Pardon Me While I Write this Play

Not much of a blog today because I am writing a play! I signed up for the 72-hour play writing challenge with the Red Octopus Theatre Company. Participants have three days to write a play. The play has to include 5 prompts that are randomly drawn from a hat or a bag or something. The five prompts that were drawn for this challenge included a prop, a sound effect, a character, a costume piece and a setting. Actually I don't think the setting was randomly picked as is is "an on screen communication," a video call etc. That seems a little spot on for the current situation if it is to be performed in a quarantined world. There are no guarantees that any of the 72 hour plays will be performed. But if they are, it will probably be via Zoom or some such.

I have done this before (write play to a deadline). The last time I did this I had to write a Christmas play in a month. And one time I did the 24 hour theater, which means I had eight hours to write the play. It's amazing how time expands and contracts to change your perception of whatever deadline you may have. Creativity comes in fits and starts, and having a deadline gives creativity a kick in the pants. I am not sure I spent more actual time writing my first draft for the one-month-deadline play than I did for the eight-hour-deadline play. I certainly had more time to revise the former, and that may have produced a more polished final product. But the real heavy lifting as far as creativity is concerned is that first draft.

Okay, back to it. I will finish by saying deadlines don't work for everybody, but for me they help me get things done. See you onstage (maybe).

(My novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Link to Star Liner

Comments

Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...

Empathy

Websters defines Empathy as: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Empathy is what makes us human, though lord knows there are many humans who don’t seem to have any. A person without empathy is like a caveman, only concerned for himself. Selfish. It is a lack of community and by extension, a lack of the need for civilization. The person who lacks empathy can have a bit of community, but only with others exactly like himself. It seems like societies go through cycles of empathy and less empathy. Sometimes a single event can change the course of society. Prior to America’s involvement in WWII, the general feeling in America was not very empathetic. We had our own problems. We were still dealing with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and had been for years. That kind of stress makes it hard to think of others. Hitler was slashing through Europe. He and his fol...

A Deception

I have a secret. I deceived my mother. Okay, it was like 50 years ago and she is gone now, but still . . . I was generally a good boy. I did as I was told. My family lived a pretty strait-laced, middle-class, fairly conservative life. We were a G-rated family, well, until my older siblings broke the mold, but at this time, I was still in the mold. My friend Rich and I made a plan. Rich had asked me if I wanted to see Cabaret . He said he didn’t think much of Liza Minnelli, but he wouldn’t mind seeing her take her clothes off. We were like 13 years old and sex was ever-present on our minds as much as it was absent in our households. Cabaret was not rated R. It was rated PG. The ratings system has changed since that time. There was no PG-13; there was just the choice of G, PG, and R (X was not an official rating). Apparently the makers of Cabaret satisfied the ratings commission enough to escape an R rating, so it was PG. There was therefore no law or ...

A speculative mind

Search This Blog