Something fun.

These notebook doodles are actually very much related to my play. 

You know what? I should just forget this stupid play and change my major to studio arts immediately. LOOK AT THAT SKILL. 

Seriously though. Without giving too much away, my play deals (humorously) with the stages a girl goes through after a specific emotional upset (hence the chocolate coma...it's what we do)--and the doodles are reminiscent of the Pain Scale they have at hospitals. 

Only cuter.

Forward march

New script!

Let me rephrase that, new version of my script. Nothing has been subtracted from the original version (the swears WILL stay), but I've added some structural elements to make it flow smoother, and to enhance the comedy (it's one of those you-have-to-see-it-to-understand things). Last Wednesday was our second read through, and I received really positive responses. I am so close to having a finished piece. So close I can taste it. AND IT TASTES LIKE SUCCESS.

Just one or two tweaks here and there. Rehearsals start after Spring Break!! What? Excited? Me? Naw...

The faculty member in charge of the New Works Festival was kind enough to submit all the writer's pieces to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. There will be one or two representatives who will see the show, and judge talk with the writers and actors afterwards. Fancy stuff, am I right?

More soon!

Updates galore!

This play thing is seriously conflicting with my love of sitting around doing nothing (Kidding only kind of), but some good things are being accomplished. Since the semester started two-and-half weeks ago (my last semester in college...you might need a tissue for that single tear trickling down your face right now), a lot has happened.

And by "a lot' I mean three things.

Just go with it. 

NUMBER ONE

The first read through of my play! First read throughs can sometimes be painful to sit through, and I'm glad this was anything but! It made a nun laugh, so I'd call that SUCCESS. 

NUMBER TWO

The New Works Festival program allows us to have one-on-one meetings with a successful playwright, for guidance, suggestions, and self-esteem building praise. The playwright, incidentally, was one who's show I was Stage Manager for last year--so it was a delightful role reversal of her working with me instead of me working for her. (What's that? Why, that's the sound of the tables being turned. SOUNDS REAL GOOD).

NUMBER SEVEN....I MEAN THREE...WHATEVER I'M A THEATER MAJOR NOT A MATH MAJOR

I have some really great ideas to help sharpen my play, and I'm really excited about it. I'll have a new version of my play by February 9th, when the next read-through happens. After that, rehearsals! 

There you have it. 

A Dilemma

I've been struggling with something--something not like me at all. Something that I never wanted to get involved in, and something that I'm worried will disappoint the people who are proud of me the most.

I'll come right out and say it. My play's dialogue has swearing. Expletives. Profanity. Curses. Vulgarity. Cussin'. Naughty language. Dirty words. Sailor talk. Potty mouth. (I apologize for any family heirlooms that have just been destroyed from too much pearl clutching)

From a professional standpoint, I've never been one to use swearing for comedy. I come from a background in improv and sketch comedy, and I have always considered swearing in comedy a big DON'T. More often than not, I've always seen it as nothing but a cheap laugh. It's too easy. I still believe in that standard....so why did I make my characters that brassy?

My play is my attempt to honestly (and humorously, of course) capture a very specific event that most everyone goes through at some point in their lives (but more on that some other time). The swearing is part of that honesty. And it's not me saying the words--it's my characters. When I try to reword the dialogue to make it more 'family friendly'...my characters aren't themselves anymore. It doesn't work. I can't change those characters because they are the heart of the play. From a snooty personal point of view, it's for my art.

But it still makes me nervous. I never ever want to offend anyone. Heck, I still get taken aback when an adult figure says "crap" in front of me. Yet here I am, advertising something that I wrote, that has (what some consider) offensive language.

But a freakin' Pulitzer Prize winner liked my play...so, it can't be all bad. I hope.

Callbacks

Sorry for the procrastination with updating this gem. It's due to my lack of procrastination with final projects and whatnot. Ah, end of the semester. I'll try to keep this short-ish, since I know my friends readers are sporting a short attention span until their brains recover from final exams.

The callbacks for my play happened rather quickly, and with very little notice of what I was supposed to do. No one really gave me any tips or pointers as to how to run a callback. Sure, I've been to callbacks a bunch of times... I've also been to the orthodontist a bunch of times, but I wouldn't pretend that qualifies me to examine someone else's teeth. You get the point.

I called back six actresses whose auditions I really enjoyed for very different reasons. I was confident that every one of them could bring something different to my characters that would make them great to watch...which ultimately made it that much harder to cast. My three characters are three best friends--so which actresses work well together, which have a good dynamic together, and which can handle the rhythm of my dialogue in a funny-but-natural sounding way? SO MUCH TO CONSIDER. Just thinking about it turns my face into a perfect recreation of the Home Alone poster.

Like I said, any of the actresses I called back could have played any of the characters well. What I finally went for was who had the right amount of energy...I'm a fan of enthusiasm, and I'd like to think that my writing holds true to that. I'll know for sure if I made the right choice come spring semester when rehearsals begin. Until then, I have good expectations.

Auditions

A fun (but also slightly nerve racking) aspect to having my work in this festival dealie: I have to cast my play.

The auditions were....weird. 

Not to say that the people auditioning were weird. Not at all--they were all lovely. In a perfect world, I would have been able to make ten casts for my play so that everyone could be included (and then maybe we could all gather in a circle, hold hands, sing Kumbaya and talk about our feelings).

What was weird was being in the position of power... being in the auditioning room, not auditioning but deciding. I had to sit behind the table--with the other six chosen writers-- and watch as each actor came in the room and poured a bit of their souls out for us to judge. We were all looking for something very specific, so we were allowed to make "adjustments" with the actors. This resulted in odd improvisations such as asking them to read their monologues as if they were extremely attracted to somebody, to reading it as if they were God. You can imagine how strange this could get when a girl would come in with a super dramatic monologue about, say, being harassed as a child-- "Alright, that was great, now can you do that same heartbreaking-monologue-that-brought-everyone-to-tears, only this time as if you are a diva on a really awkward first date?"

 "Uhhhh...."

You get the idea.

Regardless, I did enjoy the experience. I loved listening to everyone's audition. It made me appreciate the amount of yet-to-be-discovered talent at my school's theater department. And it especially made me appreciate the casting process. I was sitting at that table for what--three, four hours--and mind you, that was with the aid of snacks and bathroom breaks. It seemed like such a long day--and I'm sure any high school drama director would laugh at my face if I complained about that. 

I felt terrible having to decide which actors to callback and which to cross out. I know what it feels like, because I've been in their shoes so many times. But what it comes down to is finding who might fit the characters that I have created--so all I could do was stay true to that.

I'll go more into the callbacks next time--for now, have a super amazing Thanksgiving! My plans for the break are the following:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
...and it'll be magnificent.

Your run-of-the-mill introductory post

This is all more or less (okay, completely) on a whim.

It started last year. I was a junior in college, taking a playwrighting class. One of our assignments: Write a one minute monologue. I was in no hurry to stress over something like that--I probably had a few exams to study for, or some research paper. So I whipped out a monologue in five minutes tops. Come class day, I had my friend read out loud the monologue for the class. Professor loved it. General class reaction: It was funny. Well, cool! 

Other assignments came and went--some I put a lot more time and effort into, but the results were never as satisfying. When it came time to start our final project--to write a short play--I figured "Well, that monologue seemed to be a success, let's write something off of that." It became the launching pad for a longer, slightly developed piece. Turned it in. A in the class. 

Flash forward to this year: My senior year. I submitted that piece to the New Works Festival at my school--where the selected student playwrights would get to develop their respective piece into a staged reading. In other words, I--and potentially lots of other people--would get to see it performed. It seemed worthwhile enough. 

I got the call yesterday that my play was selected (!!!). And that, my friend, is why this blog exists. Admittedly, I am more-or-less bandwagon hopping. My film major and animation major friends have blogs about their developing senior thesis--that's what inspired me. So here you will find the lovely records about the development of my short play...and whatever else might come my way. More soon.