Open Wardrobes

Now that I not in the "waiting to hear" period, I can turn my mind to other things (at least for a short time, before rehearsals begin in earnest on Monday). I brought The Last Anniversary to Critical Mass last Sunday night where I received very helpful feedback. I've decided to scrap the attempt at making people think the situation is something that it actually is. All I succeeded at was confusing people; it added a layer of complexity that wasn't really necessary for the story I was telling. That's one of the things I've been learning about the last few years in my writing - KEEP IT SIMPLE!!! It's easy to add all sorts of details that don't end up advancing the story or the characters. With Illinois Jane and the Rainforest of Retribution this was a constant process. With every draft I was forced to trim down the backstory and eventually distill it to the bare minimum needed to introduce the action and just go. Otherwise the complex backstory I was trying to get out just bogged everything down. With the story too I kept having to remove elements that complicated the plot too much for a 1-hour play. In the end I was left with something much cleaner and, frankly, more interesting.


Anyway, with the 10-minute play all polished up I'm ready to send it off to Lakeshore for their 10-minute play festival, and I think there are another couple of upcoming deadlines for other contests.