if I don't do it all, I'll be a complete and utter failure as a human being. (or else just a human being)