Saturday, June 18, 2005

 

Myth in Playwriting

A very nice discussion of adapting myths for plays, by Laura Shamas. A nice reminder that I must look at the Rostam myth when I get back.

posted by Dan 4:20 PM
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Workshopping Your Play

An hour discussion about a subject I'm most mixed about: workshopping your play, led by playwright John Yearley and producer/directors Jayne Wegner and Erma Duricko.

I've often expressed my misgivings about the reading/workshop process. These artists are very much pro-readings/workshops. The point was made -- and I think weel taken -- that a playwright is ultimately responsible for shepherding their material. This led them to conclude that complaints about development processes "watering down the play" to beincorrect. The development process can't do that, because the development process isn't responsible for the result. The playwright is.

My question in reply is: given that most playwrights are desperate to have their material produced, isn't there the possibility that this carrot will lead them to make changes they shouldn't? And shouldn't the development team be aware of that? As much as we pay homage to the supremacy of "the work," very often decisions are made which are not precisely made with "the work" in mind.

posted by Dan 2:56 PM
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Orientated

Why do I always feel like, when these things begin, I should be back home studying plumbing?

Danielle Dresden is on the feedback panel, from TAPIT in Madison Wisconsin. A Matsushita connection?

posted by Dan 1:47 PM
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He Haunts Me

Gary Garrison, my professor at NYU, just found me at my motel room. He has radar or something.

Blogging from the conference. More later.

posted by Dan 1:01 PM
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Where Eagles and Weenies Dare

The weird thing about twenty-one hours of constant daylight: at night, when parking lots, shopping centers and streets are quiet and empty, night provides the visual hush. But with the sun out, it gives Anchorage the quality of a ghost town.

I drove by my motel five times, unable to find it. I pulled over into the empty parking lot of a machine part distributor. As I sat in my car, I realized: Okay, it’s eleven o’clock, and if I were in a city in the lower forty eight, I’d be mad to be sitting in an empty parking lot, going over a map. But the constant daylight gives a false feeling of security.

Which I needed, not only because there are bears lurking behind every gas pump, but I needed confidence to meet my traveling companions, playwrights Meron Langsner, Jonathan Myers and GL Horton. The last time I was introduced to a gaggle of new playwrights, I almost got hit by a car. I prayed an icicle wouldn’t bean me.


(l to r) Meron Langsner, G.L. Horton, Weenie, Jonathon Myers)

As it turned out, they were lovely traveling companions. When we picked up GL for the six hour from Anchorage to Valdez, I asked the LFTC Program head’s mother about the glaciers along the way. “It’s my goal to touch a glacier,” I said.

“Don’t,” she warned me. “It’ll fall on you.”

With one of my Alaska goals in serious jeopardy, we headed out. First stop: Eklutna. The town is a native town, but when the Russians were here they converted all the locals to Russian Orthodox Christianity. The locals melded it with their own spiritual beliefs, and as a result they build amazing, colorful spirit houses over the graves of their departed relatives.



Then it was a fantastic drive through the mountains, where we met a drunk named Mr. WestCoast. Well, whether he was drunk or not is still under debate. I think he was, but Meron thinks he was just nuts. My friends, a man who names himself Mr. WestCoast is not insane. He is a genius.

During the last third of the drive down the Richardson Highway, we stopped at the Worthington Glacier. The lookout is about a hundred feet away, but you can go right up to it – as the sign warns, “at your own risk.”

Did I dare risk it?



I did.

I touched a glacier, and it didn’t fall on me. I held ice that my Bering Strait ancestors dared in my hand. It was blue inside. I almost licked it, but I think that would have been tempting fate.

I’m in Valdez for the first day of the theatre conference now. Reports will be ongoing from your Alaskan correspondent/glacier toucher.

posted by Dan 11:38 AM
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Thursday, June 16, 2005

 

From the Airport

Omen for the trip? I spilled water on my jeans during the landing at the Minneapolis airport. I kept the bottle because I wanted people to see that the big wet stain on my jeans was from the water, and not because my diaper had failed. Can’t let total strangers have that misconception!

On the other hand, the stain was down at my knee, so the misconception has its upside, too.

posted by Dan 4:31 PM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2005

 

I Can Eat Hundreds of Bananas

Don't worry, darling, we may have bought fifty bucks worth of bananas for our aborted Banana Daiquiri party, but they won't go to waste, because I can eat literally hundreds of bananas.

CRAP! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO GET READY FOR MY TRIP TOMORROW!

posted by Dan 9:35 AM
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Sunday, June 12, 2005

 

Violating the Eight Spot

A summary page and dialogue sample for my play, Violating the Eight Spot, is now up on the website. This is the play I'll be workshopping a week from Saturday in Alaska.

posted by Dan 10:32 PM
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