Just Wrought

My Last Play Reading

You might rightly judge that title to be half fib, depending on how you read it.  The upcoming public reading of  Philosophical Zombie Killers, happening on September 14 at 7:30 pm at Freehold Theatre, will certainly, and happily, not be the last public reading of a play of mine. The Sequence is scheduled to be read on October 12 at 2pm at the Bathhouse Theater at Green Lake.  (More details here.)  But Philosophical Zombie Killers is indeed my last full-length play. I have no plans to write another, and no great prospects for future full production of this, or any other play I have written. On September 15, the day after this reading, I will officially step away from the theatre. I have no plans to return. Of course threads of sadness run through this decision, but it is also interwoven with hope, and anticipation of new adventures. I hope you’ll wish me well. And if you can, I hope you’ll come see this reading. Here, below the fold, is the press release with all the info:

The Great PZK Giveaway

Even after a quarter of a century, I still don’t know whom to give my plays once I’m finished drafting them. No one really wants to read a play, and I don’t blame them. Plays aren’t meant to be read. I have less trouble convincing people to come see my plays, but in order for that to happen, someone has to read them first, right? It is this catch-22, multiplied by others, that is nudging me elsewhere, but before I go I have to figure out what to do with my final script, Philosophical Zombie Killers.

When I am at a loss for what to do in a given situation, I sometimes try to make a game out of it. So here’s what I have come up with:

I will make 13 hardcopies of Philosophical Zombie Killers, and you will tell me where to send them. If you know of an institution or development opportunity that you think, based on the character breakdown and synopsis attached below, will leap at the chance to produce this play’s world premiere, terrific! Put that organization’s information in the comments. If, on the other hand, you just want a copy of the play for your own personal pleasure, to have and hoard, that’s fine too. Just let me know in the comments, and we’ll work together off line to determine the best way for me to get it to you.

I will make 13 copies. Just 13. You will tell me what to do with them. First come, first serve. And that’s the end of it. I agree this solution might seem a touch asinine, but really, no more so than any of the other ways I have pointlessly distributed my plays over the last 25 years.

So, it’s up to you. What should I do?

PS, if you just want to hear the play read out loud by some pretty terrific actors (and myself) just come to Freehold Theatre, on Saturday night, September 14. Here’s more info on that: https://www.facebook.com/events/181930878655353/

A Friend Visits my Slotin Notes

Surplus Titles

One of the greatest raw delights of writing is getting to name things: characters, imaginary places, titles for the work itself.  I can’t remember how long it took for me to come up with the name of the main character for my play Tuesday—, a few days, weeks, half a year maybe?—but I’m so pleased with the baldly Joycean result, “Audie McCall,” that I still use it sometimes as an alias. I think my favorite coining is “Waldric Rasutabula”, the name of an utterly absurd fellow from my utterly unproduced farce, Gossamer Grudges.  Here he is being introduced to another strangely-christened character.

'RATIO:  Waldric, this is Quince from Rubicon Consultants. She has agreed to an initial tour to determine whether her firm might assist ours in the coming transition.

WALDRIC (bowing egregiously):  Waldric Rasatabula.  (heel click)  Majordomo of the Pneumotubes.

QUINCE (tilting her head like a curious terrier):  Quince.

WALDRIC:  Just Quince?

QUINCE:  That’s right.

WALDRIC  How mysteriously titillating.

QUINCE:  Not remotely.

'RATIO:  Please show Quince every hospitality.

WALDRIC:  (suddenly and alarmingly lecherous):  Every hospitality?

'RATIO:  Every hospitality she requires.

WALDRIC:  Requires?

'RATIO:  Requests.

QUINCE (Offering a hand):  Pleasure, I’m sure.

WALDRIC (molesting it):  All pleasure is mine. 

I often begin a piece— script, poem or essay— with just a title.  A lot of the essays I’ve presented here at Just Wrought over the last few years started as nothing but a few scribbled words. I keep a slush fund of them on my computer, and with me stepping away from the fray, I have a surplus I can’t hope to ever flesh out. So I present them to you here and now, gentle reader: your dubious inheritance, reward for years of reading, to do with what you will: surplus titles for a free, fresh theatre. 

 

Why Craft Won’t Save Us

Change the Culture

Go After the Boards

Is it Really the Audiences’ Fault?

It’s not about Money, it’s about Power

Live Girls Quickies Makes me Wish I Were a Woman

When Expansiveness Equals Retreat

Preferably Dead: The Lives of Playwrights in America

Is Actual Human Speech Impossible to Stage?

How do We Hold the Boards Accountable?

Since When are Directors Indespensible?

Museum Theatre: The Whiff and Grip of Necrophilia

Reasons to Be a Playwright

It is Our Job to Be Foolish

You have Spinach in Your Teeth

Why Trolls Troll

I like Intermissions

Things are Important

I am Not a National Playwright

On Guts and Assholes

Experimental Lip Service

An Open Letter to the Minority of Journalists We Managed to Piss Off
(This one is from the Newswrights United days, when we covered the demise of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer in It’s not in the P-I: A Living Newspaper.)

Keep the Dark Night Sacred

Plays are Finicky Fragile Seeds

The MFA Virus

Quit Bingeing Fear

Pay us Shakespeare’s Royalties

Food for the Minotaur

Live by the ____; Die by the ____

Upping our Numbers

Buddhism versus Theatre

Bergson Essay

Seattle, Theatre Town of Many Hats

Glen Gary Glen Wrong

The “Let’s-do-that-Play-I-didn’t-get-Cast-in-Back-in-College” Syndrome

Stop Trying to be Respectable

 

A Thought for a >2,000 Word Day

Wrighting plays comes more naturally to me than writing prose, but then again so does fighting.  “Natural” ain’t necessarily better.  Sometimes sitting silent really is more powerful.

 

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idyll’s of the King

Exploring a New Planet

Most artists spent a huge amount of time and energy creating opportunities for themselves.  Sometimes the efforts pan out, and sometimes nothing but a big fat zero results from all the clambering. Or so it seems. But live long enough, sending out unknown, unseen tendrils, and sometimes a completely unsought, unhoped-for, super-sweet opportunity drops right out of the clear blue sky. That’s what happened to me recently when the folks over at the brand new blog Parental Planet asked me to write some pieces on the subject of geeks parenting geeks. I weighed the offer for about five seconds, four seconds longer than necessary to realize that my many families—nuclear, extended and otherwise—all offer me an infinite wealth of material to draw from.

My kick-off piece, “Be the Geek Parent You Are” reports on how my amazing nephew Kevin Mullin did such cool things with robots on his family’s farm in Maryland that he got invited to Governor O’Malley’s office. (Yes, that Governor O’Malley: the one likely to give Hillary a run for her money in the 2016 presidential primaries.) In the piece’s intro, I describe the different approaches to geek parenting my brother and I employ.

There are all kinds of ways to be a geek. Indeed, if you own an operating brain, it is hard to avoid being a geek of some sort. When distinguishing my own geekery from my brother’s, I find physics is a helpful guide. There are theoretical physicists and experimental physicists: those who think about particles and the forces acting upon them, and those who investigate actual particles and forces to observe the real-world results. I’m a theory geek; my brother’s much more about the practice.

I would love to write more of these pieces. So if you’re a parent, or have a parent, or are a geek, or know a geek, do me a favor and go check out Parental Planet. As you browse the site, remember that it is still in beta mode. If you find bugs, or problems of any kind, use the “Beta: report a bug” button, third from the left in the top banner to tell the nice folks about them.