3/24/14, Day 13,915: Lynnie that’s the whole thing / That’s the whole thing right there
This day is so named for a line from The Sea Concerto, which we read at the Lark Play Development Center’s Playwrights Workshop meeting. I’d finished the play back in January, and so I was excited to hear the final third with fresh ears. And then a beautiful thing happened: that persistent feeling that I didn’t belong in a room of such talent and experience–a feeling as strong as it is irrational–melted away, and for the first time I felt at home.
Here’s how it happened: we had a full schedule of playwrights, and so we couldn’t go over the 35 minute allotment. I knew I wanted to give at least 5 minutes for post-reading conversation, because when you’re in a room with playwrights like host Arthur Kopit and his co-host David Henry Hwang, you want to hear what they have to say. So when we reached the final scene at 28 minutes, I called a stop to the reading. But the actors wanted to keep going, and it felt like the room wanted to keep going, and so that’s just what we did; we read the final scene, movingly played by Colleen Werthmann and Melanie Nicholls-King. We didn’t have time for feedback, but that wanting to go on and hear the final scene was the most important feedback I could’ve received, and a weight lifted off my chest. Thanks as well to Sheldon, Richard, Tom and Heidi for their great reads.
The whole night was pretty fabulous: Alfredo Narciso was brilliant as both an alien speaking a language invented by Chisa Hutchinson in her wild space sex slave play and as The Bruce Springsteen in a hot scene from Rogelio Martinez’s Berlin Wall play. There was also a panoramic simultaneous action love-fest hotel scene from A. Rey Pamatmat, and another brilliant beginning of a play from Kimber Lee. I think one of things I’ll miss most when this workshop is over is watching Kimber bring in one perfectly written beginning of a play after another. She has maybe the best dialogue-ear for an ever-so-slightly-heightened-poetic-realism that I’ve ever heard. I could listen to her characters talk all day.
3/25/14, Day 13,916: The “You can never step in the same river twice” Flux Meeting
This day is so named for the Flux Creative Partner meeting last night. It was, shall we say, an eventful meeting, and I can share almost none of it. But I left feeling so much love for the people I’m lucky enough to make theatre with…what a rare and precious thing. And it keeps on changing…
Technique never stands still: it only advances or retreats…
Writing: 75 out of 85 days (Word(s))
Spanish: 72 out of 85 days
What small things did I do the past two days to help build the Honeycomb?
(And what does it mean to “Help build the honeycomb?”)
- For Flux, hosted and participated in our Creative Partner meeting, and sent my mid-year Friends of Flux invites;
- Signed the “Free Marissa Alexander. Stop Angela Corey” petition;
- Signed the Cove Point anti-fracking petition;
- Signed the petition to reduce gun violence against women;
- Cooked and ate all vegetarian meals (mostly organic, some local) and added no direct food waste (plastics bags, plastic water bottles, etc.),
Corinna Schulenburg 