I got an email from a friend recently asking for clarification on whether or not I still believed in God. She is going through some spiritual searching and was curious as to why I left the church and what that actually meant for me in terms of my beliefs.
I replied, and while my reply felt a little ... aggressive ... it was an honest outlining of my feelings. In short, I am unresolved on the question of divinity but I pretty firmly reject the concept of divinity as expressed by most people. Or, more concretely, I don't know if I believe in "God", but I probably don't believe in what you mean by "God."
Then, a few days later I was reading a short story that was set during a couple's honeymoon. The narrator was a recently pregnant "cultural Jew," and her husband was a rather strident atheist. The gist of the tale revolved largely around how the impending birth of a chile had raised significant questions about her cultural identity (which had no real theological component) and his militant attitudes about pretty much anything.
I was quite struck by both the overall exploration of ideology and identity, but also by the particular characterizations employed. On her side, she had something that she had somewhat passively accepted her entire life as a defining characteristic and deeply resented that it would be a problem for her husband. At the same time, she realized that the things she were holding on to had no real root in what she believed in and no actual intrinsic meaning. On the other hand, he had a very strong sense of justice, a clear intellectual foundation for his perspective, but was rude and arrogant about it. Two people who were right in lots of ways, struggling to come to terms with where they were being a bit blind.
Then, today, I was listening to KQED and they were having a debate about whether we are better off, culturally, with or without religion. The debate itself seemed a bit of a wash, and I was quite put off by the "Oxford style" of debate, which mostly seemed to involve cutting people off so that they felt compelled to talk faster and louder when they *did* have the mic.
Now, the conjunction of question, short story, and radio debate is purely coincidental, but it nevertheless has had me thinking about my current relationship to faith.
I'm not sure if I can express this any better than I did in my reply to my friend, but let me give it a try.
I believe that there is a possibility that some form of intelligence has acted to shape life and the universe as we know it... but find it highly unlikely. I am always wary of making absolute statements about things I don't have all the facts on, but the older I get the less sense it makes to subscribe to the idea of orchestrated creation.
I most certainly do not believe in an omnipotent and omniscient being whose primary concern is my personal well being and the state of my soul. I just can't make any heads or tails out of the logic of such a thing, and it seems to simply be a way for people to feel better about themselves. People need to feel special, and having God in their corner is a pretty damn good way to accomplish that feeling of specialness.
I also don't particularly think that "the universe" gives a shit about what you put out into it or not. I think that if you do good, and if you're on the lookout for good, and know how to recognize opportunities, and get out of the house once in a while... you have a greater likelihood of having positive experiences, or at least viewing your circumstances in a positive way.
I don't think that religion in and of itself is by its very nature good or bad. Great things have been done under the umbrella of religion and horrible things have been done. Great things have been done without the influence of religion, and horrible things have been done as well. To say that religion makes the world a better or worse place is just looking for a fight as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think that religion makes you inherently more racist or sexist or anything like that. I think that people use their belief in their god to justify anything and everything that they currently believe. Indeed, this is my biggest problem with religious behavior: the appealing to the divine approval of the speaker's personal loves and hates. It prevents most rational discussion about heated subjects. Now, again, you can be an atheist and still resort to shouting at people who disagree with you. I'm not saying that all religious people do this and that non-religious people don't. But as soon as you take the attitude of "I'm right, and God backs me up, and here's a passage from my holy text that shows that I'm right." Well, that's the end of the discussion, isn't it? You can point out inconsistencies in their thinking, other passages in their own writing that contradict their attitude, point out the historical context that their verse was written in, and so forth but it doesn't matter. You're no longer in a discussion, or fight, that anyone can learn from.
So far, I've been pretty general in my characteristics of "religion" and "religious people." There is one thing fairly particular to Christianity that has always bothered me. By "always" I mean, even when I was in Seminary. Conversion and the Punishment of Hell.
This is where I just can't get on board. The idea that "if you don't agree with me and understand the universe and your place in it the way that I do... you will die and suffer eternally in the pit of Hell" creates such cognitive frisson that sense becomes nonsense and hate becomes love.
Agnostics and atheists and members of other religions have often expressed bafflement to me that "Christians" can so often speak and behave with such hate, when they are professing love. What they don't understand that those "Christians" honestly and truly believe that whatever you are, or do, or say is in violation of their God's law and that unless you repent and become like they are... you will suffer for all eternity. They don't want you to suffer for all eternity, so it is vitally important that they stop you from being who you are, doing what you do, or thinking what you think. It's the only way to save you from eternal suffering.
Is this concern simply a mask so that they can justify their own hatreds? Sometimes. Maybe even oftentimes. But for many people, the ones who aren't purple in the face and spitting while they tell you how much God loves them, it's quite genuine. The threat of hell is so deeply ingrained in many Christian traditions that fighting that which is foreign and "wrong" is of the most absolute importance. If they don't fight, then you will burn in Hell forever, and you will convince other people to turn away from salvation and then they will burn in Hell forever. This is often a quite sincere belief.
The shift from "I believe the universe is ordered in this way, according to these principles, and this brings comfort and meaning to my life" to "believe my truth or you will suffer for all eternity and lead others to suffer as well and it is my obligation to ensure that you are saved from yourself" has resulted in a LOT of ugliness.
So, what does this say about me? What label to I wear? For all practical intents and purposes, I guess you would call me an atheist. The thing is, though... I don't feel comfortable with that title. I believe that there are things out there that we don't understand. I don't know for certain that when the brain dies, there is nothing left of us. I am not utterly convinced that there is not an existence that runs alongside our own, separated by a dimension that can only be perceived between electrons and that much of our "supernatural phenomena" is not linked to this. I just don't know, and I like to think that I can still be amazed by what is out there. I think that religious faith can have a real beauty to it and that it can be a powerful impact on the world for good. So, I am unwilling to wear the uniform of the hard core atheist. I don't have any interest in crusades to liberate the masses from their superstition delusions or anything like that.
But for me, here in this place and at this time: I am content to exist in the world, and not rely on supernumeraries to guide my destiny, reward my faith, and punish me for my disobedience. It's a good life, and I don't need to make myself more important than I am.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Monday, November 07, 2011
My response to Mr. De La Fuente's Statement
Recently, I got an email from my District Councilman, Ignacio De La Fuente.
--------------
Dear Residents,
While I agree with the message of the Occupy movement and consider myself, along with all City Employees, including the men and women in our Police Department, to be part of the 99%, I disagree that occupying Frank Ogawa Plaza, shutting down the Port, or calling for a general strike against our City, is going to impact the 1% that this movement is supposed to be targeting.
I do not believe that the 1% was affected by the small businesses that were vandalized earlier this week in our Downtown. Nor were they impacted by the Port truckers or small business employees that were forced to miss work on Wednesday.
The “Occupy Movement” is costing Oakland millions of dollars, dollars that we simply do not have given the economic downturn we find ourselves in. The 1% will not send the City a check to cover the damages suffered by our downtown businesses earlier this week. They're not the ones that are going to pay to replace all the broken windows of City owned buildings nor will they compensate local businesses for the damage they sustained on Wednesday night.
The impacts to residents all over the City, not just in the downtown area, are serious.
There are Oakland families who lost an entire day’s pay on Wednesday. How do we justify the fact that 15 of our 17 Head Start Centers in the City were closed and that those families were forced to make last minute alternative arrangements for child care? This caused a serious financial impact to our lowest income families who ARE part of the 99%.
Residents who rely on public transportation were not able to get to or from work due to Wednesday's disruption to public transportation services. Calls for service to the Police department are going unanswered. As an example, Saturday alone, there were 179 pending calls for service to OPD.
We can not allow this to continue while the residents of our City suffer the consequences. Every additional public works employee who is spending their time in the plaza cleaning up after the occupiers is NOT in our neighborhoods cleaning our parks, emptying our garbage cans and removing graffiti or performing the other services that we as tax payers, pay for.
We still have shootings, robberies and burglaries everyday, the only difference now is that OPD is taking longer to get to those calls. That’s not fair to the residents and small business owners of Oakland.
Just because we might agree with the message we cannot simply allow a group of individuals to outright break our local laws, infringe upon the rights of others, or indefinitely occupy a space that is intended to be used and enjoyed by all Oaklander’s. We also cannot treat this group of individuals any differently than we would any other group. To my colleagues who support the continuing occupation of Frank Ogawa plaza I pose the following question, "would this all be OK if the group outside was the Tea Party or some other right wing extremist group?"
We can not wait until something terrible happens in the Plaza. Nor can we wait for further destruction of businesses. I demand that the Mayor and City Administrator provide the Council with a plan to remove the encampment and bring back the Plaza for everyone’s use.
I hope the residents of Oakland hold the Council and Mayor accountable for their actions or inactions in dealing with this problem.
Ignacio
-----------------
My response (which I emailed to him, but am posting here for discussion):
As one of your constituents, I have to take issue with some of your points.
Yes, there are problems with how the Occupy Oakland protests are impacting local business people. This can and should be prevented. Absolutely.
However, the vandalization of small businesses was most likely not the intent or action of the protest organizers or most of those who are participating. You know as well as any of us that Oakland has a history of drawing out a thug contingent, both from inside Oakland and outside our city, whenever a protest is organized. Blaming the larger protest for the actions of a minority does not serve us.
The General Strike, as I understand it, was a direct response to the excessive use of violence against peaceful protesters. Oakland, as a city, decided that rather than act in support of the protesters it would work to shut them down. It did so by bringing in others who were clearly spoiling for a fight and brought incredible shame on our city.
Our Mayor and the council could have chosen to support the goals and ideals of the protests, worked with organizers to cooperate in matters of safety and sanitation and done some real community building. Imagine if one or two police offers were assigned to work WITH the protesters to help them police the fringe elements themselves, and only intervening when situations required an official response. Imagine if Oakland sanitation worked with the organizers and protesters to ensure that they cleaned up after themselves and all Oakland needed to do was cart off full trash bins?
What if, instead of shutting down it's own citizens, Oakland had actually found a way to make this entire situation work for everyone. What if, instead of appearing to the world as a city that can't get its message straight and is quick to resort to force to quiet protesters, it became a beacon to the country of how a city could turn a negative situation into a new start of community involvement and cooperation?
But no, the city chose to expend a lot of money, the money that we can't afford, to make things much much worse than they needed to be.
Should city buildings have had their windows broken? No. Will that end up costing us all money? Yes. But how much did it cost for us to flood the square with out of town cops so they could beat on our citizens? How much are we going to have to pay in lawsuits for the injured? If you want to talk about financial losses the city will suffer, look there.
You ask, "how would we feel if it was right wing protesters occupying the plaza?" I would be fine with it. I might avoid the plaza, but they have as much a right to protest as we do. If they could get enough numbers to fill that plaza, and be dedicated enough to suffer the cold and damp overnight, then let them. That plaza is for everyone, as you point out. If it's for everyone, if it's our tax dollars that pay for it, then the citizens of Oakland have a right to be there. Does the city have a responsibility to ensure safety, and accessibility? Yes it does, but the answers need to lie with community involvement and cooperation, not this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8
Something terrible did happen in the plaza. Shot with a rubber bullet, for filming a line of cops. Not advancing, not screaming, just walking and filming the line and *bang*. You can hear people yelling on that video, but it wasn't the person filming, or anyone right next to him.
I'm not on the front lines, but as a taxpayer and a member of your district, I'd rather see you advocating for ways to make this better rather than for ways to make it all go away.
Respectfully,
Dan Wilson
--------------
Dear Residents,
While I agree with the message of the Occupy movement and consider myself, along with all City Employees, including the men and women in our Police Department, to be part of the 99%, I disagree that occupying Frank Ogawa Plaza, shutting down the Port, or calling for a general strike against our City, is going to impact the 1% that this movement is supposed to be targeting.
I do not believe that the 1% was affected by the small businesses that were vandalized earlier this week in our Downtown. Nor were they impacted by the Port truckers or small business employees that were forced to miss work on Wednesday.
The “Occupy Movement” is costing Oakland millions of dollars, dollars that we simply do not have given the economic downturn we find ourselves in. The 1% will not send the City a check to cover the damages suffered by our downtown businesses earlier this week. They're not the ones that are going to pay to replace all the broken windows of City owned buildings nor will they compensate local businesses for the damage they sustained on Wednesday night.
The impacts to residents all over the City, not just in the downtown area, are serious.
There are Oakland families who lost an entire day’s pay on Wednesday. How do we justify the fact that 15 of our 17 Head Start Centers in the City were closed and that those families were forced to make last minute alternative arrangements for child care? This caused a serious financial impact to our lowest income families who ARE part of the 99%.
Residents who rely on public transportation were not able to get to or from work due to Wednesday's disruption to public transportation services. Calls for service to the Police department are going unanswered. As an example, Saturday alone, there were 179 pending calls for service to OPD.
We can not allow this to continue while the residents of our City suffer the consequences. Every additional public works employee who is spending their time in the plaza cleaning up after the occupiers is NOT in our neighborhoods cleaning our parks, emptying our garbage cans and removing graffiti or performing the other services that we as tax payers, pay for.
We still have shootings, robberies and burglaries everyday, the only difference now is that OPD is taking longer to get to those calls. That’s not fair to the residents and small business owners of Oakland.
Just because we might agree with the message we cannot simply allow a group of individuals to outright break our local laws, infringe upon the rights of others, or indefinitely occupy a space that is intended to be used and enjoyed by all Oaklander’s. We also cannot treat this group of individuals any differently than we would any other group. To my colleagues who support the continuing occupation of Frank Ogawa plaza I pose the following question, "would this all be OK if the group outside was the Tea Party or some other right wing extremist group?"
We can not wait until something terrible happens in the Plaza. Nor can we wait for further destruction of businesses. I demand that the Mayor and City Administrator provide the Council with a plan to remove the encampment and bring back the Plaza for everyone’s use.
I hope the residents of Oakland hold the Council and Mayor accountable for their actions or inactions in dealing with this problem.
Ignacio
-----------------
My response (which I emailed to him, but am posting here for discussion):
As one of your constituents, I have to take issue with some of your points.
Yes, there are problems with how the Occupy Oakland protests are impacting local business people. This can and should be prevented. Absolutely.
However, the vandalization of small businesses was most likely not the intent or action of the protest organizers or most of those who are participating. You know as well as any of us that Oakland has a history of drawing out a thug contingent, both from inside Oakland and outside our city, whenever a protest is organized. Blaming the larger protest for the actions of a minority does not serve us.
The General Strike, as I understand it, was a direct response to the excessive use of violence against peaceful protesters. Oakland, as a city, decided that rather than act in support of the protesters it would work to shut them down. It did so by bringing in others who were clearly spoiling for a fight and brought incredible shame on our city.
Our Mayor and the council could have chosen to support the goals and ideals of the protests, worked with organizers to cooperate in matters of safety and sanitation and done some real community building. Imagine if one or two police offers were assigned to work WITH the protesters to help them police the fringe elements themselves, and only intervening when situations required an official response. Imagine if Oakland sanitation worked with the organizers and protesters to ensure that they cleaned up after themselves and all Oakland needed to do was cart off full trash bins?
What if, instead of shutting down it's own citizens, Oakland had actually found a way to make this entire situation work for everyone. What if, instead of appearing to the world as a city that can't get its message straight and is quick to resort to force to quiet protesters, it became a beacon to the country of how a city could turn a negative situation into a new start of community involvement and cooperation?
But no, the city chose to expend a lot of money, the money that we can't afford, to make things much much worse than they needed to be.
Should city buildings have had their windows broken? No. Will that end up costing us all money? Yes. But how much did it cost for us to flood the square with out of town cops so they could beat on our citizens? How much are we going to have to pay in lawsuits for the injured? If you want to talk about financial losses the city will suffer, look there.
You ask, "how would we feel if it was right wing protesters occupying the plaza?" I would be fine with it. I might avoid the plaza, but they have as much a right to protest as we do. If they could get enough numbers to fill that plaza, and be dedicated enough to suffer the cold and damp overnight, then let them. That plaza is for everyone, as you point out. If it's for everyone, if it's our tax dollars that pay for it, then the citizens of Oakland have a right to be there. Does the city have a responsibility to ensure safety, and accessibility? Yes it does, but the answers need to lie with community involvement and cooperation, not this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8
Something terrible did happen in the plaza. Shot with a rubber bullet, for filming a line of cops. Not advancing, not screaming, just walking and filming the line and *bang*. You can hear people yelling on that video, but it wasn't the person filming, or anyone right next to him.
I'm not on the front lines, but as a taxpayer and a member of your district, I'd rather see you advocating for ways to make this better rather than for ways to make it all go away.
Respectfully,
Dan Wilson
Monday, May 30, 2011
Perfect storm of relaxation
It's Memorial Day, and I'm blissfully enjoying the vestiges of a fairly perfect weekend. Juliet and I have been up in Mount Shasta, spending time with her mom and her mom's partner, Mark. It's been a mix of eating far too well and too frequently, relaxing with books, taking walks downtown and in Ashland, writing, exploring the local caves, visiting with locals and extended family, and introducing everyone to the card game Citadels.
I feel like I've been soaking in a hot tub since Friday morning.
Granted, the drive back to Oakland may undo all this relaxed inner harmony, but I'm hoping not.
------
Here's a few updates for the curious. In two weeks there will be public reading of two of my plays, courtesy of Triple Shot Productions. On Friday, June 10th, we'll be reading my new farce, "Mammals in Collision." I finally got the second draft finished on Friday, up here in Mount Shasta, and I've been collecting and confirming actors since then. On Saturday, Peggy Powell's new one act will be read alongside "All that and a Box of Donuts", with most of the original San Jose cast.
In other writing news, my little five pager for Theatre Pub didn't make the cut for their little fest, but I wrote and submitted a "first scene" for Unscripted Theatre for their next show. The Theatre Pub scene came fairly easy, as it had many restrictions on what could happen, length, how it should end, etc. I may try to catch the show when it goes up, just to see what did get picked. The Unscripted show was more of a challenge, since they want the first scene of a play, but they will improvise the rest of the play as they imagine I might have written it. It was supposed to be a genre piece of my choosing, and could have up to ten characters.
Now, while I may introduce many characters in the first scene (411, Harvesting the Lost, I don't introduce everyone at once, and sometimes the main character won't even show up until the second or third scene (In a Distant Country). That, and I don't usually start a project based on genre. Really, I think of genre more with film and novels than plays. So, I fretted and hemmed and hawed about what to write for a couple of weeks, and finally decided to play a bit with comedy-noir. I wanted to write a female private investigator, but didn't want to draw too heavily on Hal Savage's The Chinese Angle which I directed a few years back. So, I made it contemporary and made the lead heterosexual ... and deaf. As soon as I began to write the opening noirish inner monologue, I also discovered that my detective was also a frustrated meteorologist. Soon, I began to people her world in my mind and in my notes. The first scene would be her and her client, and other characters (but, in my mind, not all the characters) would be mentioned as allies, suspects, and potential leads. I tried to build the requisite sexual tension between client and detective, an existing lover to allow for a triangle, a murder to solve, and a menagerie for the detective to explore and investigate through the plot... while throwing in some jokes to set the tone.
The problem is... I really like these characters now! If Unscripted doesn't pick it up, I may have to write the whole play, or turn it into a webseries. Given that I already need to adapt All That and a Box of Donuts to webseries format, and have a short film with Tom Neely that I'm supposedly working on... I don't know when the story of Carol Stone might get told.
On top of all this, I've got an audition coming up for a tiny part with a large theatre, but one that would never the less eat up a good deal of time.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to do all this and still find time to play Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age 2, Arkham City, the new Bioshock. I also need to brush up on my job skills, and just purchased some books on Javascript, Photoshop CS 5, and HTML 5.
So, basically, I'm accepting offers by wealthy patrons, if you're interested.
I feel like I've been soaking in a hot tub since Friday morning.
Granted, the drive back to Oakland may undo all this relaxed inner harmony, but I'm hoping not.
------
Here's a few updates for the curious. In two weeks there will be public reading of two of my plays, courtesy of Triple Shot Productions. On Friday, June 10th, we'll be reading my new farce, "Mammals in Collision." I finally got the second draft finished on Friday, up here in Mount Shasta, and I've been collecting and confirming actors since then. On Saturday, Peggy Powell's new one act will be read alongside "All that and a Box of Donuts", with most of the original San Jose cast.
In other writing news, my little five pager for Theatre Pub didn't make the cut for their little fest, but I wrote and submitted a "first scene" for Unscripted Theatre for their next show. The Theatre Pub scene came fairly easy, as it had many restrictions on what could happen, length, how it should end, etc. I may try to catch the show when it goes up, just to see what did get picked. The Unscripted show was more of a challenge, since they want the first scene of a play, but they will improvise the rest of the play as they imagine I might have written it. It was supposed to be a genre piece of my choosing, and could have up to ten characters.
Now, while I may introduce many characters in the first scene (411, Harvesting the Lost, I don't introduce everyone at once, and sometimes the main character won't even show up until the second or third scene (In a Distant Country). That, and I don't usually start a project based on genre. Really, I think of genre more with film and novels than plays. So, I fretted and hemmed and hawed about what to write for a couple of weeks, and finally decided to play a bit with comedy-noir. I wanted to write a female private investigator, but didn't want to draw too heavily on Hal Savage's The Chinese Angle which I directed a few years back. So, I made it contemporary and made the lead heterosexual ... and deaf. As soon as I began to write the opening noirish inner monologue, I also discovered that my detective was also a frustrated meteorologist. Soon, I began to people her world in my mind and in my notes. The first scene would be her and her client, and other characters (but, in my mind, not all the characters) would be mentioned as allies, suspects, and potential leads. I tried to build the requisite sexual tension between client and detective, an existing lover to allow for a triangle, a murder to solve, and a menagerie for the detective to explore and investigate through the plot... while throwing in some jokes to set the tone.
The problem is... I really like these characters now! If Unscripted doesn't pick it up, I may have to write the whole play, or turn it into a webseries. Given that I already need to adapt All That and a Box of Donuts to webseries format, and have a short film with Tom Neely that I'm supposedly working on... I don't know when the story of Carol Stone might get told.
On top of all this, I've got an audition coming up for a tiny part with a large theatre, but one that would never the less eat up a good deal of time.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to do all this and still find time to play Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age 2, Arkham City, the new Bioshock. I also need to brush up on my job skills, and just purchased some books on Javascript, Photoshop CS 5, and HTML 5.
So, basically, I'm accepting offers by wealthy patrons, if you're interested.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Update
Just finished Act II. It's going to need more work, but most of the play will, I think, need some workshopping to get the timings right anyway. It's hard to know how much or how little dialogue you need to make the timings of entrances and exits work and how much of a chaotic moment needs to be spelled out.
Reglardless, now I can start writing act III.
Reglardless, now I can start writing act III.
Inching forward
I love telling stories, be it as an actor, an improvisor, a director, or a writer. That said, the process of writing is a grueling one... even when it's not. When I sit down to write, my goal tends to be three pages a day. If I really knuckled down and treated it like a job, I could probably do 12-15 a day. Of course, I don't. I spend lots of time thinking about the story, and about the characters, and where they're heading and where they've been, but actually putting fingers to keyboard is an ongoing struggle.
This is hardly news. Ninety five percent of writers would say something very similar.
I recently figured out how Mammals in Collision ends. Like 411, so many years ago, the ending of this play has eluded me for years, and as a result it sat untouched in the recesses of my mind. Now that I have a final moment to work towards, you'd think that I'd be leaping at the chance to get it written down.
But look, I'm doing a blog entry.
Today is a holiday, and I hope to at least finish act II today. Procrastination tools involve books, housework, the dog, personal hygiene, Radiostar, and (of course) the X-Box. Maybe if I write in this space that I'll have act II done by 5pm, I'll actually get it done.
Let's see together, yes?
This is hardly news. Ninety five percent of writers would say something very similar.
I recently figured out how Mammals in Collision ends. Like 411, so many years ago, the ending of this play has eluded me for years, and as a result it sat untouched in the recesses of my mind. Now that I have a final moment to work towards, you'd think that I'd be leaping at the chance to get it written down.
But look, I'm doing a blog entry.
Today is a holiday, and I hope to at least finish act II today. Procrastination tools involve books, housework, the dog, personal hygiene, Radiostar, and (of course) the X-Box. Maybe if I write in this space that I'll have act II done by 5pm, I'll actually get it done.
Let's see together, yes?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Auditions from the other side of the table
So, I'm stuck watching progress bars in work, and all the other work I need to do involves the program creating the progress bars, so I might as well do a blog post.
I'm in the midst for auditions right now. Specifically, I'm directing my play "Get it? Got it. Good!" for a one-act festival down in San Jose. The original director had to bow out, so I agreed to step in and direct. It's a shame, because I was curious to see what someone else would do with it. Still, I'm just glad to let a different audience see the show, and to tweak (and hopefully improve it) a bit.
We were supposed to have two nights of auditions and one day of callbacks. Because the company had the first night of auditions on Valentine's Day, so that ended up not happening. One would hope however, that we'd just be jam packed with people on the other evening. One would hope, and as often happens when one hopes, one would be disappointed.
We saw a grand total of six actors. My show alone, and there are four shows in total, has a cast of eight. My show is also male heavy. Five definite men, two women, and one role that can switch as needed. We have people who were seen at the TBA Generals and who have worked with Arclight before coming directly to callbacks. I asked how many of them were men. "One."
As it currently stands, even if everyone at callbacks is fantastic, I am going to need to cast at least half my show outside of the audition process. Fortunately, I know a lot of great actors. Unfortunately, if they are Equity members I can't use them. (I used two Equity members in the original production because I was footing the bill.)
Of the non-equity, still living in this state men from the last production, I know that at least one of them is otherwise booked during this time period and one of them is fully engaged with his own projects and recent offspring. So, I'm going through my list in my head and thinking of matches with characters.
The show will definitely be different. Different stage, different actors, improved staging and pacing, cleaned up some confusing lines, etc. I'm working hard to not let past performances color what the characters could be. It's challenging though, and why I was excited to see someone come to the script fresh as a director.
In the end, I expect that by Saturday I will have all my women cast. I also expect that by Saturday I'll be taking my list of awesome actors who are neither Equity nor otherwise engaged and doing some serious wooing.
Now, how did we get in this situation? Actors are always looking for work, after all. Well, there are a few things working against us.
1. No pay.
This always makes it hard to get actors of any substantial experience. Even a small stipend—enough to cover basic travel expenses—is enough to bring in more experienced actors. With no pay at all, the market dwindles rapidly.
2. The company is also holding auditions for their main production at the same time.
Ok, they're actually a week apart, but most of the actors I might have access to are auditioning for "Much Ado About Nothing", which is their big show of the year and will be rehearsing at the same time as the One-Acts. This includes most of the men.
3. Location.
Getting people down to San Jose is always a challenge. The commute can be brutal. Strangely enough, however, almost everyone who came on Tuesday was from the East Bay or the Peninsula. People who wouldn't have to commute however, didn't show up. I'm guessing they'll be at auditions for Much Ado.
4. Small company
The company has a great deal of potential, and lots of heart, but is still very much finding its feet. I've recently become a company member and am hoping that as labor becomes more divided that the company will be able to improve its output more and more and it will grow from a small to mid-sized company. But for now, people aren't signing up for the prestige factor.
In particular, I'm hoping that we can begin raising funds so that people can get paid (removing factor 1) and that we can look at the season and figure out ways to maximize our resources (point two). If we can do that, factors three and four will become less and less of an issue.
I'm in the midst for auditions right now. Specifically, I'm directing my play "Get it? Got it. Good!" for a one-act festival down in San Jose. The original director had to bow out, so I agreed to step in and direct. It's a shame, because I was curious to see what someone else would do with it. Still, I'm just glad to let a different audience see the show, and to tweak (and hopefully improve it) a bit.
We were supposed to have two nights of auditions and one day of callbacks. Because the company had the first night of auditions on Valentine's Day, so that ended up not happening. One would hope however, that we'd just be jam packed with people on the other evening. One would hope, and as often happens when one hopes, one would be disappointed.
We saw a grand total of six actors. My show alone, and there are four shows in total, has a cast of eight. My show is also male heavy. Five definite men, two women, and one role that can switch as needed. We have people who were seen at the TBA Generals and who have worked with Arclight before coming directly to callbacks. I asked how many of them were men. "One."
As it currently stands, even if everyone at callbacks is fantastic, I am going to need to cast at least half my show outside of the audition process. Fortunately, I know a lot of great actors. Unfortunately, if they are Equity members I can't use them. (I used two Equity members in the original production because I was footing the bill.)
Of the non-equity, still living in this state men from the last production, I know that at least one of them is otherwise booked during this time period and one of them is fully engaged with his own projects and recent offspring. So, I'm going through my list in my head and thinking of matches with characters.
The show will definitely be different. Different stage, different actors, improved staging and pacing, cleaned up some confusing lines, etc. I'm working hard to not let past performances color what the characters could be. It's challenging though, and why I was excited to see someone come to the script fresh as a director.
In the end, I expect that by Saturday I will have all my women cast. I also expect that by Saturday I'll be taking my list of awesome actors who are neither Equity nor otherwise engaged and doing some serious wooing.
Now, how did we get in this situation? Actors are always looking for work, after all. Well, there are a few things working against us.
1. No pay.
This always makes it hard to get actors of any substantial experience. Even a small stipend—enough to cover basic travel expenses—is enough to bring in more experienced actors. With no pay at all, the market dwindles rapidly.
2. The company is also holding auditions for their main production at the same time.
Ok, they're actually a week apart, but most of the actors I might have access to are auditioning for "Much Ado About Nothing", which is their big show of the year and will be rehearsing at the same time as the One-Acts. This includes most of the men.
3. Location.
Getting people down to San Jose is always a challenge. The commute can be brutal. Strangely enough, however, almost everyone who came on Tuesday was from the East Bay or the Peninsula. People who wouldn't have to commute however, didn't show up. I'm guessing they'll be at auditions for Much Ado.
4. Small company
The company has a great deal of potential, and lots of heart, but is still very much finding its feet. I've recently become a company member and am hoping that as labor becomes more divided that the company will be able to improve its output more and more and it will grow from a small to mid-sized company. But for now, people aren't signing up for the prestige factor.
In particular, I'm hoping that we can begin raising funds so that people can get paid (removing factor 1) and that we can look at the season and figure out ways to maximize our resources (point two). If we can do that, factors three and four will become less and less of an issue.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Things don't happen, and some things do
Yesterday felt smashingly productive. I got another three pages done in Mammals in Collision, finished the edits on Radiostar, got a call from Juliet saying that she had gotten out of rehearsal #1 early and wanted to meet in Berkeley for frozen yogurt, and then came home and added the musical transitions and intro to the Radiostar episode. In the midst of all this, I got another call (this time from Christopher DeJong) informing me that Radiostar Improv was going to be in the San Francisco Fringe Festival in September. This will make our fourth ever live performance, and our first series of shows.
This morning felt less productive at first. Our numbers for tonight's recording session went from seven, to six, to five, to four due to conflicts, illness, illness, and more illness. We had cancelled last night's session for similar reasons and once we hit four (with one possible drop out due to ... illness), it became clear that tonight would not be spent on mic.
I was bummed, but consoled myself with the thought that I wouldn't have to haul all the gear out to San Francisco, which meant that I wouldn't have to use City CarShare. Not spending money or hauling heavy and expensive gear is always a good consolation prize.
It didn't help that neither I nor Juliet got much sleep thanks to Benedick, who has the very habit of not letting us get a solid eight hours... ever. You'd think that a queen size bed would be adequate for two humans and an 11 lb dog, but you'd be wrong. He seems to swell in the night. Suddenly you awaken to find that he's stretched and his paws are digging into you, or that there's this large furry lump burrowed into the small of your back.
So, tired and mildly frustrated, I jumped in the shower. It was there that I had an epiphany.
I first had the idea for Mammals in Collision about five years ago. I wrote out the outline, and then it sat for years. I always wanted to work on it, but I was so concerned about how to deal with the third act that it became very easy to leave on the back burner. Ultimately, I knew that the play didn't have an ending. I knew the crux of the third act. I knew the issues. But no matter how it played out, it would turn from a comedy into a tragedy... even if it was a tragedy deferred.
This morning, amidst the steam and soap, it came to me. An ending. A brilliant ending. An ending that maintained the tone I had been setting as I wrote the last few weeks. An ending that worked.
I emerged, electrified.
I still need to finish act two, which I think I can do today. But now I know exactly where I am heading. I have a destination, which I'd had for the ends of the first two acts, but not for the whole play.
It's going to be a very good day.
This morning felt less productive at first. Our numbers for tonight's recording session went from seven, to six, to five, to four due to conflicts, illness, illness, and more illness. We had cancelled last night's session for similar reasons and once we hit four (with one possible drop out due to ... illness), it became clear that tonight would not be spent on mic.
I was bummed, but consoled myself with the thought that I wouldn't have to haul all the gear out to San Francisco, which meant that I wouldn't have to use City CarShare. Not spending money or hauling heavy and expensive gear is always a good consolation prize.
It didn't help that neither I nor Juliet got much sleep thanks to Benedick, who has the very habit of not letting us get a solid eight hours... ever. You'd think that a queen size bed would be adequate for two humans and an 11 lb dog, but you'd be wrong. He seems to swell in the night. Suddenly you awaken to find that he's stretched and his paws are digging into you, or that there's this large furry lump burrowed into the small of your back.
So, tired and mildly frustrated, I jumped in the shower. It was there that I had an epiphany.
I first had the idea for Mammals in Collision about five years ago. I wrote out the outline, and then it sat for years. I always wanted to work on it, but I was so concerned about how to deal with the third act that it became very easy to leave on the back burner. Ultimately, I knew that the play didn't have an ending. I knew the crux of the third act. I knew the issues. But no matter how it played out, it would turn from a comedy into a tragedy... even if it was a tragedy deferred.
This morning, amidst the steam and soap, it came to me. An ending. A brilliant ending. An ending that maintained the tone I had been setting as I wrote the last few weeks. An ending that worked.
I emerged, electrified.
I still need to finish act two, which I think I can do today. But now I know exactly where I am heading. I have a destination, which I'd had for the ends of the first two acts, but not for the whole play.
It's going to be a very good day.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Nothing here. Move along.
I don't have much to post about today. I'm in the midst of writing the first draft of my long delayed farce "Mammals in Collision" and I need to get the next Radiostar show edited for Monday. Right now it's all about working until 5ish, cooking and then writing and editing. Not too exciting here at Casa Wilson-Heller.
Juliets in rehearsals for Beardo over at Shotgun Players, so most of my evenings are my own. This will change soon, however, as auditions for "Get it? Got it. Good!" are next week and then I'll be casting and rehearsing until the end of March.
I feel like I should say something about Egypt, but I don't know what to write beyond "Yay! Good for them."
I really am happy that the people were able to rise up and have a pretty peaceful revolt. I'm thrilled that the military stood up for the people and didn't act as a force of oppression.
I just wish that it hadn't taken thirty years to happen.
Juliets in rehearsals for Beardo over at Shotgun Players, so most of my evenings are my own. This will change soon, however, as auditions for "Get it? Got it. Good!" are next week and then I'll be casting and rehearsing until the end of March.
I feel like I should say something about Egypt, but I don't know what to write beyond "Yay! Good for them."
I really am happy that the people were able to rise up and have a pretty peaceful revolt. I'm thrilled that the military stood up for the people and didn't act as a force of oppression.
I just wish that it hadn't taken thirty years to happen.
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