Quote of the Day

Paul Mullin edition:

We are show people. We can claim to be anything we want to be. The more outrageous and untenable, the better, so long as we ultimately back it up through sheer creative brilliance. We are not obliged to subscribe to any preordained corporatized benchmark. The audience is our only arbiter. So long as we give them what they want, or better-- what they did not even realize they wanted until we made them want it in the first place-- we are doing our jobs superbly. We should stake our claim, without irony or arrogance, to becoming a world class theatre community, and when, and only when, we convince our audiences, then world class is what we will be. Because we say so.

Rumble, young man, rumble.

Reflections

More reflections on the Black Playwrights Convening here and here.

Starting Gate

Last year, on my facebook profile, I wrote:

So, yeah, that’s four plays. It’s April now, which means I’ve got about eight months. A new play every two months. Plus I got a couple of one-acts brewing and one big rewrite of something else planned. It’s a bit crazy. But let’s also note that William Shakespeare wrote Titus, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labours Lost and The Taming of the Shrew in about a year. Am I Shakespeare? Hell, no. But you gotta aspire to something.

At least I have an answer when someone asks me, “What are you up to?”

Pretty ambition, no? And when I wrote that, this whole blog was still anonymous, so I didn't even include it. And 2009 turned out to be a bit of a banner year in these parts. A lot of writing planned there, a lot of work. So, how did I do?

Well...not great. But not bad. I got about 50% there. I wrote two new full-length plays (one of which is being read in Chicago this weekend, plug, plug), a couple of short plays and did one major re-write on a full-length. Not to mention, between this blog and my other one, about 200 posts or so (leaving out a guest stint or two at Parabasis). But I didn't finish all of the ones I wanted to. Because, well, it was hard.

Anarchists was the hardest one. I had high hopes (and still do) and a real connection to the material, but the damn thing just didn't materialize for me. My "open source playwriting" plan had some flaws, I admit. Mainly, it's hard to get good folks together in the summer. Maybe I'll take another whack at it this spring.

So...a .500 batting average. Not shabby...actually, for a baseball player, it would be amazing. But this isn't baseball, is it? That was my 2009. What's 2010 got in store? Another whack at it, that's what.

We're nearly through January. I've got about 11 months left in the year. That's a lot of time. And I have a lot of ideas still rattling around in my brain. And I like a good challenge. So back at it. But, as always, with a twist: you get to decide which plays I work on.

Over the next week or so, I'm going to write the first scene or 5-10 pages of some plays I have kicking around in my skull, and I'll post them here, here and even here. You read 'em and let me know what you like, what you want to hear more of, what excites you. And then I write 'em. Then you come and see 'em. Pretty simple, no? Could be fun...could be a total trainwreck. Hopefully, it will be interesting either way.

Time to get climbing up that hill...

Black Playwright Convening Responses

The first two are up. Adam Thurman, blogger for the Mission Paradox blog, is here. Mine is here. There's also a couple of great pictures of the participants here. I posted the pics to my Facebook and got it tagged, in case you're wondering who's who here.

The Next Thing

So. Yesterday, I made my big announcement. And some folks noticed and said some nice things (and made awesome comic book references) about me and my blog.

For a while now, I've led a kind of double blogging life, writing more personal stuff here and saving the theatre stuff for over there. But now the two worlds are, as they say, colliding. And I'm not sure what that means for this blog here. I know most of you read it as part of my facebook page, but the geniuses that make facebook only allow me to import one blog at a time. And I'm not saavy enough to figure out how to cross-post and keep my links (I do love my links).

So...I may be wrapping this one up and shifting over to 99 Seats full time. Or I may not. We shall see. In the meantime, feel free to swing over to my other joint from time to time and say hi.

Pleased To Meet Me

I wrote this. Just so's you know.