Writing Sucks!

Okay, I've not posted for awhile.

I've been busy.

Writing.

You know. Real writing. Not just putting random thoughts down on a blog.

That's what I mean by "Writing Sucks!"

Writing sucks...

your time
your thoughts
your energy
your emotions
your social life
your family life
your sleep
your everything

Oh, an writing also sucks in that writing is hard.

I'm adapting a play into a full-length screenplay. The rough draft is almost complete after about eight days.

It sucks about as much as you think it would suck to completely re-imagine an entire script, which I've spent the past two years making sure it will work really well on stage, so that it works really well on film.

I am learning once again how vastly different the two mediums are.

In a good way.

But it still sucks.

And somewhere deep down inside of me I have to fight that inner demon of a critic, that cynic sitting on my shoulder whispering, "Your writing sucks..."

Back off, man. I'm working here.

SLASHER at Live Girls this Wednesday

Come on down and see SLASHER by Allison Moore at Live Girls! Theater as part of their Bakery Spring Readings

Wed May 13th 7pm

Slasher by Allison Moore

Directed by Lisa Jackson Schebetta

Slasher by Allison Moore is a comedy of horrific proportions. When
she’s cast as the “last girl” in a low-budget slasher flick, Sheena thinks it’s the big break she’s been waiting for. But news of the movie unleashes her malingering mother’s thwarted feminist rage, and she’s prepared to do anything to stop filming—even if it kills her.

Allison Moore is a displaced Texan living in Minneapolis where she is
a 2007 Bush Artists Fellow and a 2008 McKnight Fellow. Her play,
Slasher, premiered at the 2009 Humana Festival. Other plays include:
End Times (2007 Kitchen Dog Theatre, Dallas Critics Forum Award),
American Klepto (2006 Fresh Ink/Illusion Theater), Hazard County (2005
Humana Festival), Split (2005 Guthrie Theater commission), Urgent Fury
(2003 Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Mentor: Marsha Norman), and Eighteen
(2001 O'Neill Playwrights' Conference).

Advance tickets available at
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/1792 or 1-800-838-3006

All shows at Live Girls! theater in Ballard 2220 NW Market Lower Level

NYC Recap

Just got back from New York City last week and have not had much time to process the trip. Part of that was because of family being in town but another part was just that the five days I was there were a blur of activity and excitement.


I love New York City.

Always have. Always will.

Every time I get off the plane and hit the streets I feel that energy and it revs me up. The city is always moving, even if you’re not. Maybe I love it because its such a contrast to the desert where I grew up, where nothing is moving, I don’t know.

Here’s a quick recap:

Saturday night
Got off the plane, took the Airtran then subway into the hotel on Lex. Then rushed off to eat some quick crab cakes and then saw friends in Henry V at The American Globe Theater, just off of Broadway & 46th. Good acting, great fights, and fun cast party at O’Lunney’s afterwards

Sunday
Brunch at Pietrasanta on W. 49th and 9th ave, nearby where I lived for a summer. Yummy Eggs Benedict and mimosas and then turned to my right only to realize that I was sitting next to Mo Rocca from The Daily Show.

Saw Exit the King on Broadway. Everyone said Susan Sarandon was miscast or not that great. I thought she was decent, if not charismatic. Yet, she pales in comparison to Geoffrey Rush. He is superb! Comic and tragic. Briliant! I love seeing an Ionesco play done well!

Then down to the Village to eat some great Italian food then catch some music at The Bitter End. Saw some kid, must’ve been 16 years old shred guitar like he was Eddie Van Halen. Seriously.

Monday
In rehearsal most of the day (there was a fly-by?! Wtf?! I missed it!). Great actors, great director, talked about the play. Then the panel with Ellen Mclaughlin and Leslie Lee. I spent most of the time trying not to think about who I was sitting next to and hoping that my thoughts on playwriting and dramaturgy sounded coherent and not juvenile. I think the most insightful thing I said about talkbacks; “they should be called conversations and they are always too long”.

The reading of my play THE ALBATROSS was smashing. Got some laughs, maybe a few teary eyes at the end, and the “conversation” was quite helpful and supportive. Honestly, I don’t know what is going on with the universe but I have so far been having great experiences with the development of this play. It’s not always like that.

Tuesday
Went out to visit Stony Brook campus on Long Island. Fun train ride. Had lunch with a gaggle of dramaturgs talking about how to fix American Theater. Good times.

That night saw a experimental show by Alec Duffy, produced by Hoi Polloi called “The Less We Talk”. Very similar to an earlier show I’ve seen. More elaborate in scope but just as heartbreaking at times. Great use of singing to tell stories without it being a straight up musical.

Wednesday
Some meetings, a visit to the Drama Book Shop (again) and then off to the airport.

Phew!

More on the reading later!

THE ALBATROSS Reading in NYC

THE ALBATROSS, recent winner of the John Gassner competition, will be having a reading on Monday, April 27th, at 7 pm in NYC.

In addition, there will be a special panel on "Creating New Works" with myself, fellow playwrights Ellen McLaughlin and Leslie Lee.

Ellen McLaughlin is a playwright and actress, author of Iphiginia and Tongue of a Bird but is also an actress, originating the role of the Angel in Angels in America by Tony Kushner.

Leslie Lee is a founding artist of La Mama and his play Breeze of Summer was just done at the Signature.

It's easy to say I'm honored to be in the room with these two.

Also on the panel will be the director of the reading, Julia Gibson (who has been completely amazing and wonderful and I'm looking forward to rehearsals with her on Monday) and dramaturg Maxine Kern.

For more information, go to the website.

It's Poetry Image Day!

This is a pic from poets.org.

The reference is from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".

Sarah Ruhl, Playwright and my new hero (or is it heroine?)

Check out what Sarah Ruhl says on American Theater's website:

What the next 25 years might bring in theatre:

1
Either: Our government will start more and more to imitate Scandinavia, and everyone, including artists, will have health care. There will be a new government agency for the arts, granting us months and years to finish projects, simultaneously revitalizing our theatre and our economy.

Or: The government won't imitate Scandinavia, and so, in response, the Dramatists Guild will become an incredible force for change, replacing the United Auto Workers in its pull, determination and tactical brilliance. We will do away with subsidiary rights participation, so that playwrights will only give back their own earnings to a theatre when they earn as much per year as their artistic directors; then, and only then, will writers give tax-deductible donations to the not-for-profit theatres that produce them, out of gratitude and choice (rather than giving away 40 percent of their New York income by fiat). We will convince theatres who produce our work to provide us with health care for two seasons. Playwrights and dramaturgs working at the same theatre will have health insurance; directors and managing directors will have the same health insurance.

I think a lot of people, in the theater and outside the theater world, forget that playwrights don't make much (any) money. They are not on staff, have no salary, and in fact, make much, much less than Joe the Plumber. Unlike theaters, they have no budget. They spend far too much on photocopies and printing out scripts and postage (not to mention the hours and hours of labor creating their imaginary worlds).

In general, if you are audience member watching a professional production at a major regional theater of a new play, those actors make more money then the playwright.

In fact, I'd wager that the person who sold you the ticket at the Box Office is making more money than the playwright. And they probably have health insurance. Although, they might not.

And yet, the playwright is the reason all of these people have jobs...

Is it me, or is something out of whack here...?

April is National Poetry Month

How could I forget that April is National Poetry Month?

And here I am, rewriting THE ALBATROSS all weekend, a play about poets and teaching poetry...shameful, just shameful.

Well, I'm going to write some poems this month.

They will probably be painfully bad, but that won't stop me.