Good things, as a general rule, don't come easily.
"'Sweetie' Tanya" has the potential to be the best script I've developed, but getting it to the stage has turned into a logistical nightmare. I've hunted for actors, lost actors, found actors, lost more actors, and had more scheduling issues than I've ever experienced before. There are numerous reasons for this, not least of which includes the decision to do the show in January and thus rehearse during the holiday season.
Still, I've come close to closing shop of a couple of occasions. Each time, the problem has been resolved just before my frustration crossed into a mood of destruction and closure. Now that we've begun rehearsals, however, I am unlikely to go down without a fight. Listening to Dave Malloy work with the songs and with the performers, watching Kate Austin-Groen and Alexis Wong inhabit these characters, seeing the others move from wariness to joy and excitement over this very dark and strange script... it's a joy. I love the rehearsal process, but my love of producing dwindles by the day.
I've been in talks with directors about future projects, but at this point I seriously doubt my stamina for another project in the near future.
No matter what happens, I'll continue to produce Radiostar, which posted its 100th improv show last week.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 04, 2007
effects of change
I went to the most unusual audition today. It's for a film, and they asked people to bring in true life monologues. Nothing from plays, just come in and tell a story on camera. They filmed the auditions, and filmed them in groups of three so that they could get a sense of how you listen as well as how you speak. I was in the second group, but arrived an hour early due to extremely light traffic. I had brought my own set of headshots with me, as I'm still looking for three men for Sweetie Tanya.
I told an amalgamation of kidney stone stories, which had the desired effect of being amusing and horrifying in equal measures. Indeed, the stories from all the people in the second group were a sweet and sour mix of the goofy and the horrifying. I wish I had been in the first group as well, just to hear people telling their tales.
I get a bit spoiled, I suppose, as we do this sort of thing at the beginning of each Radiostar session. We tell true stories, based on a word or idea culled from someone in attendance. It's a good exercise, and the stories are often so compelling that Chris has often spoke of taking them and making them a podcast of their own.
I think it would be a good party game... to tell people not to bring food or drink, but a story to share, and to share them throughout the evening.
Most of the rest of this weekend was spent relaxing and working on Tanya. I had a fantastic meeting with our choreographer (Tonya Amos), and discovered some crucial things about how Nolan Cook's music will play into the piece. I also met an auditioner, who has become one of our Coffee Crush Chorus. I have an entire stack of old headshots of actors who will be getting emails from me tomorrow, hopefully ending my casting period.
But tonight was spent watching Doctor Zhivago. It's a long movie, but epic and gorgeous. I'd always heard of the film, but never seen it before tonight. Oddly enough, I am also nearing the end of a memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is called "Spider Eaters". The book and the movie bounce off each other in interesting ways, as both ultimately detail what it is to move as an individual through a revolution that denies the validity of individual meaning and experience. Both also heartbreakingly describe what happened to private homes and gardens that were gutted, over occupied and ruined during the revolution. In the film we see Zhivago's home, as he returns from the war, occupied by thirteen families and himself treated like an intruder. In the book, we learn of the author's grandmother, whose home was taken over by many families of the people, while she, old and suffering from diabetes, was stuffed into the pantry and left there for her last five years.
It's a quandry. Massive social change by its very nature requires the suffering of individuals. Yet, in the case of both these historical episodes... the change, for all its idealism, hurt the very people it claimed to serve and truly benefitted only those with a need for power. It seems to me that the moment that idealism loses sight of its impact on the individual, it becomes little more than a new tool of oppression. On the other side, there is a line from the film that gives me pause. "I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city."
But then again, what created the situation where five million people would be desperate for fuel?
I told an amalgamation of kidney stone stories, which had the desired effect of being amusing and horrifying in equal measures. Indeed, the stories from all the people in the second group were a sweet and sour mix of the goofy and the horrifying. I wish I had been in the first group as well, just to hear people telling their tales.
I get a bit spoiled, I suppose, as we do this sort of thing at the beginning of each Radiostar session. We tell true stories, based on a word or idea culled from someone in attendance. It's a good exercise, and the stories are often so compelling that Chris has often spoke of taking them and making them a podcast of their own.
I think it would be a good party game... to tell people not to bring food or drink, but a story to share, and to share them throughout the evening.
Most of the rest of this weekend was spent relaxing and working on Tanya. I had a fantastic meeting with our choreographer (Tonya Amos), and discovered some crucial things about how Nolan Cook's music will play into the piece. I also met an auditioner, who has become one of our Coffee Crush Chorus. I have an entire stack of old headshots of actors who will be getting emails from me tomorrow, hopefully ending my casting period.
But tonight was spent watching Doctor Zhivago. It's a long movie, but epic and gorgeous. I'd always heard of the film, but never seen it before tonight. Oddly enough, I am also nearing the end of a memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is called "Spider Eaters". The book and the movie bounce off each other in interesting ways, as both ultimately detail what it is to move as an individual through a revolution that denies the validity of individual meaning and experience. Both also heartbreakingly describe what happened to private homes and gardens that were gutted, over occupied and ruined during the revolution. In the film we see Zhivago's home, as he returns from the war, occupied by thirteen families and himself treated like an intruder. In the book, we learn of the author's grandmother, whose home was taken over by many families of the people, while she, old and suffering from diabetes, was stuffed into the pantry and left there for her last five years.
It's a quandry. Massive social change by its very nature requires the suffering of individuals. Yet, in the case of both these historical episodes... the change, for all its idealism, hurt the very people it claimed to serve and truly benefitted only those with a need for power. It seems to me that the moment that idealism loses sight of its impact on the individual, it becomes little more than a new tool of oppression. On the other side, there is a line from the film that gives me pause. "I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city."
But then again, what created the situation where five million people would be desperate for fuel?
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Meta
The lovely and talented Slackmistress commented earlier this week about blog readership, content, and presumed gender roles. Seeing as how I haven't been posting a lot lately, and when I have been it's usually all about projects and whatnot, and not about my inner emotional turmoils, it made me think about my own blogging history. Back when I first began writing an online journal in 1997, I was very emotionally transparent. I wrote as much about matters of the heart as anything else. In the last few years, I've made a very conscious decision to keep my entries more tied to information about actions than meditations on feelings.
My reason for doing so was largely because of how the online culture has evolved. The development of Livejournal and similar communities where there is no shortage of people willing to open a vein for the world to see led to to reconsider the value of my old writing style. The rise of emo music, and an entire subculture that seemed to scream "look at me! I'm in pain! Look! LOOK!!" caused a reaction in me that continues.
Maybe it's also that I'm just getting older. My personal sadness and frustrations seem much less important than they did back then. I remember telling Joseph once that I was a bit more emotionally guarded than I used to be, and he laughed and said that a guarded Dan was still way more emotionally open than any other male. Still, as the years have gone by I'm definitely emotionally much less open than I was when that crack was made.
So, is it "ok" for women to be emotionally revealing in their blogs while men can talk about politics and robots and video games? I don't really subscribe to gender roles in most matters, let alone this one. But I know that I'm less and less interested in emotional exhibitionism.
And I want to go on the record that Slack is not an emotional exhibitionist. She's actually been extremely controlled with what she puts out there, but also brutally honest. I just found it an interesting question.
My reason for doing so was largely because of how the online culture has evolved. The development of Livejournal and similar communities where there is no shortage of people willing to open a vein for the world to see led to to reconsider the value of my old writing style. The rise of emo music, and an entire subculture that seemed to scream "look at me! I'm in pain! Look! LOOK!!" caused a reaction in me that continues.
Maybe it's also that I'm just getting older. My personal sadness and frustrations seem much less important than they did back then. I remember telling Joseph once that I was a bit more emotionally guarded than I used to be, and he laughed and said that a guarded Dan was still way more emotionally open than any other male. Still, as the years have gone by I'm definitely emotionally much less open than I was when that crack was made.
So, is it "ok" for women to be emotionally revealing in their blogs while men can talk about politics and robots and video games? I don't really subscribe to gender roles in most matters, let alone this one. But I know that I'm less and less interested in emotional exhibitionism.
And I want to go on the record that Slack is not an emotional exhibitionist. She's actually been extremely controlled with what she puts out there, but also brutally honest. I just found it an interesting question.
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