Application requirements for the 2009-2010 season are now up on the Youngblood Website. Deadline is August 15, 2009, but applicants are encouraged to submit early, since early applications will be read before we're snowed under with scripts.
This looks to be an even more competitive year than usual, as we have only one or two spaces available and our applications have been steadily increasing (last year was well over 100). But then again, several current members applied more than once before they got in - so even in a tough year it's worth applying. All materials will be read by both me and Graeme, and we'll let everyone know their preliminary status by mid-September, hopefully.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
News: Youngblood SWEEP!
Major congratulations to Conkel and Kern for sweeping their bracket at the Sam French! Both shows will be performed again in the finals, to compete for publication and licensing by Sam French.
Big congratulations, too, to the other five shows in last evening's first round - in general they were deeply interesting, thought-provoking and well-performed pieces, and the judging could have gone many different ways.
And of course thanks to the directors and casts: Jaime, Kel, Rob, Theresa, Jim, Tommy, Jay and Marguerite - you guys kick ass.
Go YB!
UPDATE: It looks like we used up all our chi getting into the finals - neither of our finalists made it all the way to publication. Still - congrats to all and big thanks to the actors. And huge congratulations to the 6 winners.
Monday, July 13, 2009
News: Conkel & Kern - Sam French Festival TONIGHT
Joshua Conkel & Jon Kern both have pieces in the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival: both plays were orginally produced by Youngblood and both plays are being performed TONIGHT (Tuesday July 14)!
At 7:30:
UP WITH (SOME) PEOPLE
by Joshua Conkel
directed by Jamie Richards
featuring Robert Askins & Theresa Stephenson
At 9:00:
WE SEMI-SOLIDS MELT INTO AIR
by Jon Kern
directed by Kel Haney
featuring Marguerite French, Thomas Lyons, James Murtaugh & Jay Patterson
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
416 West 42nd Street
Buy tickets here. (Apparently, those who purchase tickets for the 7:30 PM can also see the 9 PM show on a standby basis.)
The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival a great blog in which they've interviewed each playwright in the festival...
Click here for more information on Josh Conkel's UP WITH (SOME) PEOPLE (orginally produced in YB's Asking for Trouble).
Click here for more information on Jon Kern's WE SEMI-SOLIDS MELT INTO AIR (originally produced in YB's March Financial Crisis Brunch).
Gibson: Notes from the Road ~ Williamstown, MA
Below is a post Mira wrote last week regarding her experience working on NICO with WTF:
Williamstown Theater Festival
Williamstown, MA
NICO
Being here at the WTF developing this new comedy with director Kate Pines has been one of the most exciting projects I have had as an emerging playwright. I met Kate back in April through another director we both know, and like a great first date the chemistry was there. We decided to move forward with the possibility of working together at WTF, based on my interest not to develop or improve a play I already had, but to write a brand new play. I really wanted to write a play based on a side character named Nico that appears in another play of mine. However, as I drafted and redrafted NICO throughout the month of May, I found that the Nico in NICO was becoming a brand new Nico, a Nico to rival all Nico’s. A Nico to be remembered. I arrived here at Williams College last Sunday, and over the course of the past week the play has evolved to such heights of hilarity that, as one of my actors put it while laughing through the script, “stop stop, I’m gonna throw up”. We are having way too much fun. The process that Kate and I have honed in on and have been rolling with, is that we have rehearsal in the evening, then she and I meet briefly after to discuss what’s going on in the script and areas that I want to or should take a look at for revisions or rewrites. The next day, I have all day to address whatever we discussed and agreed on, and in the late afternoon I email Kate the new pages which we then see and hear that evening in rehearsal. It’s a totally incredible developmental process that is at times very scary and at times incredibly rewarding. Last night I had one of the most rewarding moments here. While Kate was trying to block a fight scene with a lot of movement, one of the actors suggested, “If I leap onto this storage bin I can jump into Nico’s arms as I try to strangle Nicole from across the table”. It was exactly what the scene needed. I’ve been here a week and we’ve basically locked in the script, which is very exciting and we both really worked to get to where we are in the script now. I will be here for a few more rehearsals and then Kate and the cast will rehearse rehearse rehearse until the performance on July 22nd.
Williamstown Theater Festival
Williamstown, MA
NICO
Being here at the WTF developing this new comedy with director Kate Pines has been one of the most exciting projects I have had as an emerging playwright. I met Kate back in April through another director we both know, and like a great first date the chemistry was there. We decided to move forward with the possibility of working together at WTF, based on my interest not to develop or improve a play I already had, but to write a brand new play. I really wanted to write a play based on a side character named Nico that appears in another play of mine. However, as I drafted and redrafted NICO throughout the month of May, I found that the Nico in NICO was becoming a brand new Nico, a Nico to rival all Nico’s. A Nico to be remembered. I arrived here at Williams College last Sunday, and over the course of the past week the play has evolved to such heights of hilarity that, as one of my actors put it while laughing through the script, “stop stop, I’m gonna throw up”. We are having way too much fun. The process that Kate and I have honed in on and have been rolling with, is that we have rehearsal in the evening, then she and I meet briefly after to discuss what’s going on in the script and areas that I want to or should take a look at for revisions or rewrites. The next day, I have all day to address whatever we discussed and agreed on, and in the late afternoon I email Kate the new pages which we then see and hear that evening in rehearsal. It’s a totally incredible developmental process that is at times very scary and at times incredibly rewarding. Last night I had one of the most rewarding moments here. While Kate was trying to block a fight scene with a lot of movement, one of the actors suggested, “If I leap onto this storage bin I can jump into Nico’s arms as I try to strangle Nicole from across the table”. It was exactly what the scene needed. I’ve been here a week and we’ve basically locked in the script, which is very exciting and we both really worked to get to where we are in the script now. I will be here for a few more rehearsals and then Kate and the cast will rehearse rehearse rehearse until the performance on July 22nd.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Gibson: Notes from the Road ~ Valdez, Alaska
The Last Frontier Theater ConferenceValdez, Alaska
The Red White and Blue Process
I am suspicious of any place as beautiful as Valdez, Alaska. The mountains, the Sound, the dusty daylight twenty-three hours a day… quite frankly, I don’t trust it, but my fear of it’s beauty was never confirmed with the disaster I imagined would have to take place. The conference was a wonderful experience. The week was structured with play readings in the morning, afternoon, and late afternoon in three different spaces, and always one performance on the main stage theater at night. There’s something assaultive about seeing five play readings a day, but the benefit for me was that with each reading I could grasp more and more clearly the things about story telling that I like, and it helped me clarify for myself what I think is good vs. bad story telling. Each reading was run by a panel of three theater artists, whether they be playwrights, dramaturges, or directors, and after the reading the panel gave feedback to the playwright followed by audience feedback. In a bizarre twist of fate, I often disagreed with the panelist and fantasized about sharing my thoughts with the room, which I would never do because the idea of talking in front of a large crowd makes me want to puke. Between gleaning good story telling from the readings and disagreeing with the panelists, I began to formulate some solid opinions about playwriting, which I would guess I’ve always had, but never put them all onto one list. I’m not going to note those here in this blog, but ask me about it if you’re curious. My reading, of my one act play The Red White and Blue Process went “
well”. This play was my January brunch play, which I thought has potential to be developed into a full length play. I say it went “well” because there was one director on my panel (who was either asleep at the wheel or just straight up fucking with me) who kept circling around my character “Nicorette” and how clever my character names were. (Um… her name is Nikoletta and I did not mean her as a metaphor for how jumpy nicotine can make a person and why are you still talking? And um… my other character’s name is Ammonia on purpose as in the chemical and not as in the latin word for “harmony” and why are you still talking?) As a result of my reading and my one-on-one feedback with Kia Corthron who was on my panel and gave excellent feedback, I have the foundation of an idea upon which to build this play. I felt my experience there was fulfilling. So if the conference wasn’t a disaster and the landscape wasn’t a disaster, where was the disaster I was waiting for? It’s not in the “being there”, but “getting there”. Holy God why does it take forty-eight hours to get to Valdez?Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Askins: Blogging Bloodworks
Robert Askins:
That's not the real one is it.
My Mother married a man named Charles after my Father died.
They had known each other for a long time. We all went to the same church.
Charles' wife died slowly of cancer. My Father died quickly of heart disease.
They used to go out together. My Mother, My Father, Charles and his wife.
Charles and his wife adopted a child around the time I was born. The boy's name was John.
We played together.
This was all a million years ago. Now Charles is my step father, but really just my Mother's husband.
He helped me move once in college after he married my mother. We sat at a Burger King. He told me a story.
The story was about John.
That story is part of Wrench. It is not Wrench. Wrench is not that story.
The character's name is John. So there is that.
I just sent out the email for the play. Cheryl is Charles daughter by birth. She is John's older sister. She does my taxes.
We correspond through email. I sent her the spam by accident. I only realized it after I pressed send. I am now worried
about an email from her. An email that starts... "you have no right."
When I wrote Princes of Waco it started with a story about my friend Polar Bear. He fell in love with a girl we called NASCAR Jamie. All these names are true. I was worried then like I am now. By the time it got to the stage, nothing of that story remained, but when my Mother watched the play and saw the dead father's Rolex being bandied about she leaned over to my aunt and said:
"that's not the real one is it?"
So there is that.
Horton Foote wrote a play about his home town, Horton Foote wrote all his plays about his home town, but the first one he wrote was called Wharton Dance. Later he would change the name to Harrison. Later he would change all the names. But he did it once with all the names right. I listened to him talk a lot. He said it was important to change the names so people wouldn't be hurt.
Kerouac wanted to rewrite all the novels with one vocabulary of names so that these people he knew could be traced from novel to novel. So you could follow the one person who had so many different names. But not they're real names. Because they weren't themselves on the page. They were them passed through Kerouac but...
We know there is a one person. Don't we?
Shakespeare had a son who died named Hamnet.
We like to play the "who is it" game. Don't we.
But we don't wanna have the game played on us.
I just checked my email and Cheryl still hasn't sent me a message telling me I have no right.
I almost married a writer who wrote a play about our relationship. It made me so angry I almost broke up with her. We were in bed and I told her with closed eyes, "Some times I use the death of my father for sympathy." The line ended up in the play. When I heard it the first time all the air went out of me. So there's that.
I asked my roomate about it. She said:
"fuck'em its yer art"
but she's a narcissist.
I did it. I do it. I will do it again. It has hurt people. It does hurt people. It will hurt people again.
but...
I feel bad about it. Most of the time when somebody says something like that: "I feel bad about it." I say: "that and 2.50 gets you on the train."
This is what I do.
This how I live in the world
There is no malice in it.
I will get better about it.
I may figure out how to do it without hurting anyone.
I don't know if I will.
i am sorry.
that and 2.50 gets you on the train.
Rob's Bloodworks reading (the final one of the series, folks) of Wrench (directed by Dylan McCullough) is next Wednesday, 7/1. 7 PM. @ Seaport.
And stick around after the reading--we're throwing an end of the season party.
That's not the real one is it.
My Mother married a man named Charles after my Father died.
They had known each other for a long time. We all went to the same church.
Charles' wife died slowly of cancer. My Father died quickly of heart disease.
They used to go out together. My Mother, My Father, Charles and his wife.
Charles and his wife adopted a child around the time I was born. The boy's name was John.
We played together.
This was all a million years ago. Now Charles is my step father, but really just my Mother's husband.
He helped me move once in college after he married my mother. We sat at a Burger King. He told me a story.
The story was about John.
That story is part of Wrench. It is not Wrench. Wrench is not that story.
The character's name is John. So there is that.
I just sent out the email for the play. Cheryl is Charles daughter by birth. She is John's older sister. She does my taxes.
We correspond through email. I sent her the spam by accident. I only realized it after I pressed send. I am now worried
about an email from her. An email that starts... "you have no right."
When I wrote Princes of Waco it started with a story about my friend Polar Bear. He fell in love with a girl we called NASCAR Jamie. All these names are true. I was worried then like I am now. By the time it got to the stage, nothing of that story remained, but when my Mother watched the play and saw the dead father's Rolex being bandied about she leaned over to my aunt and said:
"that's not the real one is it?"
So there is that.
Horton Foote wrote a play about his home town, Horton Foote wrote all his plays about his home town, but the first one he wrote was called Wharton Dance. Later he would change the name to Harrison. Later he would change all the names. But he did it once with all the names right. I listened to him talk a lot. He said it was important to change the names so people wouldn't be hurt.
Kerouac wanted to rewrite all the novels with one vocabulary of names so that these people he knew could be traced from novel to novel. So you could follow the one person who had so many different names. But not they're real names. Because they weren't themselves on the page. They were them passed through Kerouac but...
We know there is a one person. Don't we?
Shakespeare had a son who died named Hamnet.
We like to play the "who is it" game. Don't we.
But we don't wanna have the game played on us.
I just checked my email and Cheryl still hasn't sent me a message telling me I have no right.
I almost married a writer who wrote a play about our relationship. It made me so angry I almost broke up with her. We were in bed and I told her with closed eyes, "Some times I use the death of my father for sympathy." The line ended up in the play. When I heard it the first time all the air went out of me. So there's that.
I asked my roomate about it. She said:
"fuck'em its yer art"
but she's a narcissist.
I did it. I do it. I will do it again. It has hurt people. It does hurt people. It will hurt people again.
but...
I feel bad about it. Most of the time when somebody says something like that: "I feel bad about it." I say: "that and 2.50 gets you on the train."
This is what I do.
This how I live in the world
There is no malice in it.
I will get better about it.
I may figure out how to do it without hurting anyone.
I don't know if I will.
i am sorry.
that and 2.50 gets you on the train.
Rob's Bloodworks reading (the final one of the series, folks) of Wrench (directed by Dylan McCullough) is next Wednesday, 7/1. 7 PM. @ Seaport.
And stick around after the reading--we're throwing an end of the season party.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Link:Blogging BLOODWORKS ~ Tonight!
Patrick Link:
“Well, you could always teach.”
People often say this to me. I’m not sure if it’s true, though. The thought of me addressing a class of eager kids ready to learn about the world terrifies me. It terrifies me so much I wrote a play about it. It’s called Dismissal and will be read tonight @Bloodworks.
Here’s my fear about teaching: that I would treat it like a show. I’d be like “Come to English class, we’ll have some laughs, tell some stories and if I can get you to care about a few books then great, but come primarily to have a good time.”
Maybe this isn’t the worst approach to teaching, but to me it seems like if you do this for too long it will come back to haunt you. Or at least that’s my fear. That I’d be so preoccupied with keeping my students entertained I wouldn’t adequately prepare them for the dangers surrounding them in the world—or even in the classroom. And that’s what Dismissal is about.
It’s about other things too: security, expression, career ambition and artistic failure.
And speaking of artistic failure, did I mention I have a reading tonight?
Patrick's Bloodworks reading of Dismissal (directed by Jordan Young; featuring Scott Sowers, Helen Coxe, Jake Aron, Patricia Randell, and Daniel Ziskie) is tonight at @Seaport @ 7 PM. Free of charge.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Conkel: Blogging Bloodworks
Joshua Conkel:
The idea for my play, I Wanna Destroy You, came from my December brunch piece, although they couldn’t be more different. The brunch piece, A Super Shiny Precious Thing, is a quiet (for me, anyway) and sweet ten-minute play about a desperately poor gay couple in Brooklyn who suddenly realize they want to get married.
The only commonality it shares with I Wanna Destroy You is that it’s also about a poor Brooklyn gay couple, albeit in a very different way. I’ve been going to a lot of gay rights protests this year and am, in all actuality, one half of a broke-as-a-joke Brooklyn gay couple, so questions of gay identity within straight society are on the front burner of my thoughts.
Specifically, I’m interested in the gay man as best friend, confidante, and catty fashion expert in our popular culture. It’s a fairly new cliché (we used to be perverts and psychopaths!) and while I’m glad for the positive rebranding, I can’t help thinking it’s one that’s actually damaging. Gay men have become like the adorable woodland creatures that helped Cinderella get dressed for the ball. Cute, but irrelevant. Also, in what ways do I as a gay man play into this stereotype, purposely even, to gain access into stuff I might not otherwise?
Think of Anthony, Charlotte York’s wedding planner and “friend” from Sex and the City, for example. He was certainly funny, and always at hand to answer a question about blow jobs, but was suspiciously missing during all of the key moments of his gal pal’s life. So was Stanford, Carrie’s “gay husband”.
To steal the vapid first line of every column Carrie ever wrote: In a city like New York, I had to wonder… To which I follow with; are gay men only acceptable if they’re planning your wedding, cutting your hair, or rearranging straight people’s furniture? And how much of our culture can mainstream culture steal without actually giving us equality? I mean, is it ironic to anybody else that our first black President is ignoring civil rights whilst his wife stands next to him wearing a gown by Jason Wu?
Anyway, I digress…
Beau, the protagonist in I Wanna Destroy You, is for all intents and purposes, the perfect gay man. He’s cute, funny, a snappy dresser, and the personal assistant to a famous romance novelist. Except that he’s getting older. Except that he’s broke, but still expected to wear designer clothes. Except that the woman he works for treats him like a yorkie or a hand bag. Except that his boyfriend burnt his face off whilst trying to deep fry a turkey on Thanksgiving and now wants to move back to Kentucky. I Wanna Destroy You is an examination of gay men and materialism, identity politics. In short, it’s about a gay man who turns thirty, freaks the fuck out about his life, and decides to destroy it.
Thanks for nothing, Carrie!
Joshua's Bloodworks reading of I Wanna Destroy You happens next Wednesday (6/24). 7 pm. @Seaport. Check back next week for the details!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
BLOODWORKS: TONIGHT! (& for the next 3 weeks!)
Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.
ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street
TONIGHT, June 17th:
NO POEM, NO SONG
by Jesse Cameron Alick
directed by Michael Goldfried
with Alaina Feehan, Kristen-Alexander Griffith, James Singletary, Darius Stone, Andy Waldschmidt, Kai Chapman, Eddie O'Blevins, Chris Berry, Jason Grimste, Melanie King, Mary Trotter, Tatiana Suarez Pico, Aixa Kendrick, Kimberlee Walker, Ngozi Anyanwu
Coming up:
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.
@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street SeaportA/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street
Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit. @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.
GOOGLE MAP
ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street
TONIGHT, June 17th:
NO POEM, NO SONG
by Jesse Cameron Alick
directed by Michael Goldfried
with Alaina Feehan, Kristen-Alexander Griffith, James Singletary, Darius Stone, Andy Waldschmidt, Kai Chapman, Eddie O'Blevins, Chris Berry, Jason Grimste, Melanie King, Mary Trotter, Tatiana Suarez Pico, Aixa Kendrick, Kimberlee Walker, Ngozi Anyanwu
Coming up:
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.
@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street SeaportA/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street
Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit. @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.
GOOGLE MAP
Monday, June 15, 2009
BECKWITH BLOGGING BLOODWORKS
Nikole Beckwith:
You know those times that you are in the subway and you see the train and you swipe your card and run up to the train really fast and awkward. And when you get there the train is just sitting. All it's doors are shut but it's just sitting there letting you look inside. And after it has been sitting there for so long you think that the doors have got to open, that it would be impossible for this train to have just been sitting here and that any second now it was going to open up - just when that thought solidifies is when the train pulls away; slowly at first, then faster and you're stuck waiting for the next one.
That is what it was like the last few weeks writing my play. I would sit in front of my open document staring; looking in it's windows at the people inside wondering why it wouldn't just open it's doors. I'd think "Come on, I see them in there. I invented them. Just let me in" and suddenly it would be past 5pm and the day had pulled away and I'd be stuck waiting for the next one. And the next one.
The hardest part was seeing inside the windows, because I know this play; I know it's muscle and bone. I see it's shape and weight and I know how it tastes. But the connecting tissue, what keeps it together, what lets it move was avoiding me like the plague.
The experience of really wrestling a play, really trying to get those pages in a death-grip (pardon the pun, see the play) no matter how frustrating and discouraging at times- was very valuable. I have specific writing rituals and habits that I have always indulged but, as my reading date for Bloodworks approached I had to learn to bend my own rules. I like to write in the day. I like it to be the first thing I do and I prefer to do it in giant stretches. 9-5 bring it on. But come the second week in June, I had to get my night-writing on. I had to make myself write at home (which i almost never do) and I had to steal hour long panels of time here and there whenever I could.
Also I don't let anyone read a play until it's first draft is completed but I didn't have Imagine My Sadness finished for my draft deadline at YB so I shared the play without an end written, I had to email my cast just 40 pages (out of 96) to look at before rehearsals and I often felt so stuck I kept making my close friend/amazing playwright (who, as luck would have it, happened to be staying with me for the last week) read 30 page segments over and over and after we'd talk I would push forward or go backward or shake a fist in the air. All of which was incredibly helpful.
In addition to all of that comfort-zone-leaving and writers-block-having there were the Youngblood-ers that kept checking in on me and offering a much needed arm squeeze time and again when they would see my brow furrow at the mere mention of my play's progress. The support was very much appreciated. Solidarity is the lonely man's milk of human kindness and everyone knows that writers spend a lot of time alone.
At 2am on Sunday morning I wrote the words "End of Play" and by 4pm Sunday afternoon I had done my last skim/spell check tweak. Just in time to get my scripts printed for my Monday rehearsal. It's a first draft that I am really excited to beat up and iron out. Something I really look forward to getting other people in on; actors, director, YB-ers and living breathing reactionary people in those folding chairs on Tuesday. Let's all make this play takes it's first step together. You get the camera ready and I'll start the scrapbook.
xo nkl
Nikole's Bloodworks reading of Imagine My Sadness is this Tuesday (6/16) @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street (@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport--A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street. Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit-- @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.) Admission is free.
You know those times that you are in the subway and you see the train and you swipe your card and run up to the train really fast and awkward. And when you get there the train is just sitting. All it's doors are shut but it's just sitting there letting you look inside. And after it has been sitting there for so long you think that the doors have got to open, that it would be impossible for this train to have just been sitting here and that any second now it was going to open up - just when that thought solidifies is when the train pulls away; slowly at first, then faster and you're stuck waiting for the next one.
That is what it was like the last few weeks writing my play. I would sit in front of my open document staring; looking in it's windows at the people inside wondering why it wouldn't just open it's doors. I'd think "Come on, I see them in there. I invented them. Just let me in" and suddenly it would be past 5pm and the day had pulled away and I'd be stuck waiting for the next one. And the next one.
The hardest part was seeing inside the windows, because I know this play; I know it's muscle and bone. I see it's shape and weight and I know how it tastes. But the connecting tissue, what keeps it together, what lets it move was avoiding me like the plague.
The experience of really wrestling a play, really trying to get those pages in a death-grip (pardon the pun, see the play) no matter how frustrating and discouraging at times- was very valuable. I have specific writing rituals and habits that I have always indulged but, as my reading date for Bloodworks approached I had to learn to bend my own rules. I like to write in the day. I like it to be the first thing I do and I prefer to do it in giant stretches. 9-5 bring it on. But come the second week in June, I had to get my night-writing on. I had to make myself write at home (which i almost never do) and I had to steal hour long panels of time here and there whenever I could.
Also I don't let anyone read a play until it's first draft is completed but I didn't have Imagine My Sadness finished for my draft deadline at YB so I shared the play without an end written, I had to email my cast just 40 pages (out of 96) to look at before rehearsals and I often felt so stuck I kept making my close friend/amazing playwright (who, as luck would have it, happened to be staying with me for the last week) read 30 page segments over and over and after we'd talk I would push forward or go backward or shake a fist in the air. All of which was incredibly helpful.
In addition to all of that comfort-zone-leaving and writers-block-having there were the Youngblood-ers that kept checking in on me and offering a much needed arm squeeze time and again when they would see my brow furrow at the mere mention of my play's progress. The support was very much appreciated. Solidarity is the lonely man's milk of human kindness and everyone knows that writers spend a lot of time alone.
At 2am on Sunday morning I wrote the words "End of Play" and by 4pm Sunday afternoon I had done my last skim/spell check tweak. Just in time to get my scripts printed for my Monday rehearsal. It's a first draft that I am really excited to beat up and iron out. Something I really look forward to getting other people in on; actors, director, YB-ers and living breathing reactionary people in those folding chairs on Tuesday. Let's all make this play takes it's first step together. You get the camera ready and I'll start the scrapbook.
xo nkl
Nikole's Bloodworks reading of Imagine My Sadness is this Tuesday (6/16) @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street (@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport--A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street. Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit-- @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.) Admission is free.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
LINKS ON LINKS
Patrick Link:
I love how on blogs you can link to stuff. I wish I could that in my plays. It provides an excellent opportunity for added subtext. Even a great work like The Seagull could benefit from hyperlinks. Take a look:
-
MEDVEDENKO: Why do you always wear black?
MASHA: Because I'm in mourning for my life. I'm not happy.
MEDVEDENKO: Why not? (Perplexed) I don't understand why not. You're in good health; your father is...well, he's not rich, but he's pretty well off. I'm in a lot worse shape than you. I make twenty-three rubles a month, that's before payroll deductions, and I'm not in mourning. (Sits)
MASHA: It has nothing to do with money. You can still be poor and still be happy.
(Scene)
See? Isn't that cool?
(patrick's bloodworks reading is June 23 @SEAPORT.)
I love how on blogs you can link to stuff. I wish I could that in my plays. It provides an excellent opportunity for added subtext. Even a great work like The Seagull could benefit from hyperlinks. Take a look:
-
MEDVEDENKO: Why do you always wear black?
MASHA: Because I'm in mourning for my life. I'm not happy.
MEDVEDENKO: Why not? (Perplexed) I don't understand why not. You're in good health; your father is...well, he's not rich, but he's pretty well off. I'm in a lot worse shape than you. I make twenty-three rubles a month, that's before payroll deductions, and I'm not in mourning. (Sits)
MASHA: It has nothing to do with money. You can still be poor and still be happy.
(Scene)
See? Isn't that cool?
(patrick's bloodworks reading is June 23 @SEAPORT.)
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
BLOODWORKS: TONIGHT! TOMORROW!
TONIGHT:
Great Eastern
by Anna Moench
directed by Michael Silverstone
TOMORROW:
We In Silence Hear A Whisper
featuring Ayesha Ngaujah, Shydel James, Frank Harts, Louis Changchien, Laura Heidinger
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
Great Eastern
by Anna Moench
directed by Michael Silverstone
TOMORROW:
We In Silence Hear A Whisper
by Jon Kern
directed by Colette Robert
featuring Ayesha Ngaujah, Shydel James, Frank Harts, Louis Changchien, Laura Heidinger
BLOODWORKS: 2009 Youngblood's annual reading series Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.
ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street
@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport
A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street
Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit. @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.has just started to teeter on its axis.
This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Kern: Blogging BLOODWORKS
Jon Kern:The play I’m working for my Bloodworks reading is called We In Silence Hear A Whisper. It’s based off an idea I had in 2005 when I was in grad school thinking, “How would you write a play about the genocide in Darfur and make it not suck?” Now, when I tell people I’m writing a play about Darfur, they tend to look at me like I just farted in a puppy’s face. I take it they think I’ve engaged in a foolish-to-inappropriate endeavor.
I know I’ve engaged in a foolish, perhaps inappropriate endeavor. Why else would I sit on an idea for 4 years? [Not always but often] I have a tremendously hard time getting myself to write. My body will literally fight itself. My muscles twist and tighten. My chest spasms. Paroxysms of silence shudder my limbs. I can feel words travel my throat that are never heard [‘cause I don’t speak them] and are never read [‘cause I don’t write them], until my throat grows cramped and soar like the calves of a psychotic runner, the kind who enjoy taking off their socks to see how bad their feet have bleed.
I think I should do something else. That’s the sane response, right? I tell myself, “You should _____" or "Really, what you ought to do is ______" or "Wouldn’t doing ______ be a lot more productive and helpful for ________?” Problem is, I can never fill in the blanks. All my thoughtful wishes for a different life are a virgin madlib. What else can I do? What else will anyone let me do? What else am I any good at? And so here I am, having to write a play for Bloodwork by decree of Baron Gillis and Vicomte Tolan, and I thought, “Let’s do that I idea you are super terrified to do! If you’re going to do this shit, do it stupid!”
Writing a play that touches on genocide – a current genocide – does offer a lot of ways to suck. I certainly don’t enjoy self-flagellating, liberal theater that wants to punish you for showing up. And I don’t enjoy academic lectures delivered by actors; if I had a passion for academia, I would’ve gone to a real grad school so I could currently be sitting in some small city or college town playing politics for a tenure track. And I’m not really sure if I’m qualified to speak for experiences that are the foreignest of foreign to me. And I don’t want to talk just about western, white people as much as I personally like them.
Horror needs to be named. Abject cruelty needs to be exposed. Evil needs the stage. Otherwise, the crimes we humans inflict on each other go unsolved. Worse, they get forgotten. One of the many lessons I’ve taken from the Bush years is that while knowledge of awful things is awful, ignorance of them is far worse. Ignorance is Miracle Grow™ for awful things. Ignorance is Cialis for the four-hour fuckpages of awful things. Yet if we’re going to open our eyes to evil, perhaps shake evil’s hand, perhaps chat evil a few questions at a dinner party, we have to experience the witnessing of that evil as a compelling event - as something aesthetic, worth seeing like any other object competing in the markplace of stimulation. The acceptable aesthetics of evil: that’s the fucking question. That’s the challenge that’s sat inside me for 4 years.
So here I am.
My reading of We In Silence Hear A Whisper is on June 3rd at 7pm. I’m excited to discover that night how badly I’ve failed, and I offer you the schadenfruede to discover along with me. I’m hopeful that I won’t, but a little suspicious that I will. Either way, we’re alive and ready to find out.
NB: If you are fortunate enough to have extra money or time, these people do good work - Doctors Without Borders and The International Rescue Committee. Please help them out, if you can
Jon's Bloodworks reading is next Wednesday (6/3) at 7 PM @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street (@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street Seaport--A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton Street. Walk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit-- @SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.)
Admission is free.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
News: Bloodworks - TONIGHT! and TOMORROW!
BLOODWORKS - TONIGHT:
CAKE LIGHT
CAKE LIGHTby Courtney Brooke Lauria
directed by Jordan Young
A play about people’s connection to one another. A play about people’s connection to theater. A play about people’s connection to electronics. All lit by the glow of birthday candles (kinda).
And tomorrow night:
RETURNING HOME
by Erica Saleh
directed by Kel Haney
featuring Jessica Barr, Paul Downs Colaizzo, Andrea Maulella, William Peden, Joanna Simmons & RJ Tolan
A play about second choices, second chances and a woman who thought the past was past until the man carrying her secrets walked through the diner door...
Coming up:
Tues June 2 - ANNA MOENCH
Weds June 3 - JON KERN
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
Tues June 2 - ANNA MOENCH
Weds June 3 - JON KERN
Tues June 16 - NIKOLE BECKWITH
Weds June 17 - JESSE CAMERON ALICK
Tues June 23 - PATRICK LINK
Weds June 24 - JOSHUA CONKEL
Tues June 30 - ELIZA CLARK
Weds July 1 - ROBERT ASKINS
BLOODWORKS: 2009 Youngblood's annual reading series Youngblood (Ensemble Studio Theatre's company of playwrights under 30) is proud to present BLOODWORKS - our annual reading series, featuring a brand new full-length play from each of our member playwrights.
ALL READINGS are @ 7pm and are free of charge @SEAPORT! - 210 Front Street
@SEAPORT! is located at 210 Front Street, in the South Street SeaportA/C to Broadway/Nassau, 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z to Fulton StreetWalk down Fulton Street to the Seaport, turn left before The Gap and the BODIES exhibit.
@SEAPORT! is half a block down on the left.has just started to teeter on its axis.
This year, for the first time, the BLOODWORKS readings are hosted by Dog Run Rep at the @SEAPORT! space at South Street Seaport.
Friday, May 22, 2009
News: Moench's BRAINS - this weekend!
anna&meredith,
in conjunction with The Looking Glass Theatre Space Grant,
is proud to present...
in conjunction with The Looking Glass Theatre Space Grant,
is proud to present...
BRAINS infuses a triumphant medical breakthrough with the fervent energy of religious passion and pro football. An explosive and hilarious tour de force layering theatrics, athletics, and dance,
BRAINS will slap you in the face with truth and send you searching for God.
May 21-23 at 8pm, May 24 at 7pm
First place winner of Spoke the Hub’s 2009 Winter Follies!
Written by Anna Moench
Staged by Meredith Steinberg
Produced by Carolyn Sesbeau
Featuring Molly Gaebe, Mike James, Elisa Matula, and David Nelson
Tickets $18, at http://www.lookingglasstheatrenyc.com/ or call 212-352-3101
The Looking Glass Theatre422 West 57 Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
ACDB1 to Columbus Circle, NRQW to 57th St/7th Ave
anna&meredith presents BRAINS in conjunction with The Looking Glass Theatre’s Space Grant Program.
Graphic by Carolina Paula
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