Video of Saturday's Show

They got some video now of the Sat. night show. Check it out here.

Photos from Saturday night

They've got pics posted on the 14/48 blog, courtesy of David Baum.

Here are some pictures from the Saturday night show. My play MEASURE OF LOVE was directed by Darian Lindle, starring Megan Ahiers, Bret Fetzer, Amy Fleetwood, Imogen Love, and Erin Stewart.

Judging from the serious of photos, you can probably imagine the story. (And yes, that is a plastic pink dildo she's holding.)

Kudos to Brett for his commitment.

Never so glad for it to be Sunday

Last night was again sold out for both shows. It’s something truly amazing to see how the crowd really gets revved up to see these plays.

I was anxious and excited, not just because I wanted to see what my director and actors did with my play, but also to see how the other playwrights handled the theme “under pressure”.

The evening turned out more more theatrical and slightly absurdist with only a few plays taking any kind of realism approach, mine included (did I not get the memo?). We had a play about the Jesus Fridge 9000, imaginary boyfriends, a fairy tale about swine, two guys definitely not in paradise, and two children definitely in need of serious long-term therapy. And a tambourine player. You just don’t see many plays with the tambourine and it’s a real shame.

I was extremely pleased with my play MEASURE OF LOVE and felt so proud for it to be the show closer. Darian gave it wings! She rocks! Please direct anything of mine any time! All my actors were totally amazing and totally fun! It was so cool seeing how they fleshed out the characters and what they added. Thank you to Megan Ahiers, Bret Fetzer, Amy Fleetwood, Erin Stewart and Imogen Love. You all rock!

Here’s another photo from the 14/48 blog, courtesy of David Baum. Pictured are John Bartley and John Q. Public as Elvis and Bob in RESURRECTING THE KING. They have video clips of the Friday night show with the spectacular 4/48 band music, if you want to check it out.

More photos

Go to the 14/48 blog site and check out pics of yesterday's rehearsal..

Plus, the blogger complimented all those fine looking writers at the meeting this morning...aw, shucks, I'm blushing.

Time to sleep

I emailed my new ten-minute play THE MEASURE OF LOVE last night, or rather this morning, at 4 a.m. I realized something very profound...there's a reason I never write plays with four women in them. I know nothing about them.

That's probably not entirely true, but it really felt like it at 2 am.

But I'm much better now and feel really good about this play. It has well-developed characters, a nice story with a beginning, middle and end. And it has dick jokes. And partial nudity.

What more could you want to close the evening?

After sitting through rehearsal with my new director Darian, who totally rocks, and my new cast--which oddly enough is a repeat of Brett, Megan and Amy from yesterday (now adding Erin and Imogen who are well suited for their roles). The play is in capable hands and I can't wait to see it.

But first, I have to sleep...oh, my lovely bed awaits!

Here I go again

The first night was a brilliant success! And now I’ve drawn lucky #7 again! And again with the five characters, this time one male and four female.

The theme is “Under pressure”.

I can relate.

Only nine hours left till my deadline...no sweat.

They're blogging over there!

Check out the 1448 blog and see pics of all the virgins from Thursday night's meeting, including yours truly.

(I especially like that the lineup shows my post-holiday paunch....)

One play written, one more to go!

If this festival is like a relay race, then I have just passed the baton.

After three or four fitful starts of other ten-minute plays, I finally started writing something resembling characters on stage with actual dialogue at about 11:30. After much sweat and anguish, I finished a draft, rewrote, rewrote again, trimmed, cut and polished and finally threw in the towel sometime after 2 am. There comes a point when you just can’t think things through anymore. Not that this play is all that thought out.

I woke up at 7:00 am (getting probably just about 4 ½ hours of sleep) and looked at it again. Okay. Not brilliant, but not horrible. There’s some potential for laughter and possibly some actual real sentiment.

At 8:06 am I emailed the “finished” play RESURRECTING THE KING. And then I took a shower and had some coffee before getting in the car to head to CHAC for the 9 am meeting.

If you think writing a ten-minute play is hard, you should try to drive at rush hour from Northgate to Capitol Hill and find parking in 45 minutes.

I arrived at the meeting just as it had gotten started and they were announcing what directors had what plays. My director is Jose Amador. He’s also an actor and I’ve seen in the Quickes Short Play Festival at LiveGirls! Theater. We both grabbed some coffee and he went outside to smoke and read the play. I ate a bagel and drank my coffee and chatted with two of the actors, Trick and Megan. Megan is a virgin, like me and was very excited and nervous. The casting had yet to begun.

And by casting, I mean that the directors randomly draw names out of a hat. I think the coolest thing about the 14/48 festival is the egalitarian (and my PhD wife would say Marxist) nature of the process. No one competes. No is favored. All are equals. It’s all random. Your choice of play, lineup in the evening, what you write about, your director, your actors, all that. This creates this really positive vibe. I gotta give credit to Shawn and the steering committee and everyone working on it—they all are pretty cool.

Most importantly, a keg is tapped. All day. And it’s free for us artists. I love getting paid in beer.

Now, if I were really smart, I would’ve planned to take the day off work and sleep and/or be drinking that beer. But I didn’t. Color me stupid.

Anywho—Jose drew names and we got Megan as one of our cast members, who I was so merrily chatting with earlier. We also got Bret Fetzer, John Bartley, Amy Fleetwood, and John Q. Public (is that seriously his real name?). We went to the rehearsal room and I sat and watched everyone read. One of them chuckled (thank you!). I was feeling a little anxious and like I’ve given them total crap to work with, but after the first and second reading, I thought, “these folks are gonna be brilliant!”

Then I went off to work…I hope they doing all right. I can’t wait to see what happens tonight.

But also, looming in the back of my brain is the fact that at 9:30 pm, after the first show, they’ll draw another theme, and I have to go off and write another play. I just pray I got a smaller cast—like three would be good…

Virgin! Get me a beer!

That's what she said!

Seriously, the virgins have to serve the veterans...actually, its not that bad and I really don't mind getting people brewskis anyway...takes my mind off the fact I have to write a play in less than 12 hours.

"Reunions"

That's the theme that has been drawn out of the ice cream cone.

It’s now 9:54 pm and I’m frantically working through some ideas of what to start writing. The obvious is “high school reunion” but for some reason, I don’t want to go there. Maybe its because I didn’t ever go to my high school reunion.

Second thought is family reunion. Hmnnn, could be good...

Other thoughts concern…brothels, superheroes, or aliens…

The mantra for 14/48 is “go big or go home”. I want to give my actors and directors some fun and juicy stuff to do. But I have to do it all in less than ten minutes.

Let’s see what I come up with.

Only ten more hours till deadline.

Gearing up for 14/48

Not to boast, but I can type about 80 wpm.

Okay, so there are some errors when I type that fast, but still, that’s not too shabby.

(The speed is actually not too surprising for any of you who also play guitar or piano.)

I’m not trying to get too psyched out by the prospects of trying to write my ten-minute play in less then 12 hours. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been reading the 14/48 blog. Because it reminds me that this weekend I’ll need to do more than just fast typing.

(While I’m on that subject, one of my pet peeves in movies is when I see a character who is supposed to be a professional writer/journalist/novelist or what-have-you and the actor is typing in the scene with the hunt-and-peck method…seriously, folks…that’s just insulting. Cut away to a shot of hands that can type. Okay, here endeth the rant.)

This whole 14/48 thing is getting me pumped and I know that the timeframe really is intimidating, but only like having a water hazard on a simple par 3. The shot is really easy, but the margin for error is narrow. At least with 14/48, I get two shots.

Oh, and because I promised, I’ve narrowed the choice of headshots to these two—one b&w and one color.

(Photos by Susan Doupe and copywright 2007.)

Real Theater, Real Fast

I’ve been invited to participate in the upcoming 14/48 Festival in January as a “virgin writer”.

I’m totally pumped.

Not for the festival, just because someone is calling me a “virgin” again.

CUE Madonna song…

Okay, not really. I’m actually totally jazzed about doing this festival. Slightly honored, and raring to go like a racecar before the green light. But I gotta admit to being slightly anxious. In a good way.

I mean, I’ve written a screenplay in 21 days, right, so how hard could it be to write a ten minute play overnight? Or two?

For those who don’t know, the 14/48 Festival is “the world’s quickest theater festival”! There will be 14 plays conceived, written, rehearsed, scored, designed and performed in 48 hours.

See, how it works is they give all the playwrights a theme to write on, as well as a cast size, at 9 pm on Thursday night and then we go write our plays by 8 am the next morning. We hand it off to the director and actors to rehearse. Then they perform it that Friday night.

We don't get to bask in our glory too long, though, because then we get a new theme and do the whole thing all over again for Saturday night.

If you’ve never experienced a 24 hour play festival, either as an audience member or as a participant, then you just haven’t lived yet. Up until now I’ve only enjoyed them as an audience member--except last year when I volunteered to usher the 14/48 festival in the summer. (Which, I gotta say, everybody there totally rocked, was really nice, professional, and just a fun bunch of people. Which is another reason I’m excited about being part of this festival—I have this thing of wanting to work with fun, nice people. Don’t know what that is about…how weird, am I, right?)

For more info, check out their website.

You should totally mark your calendars. See the shows. Or better yet. Volunteer to help out. They always need ushers and set builders and what have you. C'mon, it'll be fun.

And now back to your regularly scheduled Monday.