Open Wardrobes

With Collide-a-Scope all wrapped up now (had the last show on Sunday night, very responsive crowd) I have a bit of a pause. I say a bit, as I do still have to do my full-time day job and am also taking an evening class (Intermediate Chinese). But artistically speaking I'm in a bit of a lull. I'm keeping an eye on audition notices, feeling the itch to get back on stage, and also trying to wrap my brain around what I hope will be my next writing project. I've been wanting for awhile to create a one-man show combining physics and theater. An unusual combination, perhaps, but then I studied physics for many years before taking a job at a non-profit. I also used to work on the side for Mad Science of Minnesota, a group which does educational science presentations for schools, birthday, parties, etc. I don't know what shape yet my show will take, but I think the time has finally come to wrestle with the idea and see what comes out.

I have now sent The Princess and the Moon out to a grand of 18 theaters across the country (mostly selections of the script, the full script to a couple). I did some research to find out more about children's theaters around the US and tried to pick what seemed like some of the more prominent ones (the phrase "shoot for the moon" feels appropriate here). Now all I can do is cross my fingers that they won't all be tossed in the tash unread, and that someone out there will be interested in reading the full script.

After working on it for the past 10 years, I have at long last finished my first novel: Edelsha, and the Tale of the Third Ring (more details here). Thanks to the editing skills of my good friend Tim Goddard the book is now available from Goddard Publishing through Lulu.com. There is nothing quite like seeing your name in print, on something you've worked long and hard on. While I've experienced that before with plays, there's something special about seeing it on a book (don't we all dream of writing the Great American Novel?). It's also a good feeling to bring this project to completion after so many years. So with that wrapped up, The Princess and the Moon finished, it's probably time to start something new. Stay tuned...


Oh yes, and don't forget to buy my book.

I belong to a Yahoo group called the Playwrights Binge - the main focus is for playwrights to encourage each other and share opportunities, be they a contest, theaters looking for plays, etc. As is usually the case when I belong to such a list, I mostly lurk, rarely posting but usually reading everything that gets posted. This list does what they call a "submission binge" twice a year, the goal of which is to send out 30 submissions over the course of 30 days. The current binge has been taking place over September and so has about a week to go. Since I spent the start of the month trying to finish up writing The Princess and the Moon I haven't really been shooting for 30 submissions this month. To be honest I usually have a hard time finding that many good opportunities in any given month; I usually try to submit though whenever a good opp is posted to the list. But, in the spirit of the binge, today I send selections of Princess out to another 8 children's theaters across the country, which brings me to a total of 11 theaters that I've sent a partial or full script of that play to. Plus I've done about half a dozen other submissions this month, so I've made it a little more than halfway to the goal of 30, not too bad. I'm hoping that at least a few of the theaters will be interested in the full script to Princess. It's out there now, now for the waiting game. Guess that means I should start writing something else.

Now that The Princess and the Moon is "finished" (at least until I think of several ways to make it better in the middle of the night), I have started the process of sending it out into the world. I feel good about its chances with publishers, but I'd really like to see it onstage first. I'd especially like to see it done here in the Twin Cities where I can see the production. So to start with I've sent it to Lakeshore Players (the full script), plus I've sent selections of the script to both SteppingStone Theatre and Youth Performance Company, two prominent theaters for youth in the Cities. I'm also doing some research on the web to find other children's theaters in the country which might also be worth sending script selections to. Then... we'll see.

Last night we finished week 1 of the Collide-a-Scope festival, which included the first two performances of The Cubicle. Thursday's audience was a little thin, about 25 people, but a good show. Last night was even better though, about 50 people and a very responsive crowd. Jeremiah and Corey were particularly into the show which made for a very strong and engaging performance. Still two shows left this Friday and Sunday nights. If you've never seen it, now's your chance!

I mentioned recently that I was part of Collide-a-Scope, a new theater festival in Minneapolis. It officially kicked off yesterday with an evening that featured short samples of the different shows and artists in the festival (not unlike the Fringe Festival's "Fringe-For-All"s). I was there in my role as tech guy for The Cubicle, but I also ended up filling in for an actor in The Supercillious Ways of Walter Wading who wasn't able to be there. It's a very cute show (aimed primarily at kids) and it was fun to hop on stage, if only briefly. My last show was Teddy and Alice with Rosetown Players in July, and it being now September I'm starting to get the itch once again to go out and audition for something. The downside of that always is that when I have to rehearse, there's less time to write!

At least I think it is. I'm sure that a month from now I will get ideas on what else can be done, but for the moment it's officially wrapped up and on my website here. Now I'm starting the process of sending out some inquiries and script samples in the hopes of finding a first production. I've decided to hold off sending it to publishers for the moment in the hopes of either finding a theater that's interested in it, or perhaps sending it out to some of the playwrighting contests in the spring. I did put together a letter along with a website synopsis a little while back, so let the marketing begin!

Over the next couple of weeks I will be a part of Collide-a-Scope, a new theater festival taking place in Minneapolis. I will be running tech for one of the shows at the festival, The Cubicle. This show started back at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2005 and was one of the hits of the Fringe, and two guys that created and perform in it, Jeremiah Gamble and Corey Mills, have continued to perform it periodically since. I ran tech for the original production as well as most of the subsequent productions. It's a fantastic show, very clever, funny, and at times even poignant. It chronicles a week in the life of Bob and Jim, two cubicle-dwelling workers at the Gigasoft Software Company. One of the most brilliant aspects of the show is the set: two cubicles on wheels that become not only the characters' workspaces, but their cars, their morning showers, and anything else needed. It's a fantastic piece, one which I am proud to be a part of (albeit behind the cubicle wall, so the speak). Jeremiah and Corey are wonderful performers, and good guys and great friends to boot. I certainly recommend the show, as well as the rest of the festival (taking place the second half of September).

As I sit here working on the final stages of The Princess and the Moon it occurs to me that my description of this process begs a natual question: "What is a 30-something year old writer doing writing a fairytale? Isn't that kid's stuff?" And certainly our society seems to have had as an unspoken assumption that fairytales are for kids, not adults. I disagree.


There is something universal, after all, about this genre. Stories such as Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, etc, these are all part of our collective culture. Often such stories are very simple in form, but perhaps it's because they get at bigger ideas, like heroism, selfishness, self-sacrifice, and the reality of evil. They are archetypes, and just because we grow older doesn't mean we grow out of these stories and what they can teach us.

C.S. Lewis once pointed out that fairytales didn't really start out as "just for kids" - they ended up in the nursery, as he put it, "not because they had become popular with children, but because they had ceased to become popular with adults." In other words, just as people once put the furniture they no longer wanted in their living room into the nursery with the kids, so went the out-of-fashion stories.


These days I think we are seeing a resurgence of popularity in such tales with adults - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the other Chronicles of Narnia are a perfect example. At their core they fit the model of the fairyale (and Lewis himself even categorized them as such). In fact, I would argue that much of what we categorize as "fantasy" these days are in fact fairytales at their root, and not just Narnia. Harry Potter, for example, when you get down to it is a Quest story, albeit on a more epic level than the Brothers Grimm, in a world filled with magic and if not fairy godmothers, then at least a wizard godfather. Many of those who wrote lasting fantasy works were themselves fed on the world of "faerie," Nordic sagas, and other tales which contained many elements of the fantastical - it's not such a large leap from that to the creation of new "fantasy" worlds, be it Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings. In fact, both of these were written with the idea that they are "really" our own world, that there is a magical level beyond what we see day to day. How different is that really from the fairytales we all grew up with? When a perfectly ordinary day could suddenly have a genie or an evil witch thrust upon it? That such things could really happen?

There's a lot more that could be said about this, and the idea that the world is more than just what we see. I for one am glad to see these sorts of stories on the upswing of popularity. I grew up on Narnia, The Dark is Rising, the Greek myths, etc, and that's probably why the fantasy/fairytale genre holds such appeal for me - it's just what I know.