Open Wardrobes

I have been somewhat remiss the last week in keeping up with my blog. I did get a chance to see a couple of shows (Much Ado About Nothing which Ali, one of my fellow Greenies is in, and Walking Shadow's Caligula), plus I have been musing over options for the Fringe. And thankfully there is a glimmer of hope on that front. My best option at this point is, I think, the bring-your-own-venue option. You're still part of the Fringe but are responsible for your own venue, and your show must be site-specific. The upside is that you can do more performances and that you decide when those performances are. As my show will be in the form of a lecture, it occurred to me that an actual classroom might be the best setting for it. I asked the Fringe about it and they sound open to the idea, plus I have one lead already on a possible classroom to use, so this just may happen this year after all. Now if I can just work out the wrinkles in the script...

So. Yeah. The Fringe lottery. Well, there were winners and losers. Some celebrated their inclusion, others despaired at being cast under the wheels of the Bingo Cage of Fate. That was me. I sat, breathless, as they called each number for the lottery. Each one not me. They then started to pull the order for the wait list and I was still hopeful that I would be close to the top, hopeful that I would only have to wait a little longer until someone dropped off and I was awarded their place instead...


That was not to be. I stuck around long enough to see myself end up #53 on the waiting list. Not an impossible distance away from making it in, but by no means a sure thing. So now I am left to mull over my options: Hope for a spot on the wait list, try for a bring-your-own-venue spot, or forgo the Fringe and look for a different venue entirely. Soon, perhaps, I will be ready to tackle that question, to roll up my sleeves and work on Plan B, but for now I am allowing myself at least a day or two to wallow in disappointment, downing my sorrows in a cup of Scottish Breakfast (that's a tea).


It was for days such as this that "meh" was officially added to the dictionary.

So this is it. The big day, the moment of fate. Tonight they will be drawing numbers for this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival. I haven't been to the lottery event for a few years, since the last time I had an application in, and I am looking forward to it. I remember it being a fun event with everyone energized to see who would make it in and who wouldn't. I know a few others with applications and so will be watching for their numbers as well, but mostly I will be crossing my fingers for lucky number #10. I am determined to perform my show somewhere even if I don't make it in, but I love the whole atmosphere of the Fringe and really, really would like to bring it there. Not to mention it gives me a fixed deadline to shoot for. I'm told that the Fringe will be streaming the event live, so even if you can't make it you can still watch the ping pong action. (At least last time I went all the numbers were written on ping pong balls; it's more entertaining that way.) And then follows the joy of acceptance or the hearbreak of rejection, depending on how the ping pong balls fall for you. I hope, tomorrow morning, to find myself in the former category. We shall soon see.

So as the one-man show continues to simmer, I've started another project for when I need a break from that show. This new play is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time, so it is exciting to finally be starting in on it. There is a slight complication, however, which makes doing it a leap of faith. The play is an adaptation, but unlike the ones I've done before it is an adaptation of a work still under copyright. Which means I need permission. So last fall I dutifully contacted the copyright holders and, to my surprise, received a very speedy response. The complication is that while the response was not exactly a no, it was not exactly a yes either, at least not the kind of yes I was originally hoping for. But, as it was not a no, Kelly encouraged me to do the project anyway and see where it goes. So as I said, something of a leap of faith.


The Adaptation is of a book that many people will recognize and I've been wanting to adapt it for at least ten years now, almost as long as I've been writing plays. The other day, with a copy of the work in hand, I went to a coffee shop and finally sat down to work. As when I adapted The Wind in the Willows my goal with the first draft is to work through the book and start pulling out dialogue and to put things in an order that will work for the stage. I want to keep as much of the book's original dialogue as I can, though it's already clear that many lines will need to be trimmed down. What doesn't seem long in a book can feel like an eternity on stage. Not to mention it's impossible to include everything from a book in a stage play, even if it runs a full two hours. Books, of course, can also be very episodic and so one of the challenges I am already facing is how to include key moments without changing sets every five minutes. With Willows I remember it took some rearranging of the scenes in the book in order to streamline the action onstage.
So in my first sitting I maybe made it about a tenth of the way through the book and started putting together some rough scenes. I've now hit a flashback in the book and have to figure out the best way to portray that onstage, again without creating too many different scenes. Adaptations are an interesting balancing act: you have to make the piece something that works in its new medium, but while retaining as much of the original author's intent as possible. (And we've all seen plenty of movies, I'm sure, where this balance wasn't reached.) But that's the challenge and part of the fun. And I'm crossing my fingers that when it's down I'll be able to balance what I want to do with the play with what I am given permission to do.


But going back to the one-man show for a moment: the Fringe lottery is tomorrow night!

My mystery play Ace of Diamonds is now officially available through Big Dog Plays. I wrote this play many years ago and it has had a number of productions through my website (including a couple last year), and so I am excited to have at last found a publisher for it and see how it does through them. Not long ago I received a printed proof to look over and I was very pleased with how the script looked, including the simple yet elegant cover design.


So, we shall now see how the play fares. The play has had an interesting history thus far (its very first performance was by inmates in a prison, for example). And based on the amount of interest it's had just through my own website, I anticipate it will do even better now that it is with a publisher.

Since finishing draft 2 of the one-man show I've taken a short break from working on the writing of that and have instead focused on some other aspects. The set requirements are a little tricky (not so much because they're complex but because they have to be able to fit in my small car) so I decided to take some time and work on those. The major set piece is a blackboard which doubles as an "offstage" area that I can duck behind and change costumes. I've spent the last week or so working on that, having turned my basement into a mini-scene shop. Because it has to fit into a car it comes apart into a couple of pieces and then folds up, and I was very relieved when I was able to successfully fit it into my car. It's nice when the picture you have in your head works, more or less, when you turn it into reality. The chalkboard still needs a few finishing touches, but that's one tech item down and several to go...


The trunk is going to be a little more tricky. I have to fit inside it, and it has to fit inside my car... which now will have a folded-up chalkboard inside it already. I was having difficulty finding trunks that would fit the bill even not taking into account the chalkboard, so I've come to the conclusion that the trunk too will need to be built, and in such a way that it can be disassembled for simpler transport. Hmm.... Perhaps I should write the next draft of the play first; the set building makes for a nice change of pace in-between drafts.


And the other day the official list for the MN Fringe Festival lottery came out: 317 shows vying for about 150 slots. Keep your fingers crossed for lucky number 10.


11 days until the Fringe lottery. 175 days until Fringe.