Not Quite a Year Later – but getting there

Wow. I just read through that last post. It has been a long time since I checked in here. Part of the reason I don’t check in more often is because I feel like I have to write a lengthy informative – somewhat insightful – post each and every time I drop by.

But, hello, Kirsten! Wake up! Aren’t you theo one who gets to make the rules about your blog?

 Yes. I am.

Well…

I’m talking ot myself again. In spite of popular opinion, that’s actually a good sign because it means I might actually listen. And, if I listen, I might be able to make a little shift that will allow me to simply check in and say, “Hi.”

I am posting some pictures of the last show I directed. These are pictures of Columbia Entertainment Company’s production of Strange Snow by Stephen Metcalfe which performed earlier this month. I loved working on this show. Here are my director’s notes from the program which will explain a little bit about why I loved it:

I am very pleased that the Columbia Entertainment Company has chosen Stephen Metcalfe’s “Strange Snow” as their inaugural production for Stage II. The play’s focus on the personal traumas endured by veterans and their families after wartime is particularly apt today. As a society we are just learning about the psychological scars our veterans carry home and how these emotional wounds affect not only the soldiers who bear them, but also their families and loved ones.

As the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, I am honored to bring this real and human drama to the CEC stage. In spite of the fact that most of my father’s wartime actions live unspoken in his memory, the ghosts of those memories continue to haunt him. I hope that someday he can find the peace that has eluded him since his return home more than 35 years ago.

“Strange Snow” is ultimately about the hope that we can learn from our history how to heal our present time; that we can come to better understand how to help our soldiers and their loved ones heal from the violence of war; that we can find a way to make peace with the sacrifices made, voluntarily or involuntarily, for our country; and that we can honor the grief of losing friends and family members who were not lucky enough to return home.

“Strange Snow” tells the story of two Vietnam War veterans who are struggling through their present to make peace their past. Megs wears his scars on the outside, while David conceals his scars on the inside. Martha is David’s sister whose own dreams have become secondary to David’s silent suffering. While David uses alcohol to self-medicate and to keep him numb to the violence of the war, Martha stays by his side maintaining the home where their childhood dreams and disappointments stare at them from the photographs on the walls. David and Martha have negotiated a silent coexistence, which is shattered when David’s violent past comes back all too alive the day Megs shows up at their door.

Here are some pictures: (Eventually I will figure out how to do this.)

Filed under: W.I.P. Updates and Vents

Summary of Overwhelm – Deadlines Approaching Rapidly

Oh my! I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

My first leading role in creative dramatics was as The Little Engine That Could. I was 7. The same age as my daughter. I held a little cardboard cut out of a train engine in front of me and skooched across the stage an inch at a time chanting, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” Today, I need to be reminded of that moment in my life. We are chugging towards opening night of The Laramie Project. It is time for me as a director to get ready to hand the show over to the actors and the stage manager and step aside. I’m looking forward to that part, but I’m not ready. It’s one of those Both/And things. I am both ready to hand the show over and not ready. I could keep diddling along with this production forever tweaking this and that, coaching the actors, working out the kinks with the background projections, but…Thursday will come with or without my cooperation. Opening night is rapidly approaching and there will be real live human beings sitting in the seats watching what we have put on the stage and there is absolutely NOTHING I can do about it. Here we go!!!

On the other hand. This Sunday things were under control at the theater and I got to spend the day with my daughter outside in Peace Park wandering around the Earth Day exhibits and watching her run and jump on a giant inflatable earth. We have not had a day to ourselves in a long long time. I miss her and I am ready to let go of the show so I can return to her. It is much easier to balance mothering with writing than it is with theater projects. Theater projects have a set schedule and the cast and crew are counting on you to show up. Towards the end of the rehearsal process there is no getting around it – you are at the theater every evening and every weekend. Writing, even collaborative writing, is paced differently. I can write with the energy available to me no matter what kind of energy that is.

Then, there’s the rest of my life – work, relationships, physical health, spiritual health. About the only things I have been able to maintain is a bit of spiritual reading that refreshes my mind and heart. And then there’s work. The job, of course, is easy to maintain because I have to be there. And, if I’m there, then I might as well work. The more I get done the better off I am.

My physical health has been suffering though. I am plagued by allergies that have turned my nose into a water faucet and left me with a relentless cough. Last Friday my body gave up. I had been taking too many different medications trying to get my allergies under control and banish the cough. My stomach rebelled and decided I was to spend the entire day in the bathroom curled up on a towel waiting to vomit. Yuck! That was graphic. Sorry. Basically my body hit the wall and said, “No more!”

A llittle bit of additional stress was added by ending the romantic part of an 8 month relationship and deciding to “just be friends” and applying for a promotion at work. When it rains it pours. I’m just going to hold on and ride this one out to opening night. Our cast party is Saturday night after the show and I’ve scheduled a massage, manicure and pedicure for the afternoon. Maybe my mind and body will forgive me for the crazy schedule and all the stress if I give myself a little bit of pampering.

Filed under: Business, Roles (Juggling Multiple Responsibilities), W.I.P. Updates and Vents

Finding People to Play With

The first two weeks of rehearsal for The Laramie Project have been plagued by cast members quitting and cast members with schedule conflicts. We lost one cast member before the rehearsals started – pregnant (we know what causes this now). Another after the first night of rehearsal – wife had surgery (this one I have lots of compassion for). And another after the first week of rehearsal – sick and tired (not much sympathy here). Oh, and my AD moved to Colorado.

So we are heading into week three with 3 new cast members all having various parts of the blocking working hard to catch up. I exhausted myself this week trying to grin and bear it, keep rolling along, making do, and giving it my best. When in fact I wanted to “plotz” – this means cumble into a heap in Yiddish. I’m a “goyah” (more kindly referred to as a WASP) who lived in Brooklyn for 12 years and I learned that sometims Yiddish is the only way to describe what is actually going on with a person. Anyway, enough with the plotzing – moving on with this post.

I have a wonderful cast of 14 people now and a lovely and talented AD. These are the folks who stuck and we will do this play together. We’re a family for the next month and a half. That’s wonderful. And bless them, they are working hard.

But for the past two weeks all of my energy was focused on the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t play with us. I spent so much time focusing on who wasn’t there – who could I ask, find, or pull in off the street to play with us instead. And, in one case, I wasted a lot of time resenting that I hadn’t cast someone else in the role. It just wasn’t an enjoyable week mostly because of my focus on who was missing instead of who was present. I put my head down and kept plowing through, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

I need to remember this – focus on those who are there and let go of those who cannot play. Find people to play with who are happy and enjoyable to play with. Bless those who don’t want to play and send them on their way. Enjoy the playmates you have – does this sound like a song?

Filed under: W.I.P. Updates and Vents

Musical Inspiration and Tornado Warnings

Last week we finished blocking Act I of The Laramie Project. I have to say I could not have done it without Dave Matthews. The latest, Stand Up, seems to fit the themes of the play (and my life). So I crank up my little E1 Rokr before the actors arrive to get my Matthews fix and that bit of inspiration I need to make it through two and a half hours of telling people where to go. I am thinking I am perhaps not cut out to be a director for the following reasons:

1) I hate telling people where to go.

2) I hate it more when I tell someone where to go and they ask my why.

That would mean I’m not cut out to a mom either. But, I am a mom so the point is mute.  (See how this all blends together into one senseless blur?)

Yesterday we had over 100 tornado warnings in the Midwest. The sirens telling us to take immediate cover went of at 4:45 pm and again at 10:00 pm – just after I had gotten a stressed out, hyper, over excited 6 year old to sleep. The first time at 4:45 my daughter didn’t want to go down to the basement without her toys. The second time at 10:00 she wanted to go down to the basement immediately and I didn’t because I was tired and it’s cold in the basement. We made a compromise and ended up sleeping on a twin matress in the hallway surrounded by stuffed animals. The hallway is internal. I closed the doors to all the rooms and we squished ourselves in between the coat closet and the linen closet. At 1:30 AM it was over and we got up and moved into my bedroom. I don’t like the whole tornado, hurricane, earthquake, mudslide, forest fire extravaganza that mother nature frequently throws our way. Where on this earth is the absolute safest place to be? I’m taking my child and moving there.Yeah right.

This week, we start in on the blocking of Act II and try to get the whole thing finished with a good solid stumble through on Thursday. It would probably be a good idea if I started thinking about where I want to tell people to go.

Filed under: On Being Mom, W.I.P. Updates and Vents

To Vew or Not To View

We had a fun rehearsal for The Laramie Project on Tuesday. We finsihed reading through Act III and then we went around the room and discussed characters. Each actor read a representative piece of dialogue from one of their characters and shared what impressions the dialogue gave them about who the character is and how they dress, walk, talk, feel, think, react, etc. It was fun because I love exploring that stuff.

Then it sort of turned into a discussion about how all of the characters in this play are real people. And the words the actors will be speaking onstage are all direct quotes from these real people. There is a wealth of information online about Laramie, WY and the Matthew Shepard case. Romaine Patterson who was a friend of Matthew’s became an activist because of her outspokenness reagarding the case and became famous for “standing toe to toe” with Fred Phelps. She has a great website for her new book, The Whole World was Watching. And her main website is called Eat Romaine.

I think this is the first time that I have ever been involved in a play in which the characters are 1) real people AND 2) still living. Yes, the irony of that last statement is a bit odd considering the whole thing deals with Matthew Shepard’s murder and he, of course, is not still living.

One of the actors brought up the HBO film. He wanted to know if it was okay for him to watch it. He was asking my opinion/permission. I have the DVD on loan from another actor in the play who has watched it – several times. And I have yet to put it in my DVD player to watch it myself. I just haven’t committed to it. Because I don’t know if I should or not. I need to do my homework and do my research, but does that include watching a movie based on the play, based on the actual events, based on …

I told him that was up to him. Of course, he can watch it if he wants to watch it. But, I stressed that I wanted him to portray his characters the way he, himself sees fit to portray them and not base his performance on what Steve Buscemi did. Because that would ruin his time onstage and the performance would not be authentically his. That’s what I think about watching the film myself. Some of my favorite actors and actresses are in that film. I have always wanted to watch it and have always intended to rent it until I was chosen to direct the play. Even the little snippets I have seen from previews and commercials have stuck in my brain and I find myself having to push them out of my head to think about what we can do with this script theatrically with the actors we have here and with the resources we have here. And film is a 100%different medium than theatre. It just is. There is absolutely no way to recreate a film onstage. You have to create a play onstage. Yeah, yeah, yeah – I’m not saying anything anyone else doesn’t know. I am trying to work my decision out in my head as I write this.

Should I watch it or should I not? There is no should or should not. I will not. I have decided I won’t. I will do other homework. I will read, re-read, and listen to the words in the script every day. I will research. I will look for photos and headlines and try to understand the nature and venom of a hate crime. I will take what I know about trauma and apply it to my director’s choices. And I will look at people and look at the actors onstage and do my best to help them BE who they are as they are BEING their characters. Decision made. To view or not to view? View not.

Filed under: W.I.P. Updates and Vents

WIP Updates and Garbage

Our first read through for The Laramie Project is scheduled for this Thursday. The cast and crew will be there and so will I, the fearless (yeah, right) director. I am excited to get this project going. Once it gets rolling it will create its own momentum and I won’t feel like I have to MAKE something happen.

I like the way the casting turned out. I had more men show up to audition than I actually needed – practically a miracle for a community theater. And most of the folks who showed up were brand new to Columbia Entertainment Company (CEC) which is an extra bonus. The company desperately needs some fresh perspective. That isn’t a comment on the people currently involved. But, it is a comment on creative growth. We need exposure to new ideas and perspectives to stay fresh.

I have been involved with the company for over a year now, but this is the first time I am directing for them. There are so many things I don’t know about simply because they don’t think to tell me. The same people have been doing the same things for so long, they assume everything is understood.

As for the casting, we are actually using more people than were used in the original production. It just turned out that way. If you haven’t read the play the original company had 8 actors who between them played approximately 69 characters. The original script is very different from the HBO production where they cast 1 actor to each role. Of course, HBO has a million gazillion dollars. I’ll be lucky to scrape up enough cash to build a 25 foot fence for the set. It’s a good thing I am a theater minimalist at heart.

Earth Scorcher now has a first line, a last line and 2/3rds of an outline. I had the outline in my purse with me last night. (Once I am involved in the flow of writing something, I have to carry it around with me everywhere I go.) I was at a CEC task force meeting last night and it was all I could do to keep myself from sneaking my outline out and working on it while pretending to pay attention. Of course, I was a good little meeting member, and didn’t do that. But, I’m telling you, it took restraint on my part.

My collaborator and I got together Saturday night and did what we hope turns out to be a final edit on AS. This would be draft # 10. I am getting close to that point where I throw my hands up in the air and say, “It has to be done because I can’t take it anymore!”

Things are jumping. This is always the case with me. Once one project starts heating up, others seem to follow. Creative energy begets creative energy and a creative vacuum – just sucks. (I know, you saw that coming from a mile away, but I couldn’t resist. Sorry.)

And, in the land of the mundane: I hope I don’t forget to take the garbage out this week. I forgot it last week because, frankly, more important things were firing through my synapses. But, now, it’s piling up in the garage and – well, it will be bad if I forget it again. Let’s just say I never got around to actually cooking those chicken breasts I defrosted last Wednesday.

Filed under: W.I.P. Updates and Vents

A Day at Home – Watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the 6th Time

An example of the mind chatter: 

My daughter who has the flu and who is spending a day at home just asked me to put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on for the sixth time.  I love Dick Van Dyke, but give me a break. I am home – missing a third day of work in 3 weeks. I haven’t worked one full week in all of January. I had the flu, I shared the flu and … it’s a vicious cycle. Thankfully her temperature has come down to 99.2 from 102.1 – what a relief! So I am sitting at the computer thinking about all the projects that I want to be working on and wondering if I have the energy or if I can find enough silence to work on any of them.

Right now I am on the verge:

• Auditions for The Laramie Project are only a week away.
• My collaborator and I are almost done with AS- not quite jello yet, but should be done within the week.
• My WIP, Earthscorcher, is waiting impatiently for me to return.

What does all this mean? It means I am feeling a bit of overwhelm. Overwhelm is a state that can completely paralyze me. So what to do? I know! I’ll create a new blog! Actually “writing it out” always helps me pick a direction in which to run. I am thinking now about ways to add pressure to each project.

Laramie has built in pressure because actors are going to show up to audition next Monday and Tuesday and I need to know who I am looking for. It also has the pressure of a very public deadline. We’re performing April 27, 28, and 29 whether we are ready or not.

AS has built in pressure because I am writing with a collaborator and I HATE it when people are waiting for me and I really HATE it when people are disappointed in me. (Being a people pleaser can be both a blessing and a curse – this subject deserves its own post.)

Earthscorcher has absolutely no built in pressure. It is for me and by me and I’m working solo. It is easy for me to remain accountable to others and not so easy for me to be accountable to myself. Thus the difficulty of balancing my “writerly” dreams with being a mom, I mean a working mom, I mean a working single mom. (It just gets better, doesn’t it?) The only reason for me to return to Earthscorcher is because I enjoy it and want to write it. The characters are waiting somewhat impatiently for me to return. I wonder how much longer I can let the pressure of their voices build in my head before they give up on me completely.

So there you have it. A breakdown of the major projects.

Then there is life. My beautiful daughter, Emma, has the flu. It seems to be cycling every 6 hours or so. Her fever goes down after a dose of the medicine and she is bored, bored, bored being stuck at home with me. Her fever goes back up and she just wants to crawl into my lap and have me rub her back. There is no question about my priority in this situation. Everything else is dropped when it is back rubbing time.

Then there is the pseudo-guilt I feel about missing another day of work. I was sick two days last week. Then, of course and unfortunately, Emma came down with it on Saturday afternoon. The office manager said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll muddle through.” Yikes! It is the conundrum of having no choice and too many choices at the same time.

Can anyone relate?

Filed under: On Being Mom, Roles (Juggling Multiple Responsibilities), W.I.P. Updates and Vents