Just Wrought

Come Hear Undo

What’s better than being a playwright having a reading of a play you think might be good?   Easy.   Being an actor in a reading of play you know is good.

 

 

Holly Arsenault was already a friend and colleague of mine when she took my playwriting class at Freehold a couple years ago.  Towards the end of the 8 weeks, we all sat down to read a nice chunk of her play Undo.  I was blown away by the wit and natural craft Holly showed in this early draft.  I swallowed my jealousy and gave her the only note I had.  “Finish this thing.”  Later, when Holly informed me she was pregnant with her first child, I’m pretty sure I said something like, “That’s amazing news!  Mazel tov!  And finish that play!”

And in surprisingly quick time, she did.

Come hear as I help to read it publically for the very first time, with a coterie of actors so far superior to me in their skills that I’m not really sure why Holly asked me to join them.  And yet I shall join them, confident in Holly’s play’s power to make me look good, and hopeful that somehow this old strutter can somehow return the favor.

Here are the details:

Undo
A new play by Holly Arsenault
Directed by Matthew Richter

Featuring Basil Harris, Gretchen Krich, Hana Lass, Jonah Von Spreecken, Paul Mullin, Roy Stanton, Samar Lerman, Sarah Harlett, Tina Rowley and Zoey Cane Belyea.

When:  Tuesday, November 29 at 7pm

Where:  Seattle Repertory Theatre’s PONCHO Forum, 155 Mercer Street, Seattle, WA 98109.

Face Book Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/151916888242933/

Sandbox Radio Live: Episode Two- "Horror Show"

Episode Two of Sandbox Radio is now available on iTunes chocked full of Halloween offerings for your listening delight and convenience.  Here’s what you’ll find.

Act 1

@1:50 "The Hands of a Girl" by Ki Gottberg

@21:15 "The Back of the 358 #1" by Paul Mullin

@22:35 "Markheim: Episode 2" by Paul Mullin

@37:40 "The Back of the 358 #2" by Paul Mullin

@39:10 "The Black Cat" adapted from the story by Edgar Allen Poe.

 
Act 2

@0:37 "PSA: Hanford Challenge" by Elizabeth Heffron

@3:45 "Madame Flora" by K. Brian Neel

@9:32 "The Request" by Vincent Delaney

@21:50 "The Back of the 358 #3" by Paul Mullin

@23:25 "Pipe Play" by Elizabeth Heffron

@43:02 Finale/Credits. Music Director: Jose Gonzales

(Sandbox Radio Live: Horror Show, was recorded at West of Lenin on October 10, 2011. The show was engineered by Christopher Stewart, mixed by Dave Pascal and Rob Witmer, and directed by Leslie Law.)

For you true Markheim geeks I’m including the script of Episode Two below the fold.  Enjoy it while you can, ‘cuz “Things can always get uglier, right?”

The Inalienable Happy Pursuit of the Living Wage

This image has been floating around Face Book lately, accumulating plenty of “likes” on its way. 

Well, I don’t like it.  I actually kind of hate it.  I believe that once an artist ties his or her work in a one-to-one, all-or-nothing relationship with making a buck off it, the game is done, and the moneyed powers-that-be have won it all over again.  Nothing new or good or game-changing can come out of saying you’re only going to do your art if someone pays you a living wage for it. Instead, what you are really saying is that your creativity is simply one more commodity to be bought and sold in a market-driven society owned by folks who know a lot more about money, and a lot less about creativity, than you do.

One the other hand, I also hate the idea artists should shun the marketplace altogether. We should get paid,  as much as we possibly can in any given market. (So long as we are aware and comfortable with knowing that some markets will only offer us compensation that is utterly untranslatable into coin.)

Up until now I have not written about the “living wage” crisis in Seattle Theatre because I did not have a good new idea on how to frame it. Then I attended the October Seattle Theatre: What’s Next? Forum, and listened with growing excitement as actor/producer Peggy Gannon kicked off a heated round-robin discussion of the issue that was finally and brilliantly summed up by Annex Theatre’s Meaghan Darling.  Jim Jewell’s notes from the night describe it best:

Making a living and making art should not be mutually exclusive.

This last point came out of our earlier discussion, but was most eloquently encapsulated by Meaghan Darling, fairly paraphrased as, “Nobody owes me a living, but I want them to not prevent me from making a living.” Big House rehearsal schedules were particularly discussed here, as the now-standard 10-6 rehearsal day precludes keeping a day job, while the economics of theatre (and of course there is much debate here) can’t offer a sustainable salary for that work (and we lamented how many amazing actors have had to leave town or the profession). We all rallied around this idea, because it is very much in the spirit of Seattle Theatre: What’s Next as a whole – it is a statement that holds within it hope and offers compromise, which seem to me essential components of productive dialogue.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Despite the Tea-Bagging idiots who have co-opted their ideas and headgear, our Founding Fathers were no fools. No one can or should guarantee anyone happiness or a living wage. But when your systems—and this goes for unions and Big House administrations alike—stand in the way of the pursuit of making a decent buck from doing theatre, well, then the truth becomes self-evident, and independence must be declared.  If this be treason, let’s make the most of it!

José Amador Calls Out Bardolatry

Check out José Amador’s insightful and fun essay  over at the Seattlest examining our obsequious and unweened relationship with the works of William Shakespeare.  To his excellent points I would add an apologia for my own insolence in presuming to wright plays when, according to so many theatre canonophiles, all the great works have already been written.  However, I feel compelled to note sheepishly that that a few things have happened in human history since Shakespeare died.  And since he wasn’t able to address them, it is up to foolish mortals such as myself to give ‘em a whack.

My own paltry stabs have included so far:

• The advent of the bomb.
• The discovery and unraveling of the recipe for human existence.
• The emergence of corporate personhood.

I’m so sorry that Shakespeare couldn’t live forever to put these important issues in their proper blank verse perspective; but since all Golden Ages are, by definition, over, you’re stuck with the unlikely likes of me and others who pathetically soldier on at the art of dramatic writing, so clearly dead since 1616.

‘Tis true, 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true.

IBM and Microsoft, Sittin’ in a Tree

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While I have stated publically I hate being prescient, there are times when I don’t mind too much.  With the massive Occupy movements afoot I thought I should note that I was talking about the absurdities of Corporate Personhood long before it was popular.

Check out this section of An American Book of the Dead*- The Game Show†.