play and play and play

I have been progressing very nicely with the new play. It's not quite finished yet but it's circling for a landing. I think, I hope, that this rewrite, if nothing else, has allowed the characters to connect in ways that strengthen their own journeys, illuminating their moments. I still have to think about the screens that are part of it and how to include that more in the character's journey. It's looking like it's going to need a huge, hi-tech space to pull this play off. Oh well, dream high.

I'm thankful that it has retained the dreamy fairytale essence (right word? Probably not) that I wanted and J's scenes are so easy to cut up and not lose anything from their power. This has actually been really fun and full of play which is quite strange. I love that I feel so comfortable with J's words that I can mess with them without freaking out or thinking that she is going to freak out. It's all very go with the flow with us. In the beginning, when we first thought we would work together we only had one rule – We can take anything out and put anything back in. This is a great rule/guideline. Talk about freeing each other up to just follow the story and play and play and play.

Back to the playing.

Day Two

So yesterday, I read through both plays and my mind started to explode with ideas. The thing that kept coming back to me was that this was a fairytale. It's a cautionary tale in that all the characters in both plays have to learn something before they can move on. So I've decided that the style is very dreamy, floaty à these words help me but probably don't explain much. I want the space to be very fluid and able to change with a word, a look, a change in a mood.

So last night, and this took forever, I put together the opening scene, which will run for about ten minutes and introduces everyone and shows where they are before the action starts to happen.

Today, I'm off to the movies and dinner but hopefully I will get the next two or three scenes done – now that I know what I'm doing … sort of.

Till next time.

Thanks Jesus

Well, I've got four days off (thanks Jesus!) and I've managed to successfully procrastinate the first morning away – well I was reading a good book – so now it's time to get cracking and get The Cleaning Station in to some sort of order.

As this is my first time co-writing anything I'm going to try and blog about the process. This will mostly be for me so that next time I do it, I don't freak out and can reread this and go, oh well, it worked out so wonderfully the first time it can't help but work this time. Positive thinking man. Peace out to all of you. Spread the love and whatnot.

For a quick update:

• J and I decided that we were going to write a play together. This seemed like a marvellous idea and thus we proceeded forth like Hansel and Gretel searching for the gingerbread house.
  
• J came up with the idea that we would both tackle the theme The Cleaning Station – as in the marine concept where fish go and get cleaned off before they go back out into battle.
  
• J and I go to Hothouse Theatre for a week and work on our plays.
  
• We work and rework our plays.
  
• Now we have two plays that need to become one à enter the delightful Shannon and her scissors and red pen.
  

So that's where we are now. I'm going to start by slowly reading through both plays once. No notes. No nothing. Then I'm going to read them through again and make notes about the characters, how to mess with the narrative, thoughts about how to put it all together. Then … well, that's for the next blog.

 

How to make plays be friends with each other

Didn't manage to get a thing done yesterday. It was so hot when I got home and then so, so, so hot during the night that all I could manage to do was lie on the couch and be utterly horrible to anyone who came near me. But the heat has broken and it's time to start cracking.

I've been given the task of trying to put the play together that J and I have written which is, at the moment, two very separate plays with the same starting point. I have no idea how to do this and no real idea how to begin. I think I may chop them up and see if I can free them up a bit before trying to put them together. I think the key is that they have to stop being their own little plays and start playing together (... did you see that? I just made a funny. I so did. Shut up.)

In other news, I have none. I'm reading a terrifying book called Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn. I'm hoping the hope in some form comes soon to it because at the moment it is simply terrifying. I also joined this place and got my first two assignments. I haven't read any of my first two assignments but ...

Update

I managed to do all the things that I said I was going to do on Thursday apart from rewriting Chalk Street Express which I did yesterday morning and managed to get into the mail yesterday afternoon. So, now, back to the typing. Always with the typing.

Theatre

I don't know. Maybe I'm just an unhappy person. Perhaps that explains why I'm so quick to dislike. Perhaps, and this may be closer to the truth, I just have really high standards. But what is it with crap theatre and this town's love for it?

As I said earlier in the year, I want to go see more theatre this year and so far, so good, but I don't really know what good it is doing for me. Do we just go see these shows to feel better about ourselves and what we are trying to do? I'm all for the support , but I hate theatre shows where they know they are performing to other artists. Apart from being a complete wank, it is a complete waste of time.

PS I won't mention the show. I do want to work in this town again.

When I grow up I want to be Siri Hustvedt

……….

I was going to write that yesterday was a black out day. Not much was done and I was so tired that I had to take myself to bed at about 10.30 in the morning and didn't wake up to about 1.00 and therefore the day was kinda all over the place. But I did manage to get 10 pages of my new play Chalk Street Express written and so now only needs a conclusion so that I can chuck it into the mail by tomorrow and while I didn't finish the first draft of the one-act play which has gone back to being nameless, I know that the characters are heading for the end and I'm pretty clear about what happens to at least one of them at the end. So, that's okay right?

And I finished Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt which is an amazing book. I got into Siri after falling magically in love with her husband, Paul Auster, and now I fight an urge to turn up to their Brooklyn pad and ask them to adopt me. When I grow up, I'd like to be Siri Hustvedt.

This morning I'm going to finish both the new 10 minute play and the one act play and then I'm going to start typing the one hundred and two things in my notebook which need to get from pen to laptop and then I'm going to rewrite Chalk Street Express and then I'm going out to dinner and then …. Here's a fun game for you all. Pick out all the things that Shannon won't get to. Go on, I dare you.