Week 25 - Grandpa's New Harley

Next week I will hit Week 26 of this project.  Which will mean that I've been doing this project for (Lord help me) half a year.  I feel like I need to do something to celebrate.  I'm not sure what that is.  I think I'm going to print out all my plays thus far because it still doesn't feel real to me.  I don't feel like I've written 25 separate plays (26 next week) since the beginning of this year.  I need some tangible evidence.


In my previous post, I wrote about how I felt that it was getting harder and harder to write each week.  I supposed that my creative well was rapidly drying up.  One of my friends (and a playwright himself) Dan Kennedy wrote on my Facebook wall "When the well dries, you begin to be creative."  I thought that was a pretty profound observation (thanks Dan.)  So this week, I took time out to just sit.  And think.  And imagine something new. And I did create something.  The well, as it turns out, wasn't dry at all.  I just had to sit and let things marinate a bit.  Week 25's play is Grandpa's New Harley.   

Week 23: Scouts' Honor and Week 24: The Cassie Complex

Hello faithful readers! Apologies for the delay in posting.  Between out of town trips, surprise trips to see baseball games, auditions, and busy times at work, finding time to write and post has been a challenge.  I actually spent most of today stressing out about the project.  I have to be honest, it's getting harder and harder each week to sit down and make myself write.  Blame it on summer, blame it on too much to do, blame it on the creative well being dry.  They are probably all factors.  But I am determined to see this project through, even if each week doesn't produce a stellar play.

Speaking of, Week 23's play is Scouts' Honor and Week 24's play is The Cassie Complex.  Both plays have things to recommend them.  I've been playing with structure and have been trying to write outside of my Bonnie comfort box.  But I'm not entirely happy with both of them.  I'll be interested to hear from my dear readers what you all think.  I personally think they are unfinished in certain ways but I don't know how to finish them right now.  But, onward and upward, I suppose.  :)

Week 22 - The Wondrous Machine

Hello rabid play-readers (or playwriting blog readers.)  :)  I have a big audition coming up on Wednesday.  Writing this week's play was a bit difficult because I have been rehearsing my monologues all week and the words of Shakespeare and Shaw have been whirling about in my brain.  There are worse ways to live, though.

Week 22's play, The Wondrous Machine, was partly inspired by my reading of Sarah Ruhl's In The Next Room; or The Vibrator Play and partly inspired by this week's immersion in Shaw's delightful world, a world that always seems to be a bridge between Victorian decorum and modern outspokenness.  I am definitely not the heir to Shaw's talent (or Ruhl's, for that matter), but I enjoyed my time in that world, if only for a while.

Week 20: It's Academic and Week 21: The New Guy

Yes readers, this evening you get two posts and two plays for the price of one.  My apologies for not posting last week.  An old friend was in town and I had to say goodbye to a former roommate before her move across the country.  Shakespeare's "Parting is such sweet sorrow" seems apt here, but partings feel permanent to me and I know that I will see both of these people again. :)

You may remember from an earlier post that I spoke about abandoning writing ten-minute plays for a time in favor of writing my full-length play about Shakespeare's clowns.  Well, as it turns out, I am doing both.  Week 20's play is It's Academic and concerns scholars at a Shakespeare conference.  Week 21's play is The New Guy and introduces Will Kempe and some of his co-workers (a guy by the name of Shakespeare figures into the plot as well).  Together, the two plays might not seem to go together.  But as Cousin Larry would say on Perfect Strangers "I have...an idea!"  And they are going to go together.  Right now I'm sort of envisioning it as something similar to one of my favorite plays, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, as the play goes back and forth in time.  Not that it will be as good as anything Stoppard could write, but that's where some of my inspiration is coming from.

Week 19 - New Rules

Apologies for the lateness of this post.  Yesterday was Mothers' Day, as you know, and my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law came into town.  By the time everyone left, I needed a nap.  So I took it.  And it was glorious.  Of course, it delayed my posting of my new play this week and for that I humbly apologize.

This week's play is titled New Rules.  It's sort of a take-off on Bill Maher's New Rules.  Instead of making new rules for politicians, these new rules involve relationships.  Judging from the confusion and worry a lot of my friends are experiencing as they navigate the world of dating, I'm thinking it might be time for some new rules to keep everyone from hurting other people's feelings.

Week 18 - Run

I'm posting a little later than usual this week.  I got sucked into watching a Law and Order: SVU marathon today.  They always suck me in and then I emerge, five hours later, hungry, having not gotten dressed, with none of the weekend projects completed.  Ah life.

Week 18's play was inspired by my cop show binge, as well as the visit I took to the dog park today with my parents' dog Holly.  I know most people go to the dog park to watch adorable dogs running about.  I went to observe people and let my imagination drift.  In this week's play, two strangers meet in a dog park.  But all is not as it seems.  Week 18's play is Run.

Week 17 - Lizzie and Liz and Liza

Hola from week 17!  I will be working on a ten minute play about Margaret of Anjou in the coming weeks so be on the lookout for that.  Tomorrow I film a commercial.  Behold the life of the freelance writer/actor.

I do have a question for the internets.  Way back in 2010, I wrote my Master of Letters thesis on Will Kempe and Robert Armin, the principal clowns in Shakespeare's acting company.  I became slightly obsessed with these two gentlemen and envisioned them as a sort of early modern Felix Unger (Armin) / Oscar Madison (Kempe.) My final ten minute play for my Playwriting class in 2011 was called Wiseguys and it looked at their (completely imagined) relationship.  I have been mulling, scheming, and formulating a way to turn the story of these men (and the larger story of what it was like to be a part of the late Elizabethan theatre revolution) into a full length play.  So, here's my question.  Should I spend some of my time that I've allotted to this project to work on Wiseguys?  Or should I continue this project as a separate entity from working on a full-length play at this time?  Should I even BE working on full-length works right now?  What do you guys think?

Week 17's play is Lizzie and Liz and Liza.  The play looks at the dreams of youth and how they turn into the realities of the present.  That's about as much as I can say without giving everything away. :)