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Thursday, December 30, 2010 @ 2:05 PM
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I was looking for a job - and then I found a job! And heaven knows, I'm miserable now...
Sunday, March 14, 2010 @ 10:44 PM
Haven't posted in over a month, because the Internet went down at my house a month ago and because I've been incredibly busy with my new job. I feel like a rat in a cage. I miss having free time. I miss it so much. I didn't fully appreciate it when I had it.
Also, Blogger is eliminating their FTP publishing option, which means if I do decide to keep posting, I'm going to be changing locations. For some reason, I find this incredibly depressing. I guess I find a lot of things incredibly depressing. I guess I'm just emo that way.
What is it like to be a bat?
Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 3:02 PM
I've been working and I've been very social lately. Saw Brandon this morning, which was great. Found a car I want to move forward on, a little white Kia. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I'll be fully mobile. Feeling emo today, like I want to listen to the Magnetic Fields and smoke some cloves and maybe read some Thomas Nagel.
Video Violence
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 @ 1:27 PM
The weekend excursion was pretty successful. Chelsea forgot that she had invited me to stay with her, so I ended up being kind of an inconvenience. But I definitely enjoyed seeing her. In accordance with tradition, we ate chips and dip and watched horror films. I finally got to experience karaoke at the famed Planet Rose. Nick surprised me by inspiring patrons to dance the Time Warp (again). All in all, the fun outweighed the hassle, and really, what more can you ask?
The job is going well. There's a lot of information to learn, and an overwhelming number of keys to be responsible for. I'm still hunting for a used car and a new bank (or preferably, credit union). Oh, and Chelsea introduced me to a brilliant play - Schoolgirl Figure by Wendy MacLeod - and now I have a new dream in life, which is to direct her and Amanda in it. It's a pretty obscure play - I can't even find an ISBN - but it's published by Playscripts, Inc. and you can read 80% of the play for free on their website. I definitely recommend it, especially if you like sick, dark humor.
Into the Wilderness
Monday, January 18, 2010 @ 9:40 PM
I wrote a 22 page play in one evening (called "Thanksgiving in the Wilderness"). I think it's a personal record. I don't know if it's any good, but Amanda liked it, and wants to send it to Love Creek for me. So, that's cool. Next, she wants me to write a play that makes fun of paranormal investigators (ghost hunters). I've never seen any of those ghost hunting shows, but Amanda does not see this as an obstacle. I'm going to the city this weekend to hang out with my city-and-suburb friends. A trip to Planet Rose for karaoke will probably be involved. It has been too long since I got to sing my broken heart out. Plus, bonus, I'll finally get to see Chelsea's exciting new apartment. Unfortunately, there will be dogs in her apartment. Which means that the bizarre dream I had three weeks ago was actually sort of prophetic.
The Puppet Show
Saturday, January 16, 2010 @ 9:54 AM
Yesterday, I got a job. It is a full-time, but temporary, box office manager position for a local arts venue. I will be filling in while the existing box office manager takes some family leave to have a baby, February to April. I think it will be a good position for me.
Of course, now that I know I'll be working 40 hours a week, instead of just relaxing with no agenda whatsoever, a million and a half projects are flooding to mind. There's like a law of nature that I can never have Inspiration and Free Time at the same time, only one or the other.
I finally finished my MSW application and collected all my letters of recommendation, so that will be handed in on Monday. I could kick myself for putting it off this long.
What is the psych ward really like?
Saturday, January 09, 2010 @ 9:36 PM
"Don't get me wrong, if given the choice between prison and the psych ward (for the same amount of time), I'll take the psych ward any time. But prison does have one, single advantage in my opinion. The people who put you in prison and keep you there don't expect you to be grateful for it." -- Joanna Barker at Your Money's Worth
My first experience in the short-term psych ward was not what I expected. I expected intensive therapy - instead, I was lucky if I spoke with a doctor for five minutes a day. I expected group therapy - instead, there were a few "classes" every day, where an underpaid grad student would watch as thirteen doped-up people worked on word searches.
On the other hand, I also feared dangerous, violent people who might want to harm me. In reality, the patients were mostly just incredibly bored.
People go into psych wards expecting treatment. But all the psych ward can really offer you is a break from free will. They'll keep you away from weapons and you might get to make some sand art. Some of the staff will be well-meaning but powerless, and the rest will be assholes. And even if your admission is "voluntary" that doesn't mean you can walk out when you feel better. Odds are, you'll be there between seven and fourteen days, regardless.
I just think there has to be a better way.
2009 in Review
Thursday, December 31, 2009 @ 1:05 PM
JANUARY
I directed Amanda, Lindsay, Nick, and others in a little production of Dogface at Spire Studios. Mostly I freaked out about the possibility that we might not have enough chairs.
FEBRUARY
Went to Non-Con in Poughkeepsie, saw Scott McCloud and Alisha Kwitney speak, played Munchkin, sang karaoke with anime fans.
MAY
Moved from Beacon back to Binghamton. Love Creek Productions staged Rage Is Loud. Took a summer psych course at BU.
JUNE
Volunteered to be a Stage Manager for the Mental Health Players musical - which I ended up acting in, after another actor quit. Got cast in a Shakespeare play. The KNOW Theatre decided to stage Like Dreaming, Backwards in their Playwrights Festival. And, I conquered my driving phobia.
JULY
Brother Will moves to Binghamton from Illinois. Shows, shows.
AUGUST
Art International Radio decides to produce a radio version of Bargaining. I go to see Amanda and Nick in Like We Wasn't People.
SEPTEMBER
I agree to direct Noises Off for DC Players. I agree to be Charles Berman's apprentice at WHRW, and I get involved with a staged reading of a new play at EPAC.
OCTOBER
The Theatre Audition Book is published, with a monologue from Dogface inside. I throw a rockin' Halloween party.
NOVEMBER
Reserved is published by JAC Publishing & Promotions. I go increasingly mad as performances for Noises Off draw closer. I briefly consider moving in with my brother, but ultimately decide against it.
DECEMBER
I get a job working for the post office. I fail the logs portion of the WHRW clearance exam. I have minor surgery during tech week for Noises Off. I get into a car crash, and get fired. Noises Off performs. I take a deep breath of relief and collapse in exhaustion.
OVERALL
A good year for my resume, and I managed to avoid being hospitalized. So... yay?
Farce + Satire-of-Farce
Friday, December 11, 2009 @ 1:27 AM
The show I've been working on all semester opens tomorrow night. It's not nearly as smooth as I'd like it to be, but it is damn funny. At least, I think so. So, come see Noises Off as produced by DC Players and co-directed by me. All the information is also on the facebook.
Just Your Luck
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 @ 2:45 PM
Today in the mailbox I found two copies of Reserved waiting for me. I had seen the proof, and the final version isn't much different, but they did add, as I requested, a "Production History" section to the inside cover. It has a sentence or two about the first production of Reserved and it has the original cast list.
NICOLE McNEIL: Alyssa Huff
MAGGIE SHERMAN: Mandy Finfrock
BARTLETT / JOEL: Dan Oltman
SHADY DOCTOR: Jason Vales
And I started to wonder if any of those actors ever thought that play would get published. If anyone who saw that original production thought it would. Maybe some of them did, but I bet a lot of them didn't, or never even considered the idea. Now, JAC is probably not the most exclusive or prestigious publisher. It's not Sam French or Dramatist. But, still. The point is, a play of mine is published. And a bunch of my other plays are purchased straight from me every month, by strangers, and there are a lot of playwrights who can't necessarily say that.
And so I started to think about what makes artists successful. Is it talent? Is it networking? Is it just sheer determination? Is it the classes you take or the genres you work in or the place you live or the group you belong to? All of these are certainly factors. But more than anything, I feel like it's mostly pure dumb luck.
Don't get me wrong, the successes that I've experienced took work on my part. I slaved away on the Monologue Database for years before Josh suggested that I could make money by selling the plays I had always given away for free. I had to attend more than one painful workshop before Le Wilhelm decided to produce Rage Is Loud. But the point is, I could just as easily have put in twice as much work and never gotten any productions, any publication credits, or made any money at all. There are playwrights who never get as far as I have - and I haven't gotten all that far - and have been doing this for ten years longer. And at the end of the day, it's not because I'm a better writer. It's because of fortunate coincidences - sending the right play to the right company or happening to know someone in a position to help.
Writing, like all art, is subjective. You write a play. You could have ten friends read it, and probably two would think it was brilliant, two would think it was terrible, and everyone else would fall somewhere in the middle. And if those ten friends were also playwrights, six would tell you all the ways that they would change it to make it "better". If all of these friends have their own production companies, the two who liked it might try to get it produced, but they probably have their own ten board members or investors to try to convince. All you can do is cast the widest net possible and hope that eventually, the right play crosses paths with the right group of people at the right time.
And this is what makes the rewriting process so uncomfortable: because you might be able to make your play more "accessible", more logical (or more surreal), more emotional or more subtle - but with the exception of fixing the spelling, you are almost never making the play "better". Someone is going to like it more, and someone else is going to like it less.
When I first wrote Bargaining, Seth thought it was perfect. But Josh suggested changes. When I changed it, I made it better in Josh's eyes, but not in Seth's. When I further changed it because of input from Amanda and Rob, they liked it more, but it moved further away from Seth's vision - and Josh still wasn't happy with it. I think Collaboration is more accessible to more people now than it was in its original draft. But I know there's someone out there who loved it more before I took out the Silmarillion references.
And you cannot please everyone - but everyone who reads it will act like they're the one you should try to please. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I read a script and I think, "This is terrible. I could write this better..." But in reality, all I could do is write it differently. I'd like it more my way, but plenty of people would feel differently. I should probably say, "This play wasn't for me," and leave it at that. Because there's somebody out there who loves it just the way it is.
In the end, what I've concluded is this: Writing the play is the real accomplishment. And if you love it, that's all that really matters. If it gets performed, if it gets published, if other people tell you that they think it's great, you'll feel warm and fuzzy, and you should feel that way. But if it doesn't, you can't beat yourself up about it. A play finding a producer or a publisher is probably a lot like two people meeting and falling in love. It's mostly random, highly subjective, and not within anyone's control.
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