Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

This was my morning uplift.
Mr. Paul Potts…

American Theatre Wing:

• Downstage Center
• Working in the Theatre (Video)

Theatrically Speaking

Science Talk

Bird Note

A Way with Words

Parked this morning at Day’s Espresso and Coffee House, where I am only occasionally setup with my pad, pen or laptop. I try to rotate my welcome at all the neighborhood coffee shops during the week. I was at Day’s yesterday, and I came back today because I needed some familiarity in my routine. While I love living here in Louisville, I am a little overwhelmed by the newness of everything. Each day brings a “first time” for the majority of experiences.

“Each day a new beginning” aside, I long for September in San Francisco, the quotation cards taped to the window of the yellow Victorian on Church Street, my elderly friend RS, with his beret on his head, stopping for a chat as I begin my walk to 24th Street, and he returns from his, the cat on Sanchez who always blinks at me as I pass by, the comprehensive magazine shop on 24th, and the coffee geeks who know my name. All the things, experiences, which are familiar, that have years of recurrence.

A couple of weeks ago, on the drive home from a weekend in Chicago, a new play began. The end of August, I had made a list of all the ideas nudging at me, wanting to be sculpted into plays, and this particular idea was almost an afterthought, near the bottom of the list. The play came in a rush, with one beat leading to another until I had what I call a rough scene sheet. This sheet contains notes of the images, and emotion that carry major scenes. The ending of this play came to me very clearly. When I can see and hear the final moment of a play, I know it’s time to write it. Usually plays mull for a period of months, some even for years, before the images become crystallized in my mind.

And so, I am writing the new play, amazed by its ferocity in spewing forth onto the page. There are elements which my Editor’s Mind balks at, trying to dictate other ideas or directions. I know my muse well enough by now, to go with where the story and the characters take me. They are usually right. My Editor’s Mind is usually wrong, wanting to go someplace familiar and safe. MBH wrote me recently, he was pondering two different paths for a play he was writing. He wrote, “both get me to the place I want, in different ways,” and he needed to decide which one. In my fashion, I couldn’t help but eWrite back, “pick the one that’s scariest path.”  That’s the best advice I give myself as well. When in doubt, choose to write about the thing that’s uncomfortable, that’s new, that’s scares the hell out of me because what will people think if I do that?

I always do that when I’m writing. Shove the Editor’s Mind aside, and choose the path that’s scary. You know scary, don’t you? It’s the thing in your stomach that churns when you are not in control.

Re-parked myself at a Cafe I’ve never been.

Enough of this avoidance now, I’m going back to writing the play.

Our Dog had major surgery this week. No one knew it would be major until it happened. A simple removal of a fatty tumor, we all thought. Said fatty tumor turned out to be 1.2 lbs! My friends are sick of me talking about this, so you my blog friends are now being subjected to the massive tumor story. The Dog is wearing the requisite cone. Her outside stitch is Frankensteinian-Monster in size. She has a tube extruding from the inside, to drip “stuff” outside her body, so that she doesn’t develop an internal pocket of “stuff.” We’ve sacrificed some t-shirts for The Dog to wear to help keep some of the “stuff” off the floor. For me, that’s no sacrifice as I have t-shirts yet do not wear them. For the Beloved, the t-shirt is a very serious fashion item, and I’m pretty sure she’s crying on the inside for the shirts she’s given up for our Dog. We’ve turned the kitchen/great room area into Dog Recovery Central, with tables and chairs turned upside and sideways to prevent The Dog from jumpiing UP on things and splitting her monsterous stitch open.

Okay, that said, during my break from Dog Watch, I’ve spent a good deal of today organizing my notebooks.I do a considerable amount of playwriting by hand. That’s especially true during the writing of the first draft of a play. I keep my notebooks because the packrat part of me can’t let them go. Some of them contain all those darlings that never made it to a final draft. Anyone ever use their darlings in a different play? I have yet to do so. And still, I have the notebooks.

I found I could easily group notebooks by play script, and was surprised to find how many notebooks a
single play could span. My very first full-length play spanned eight notebooks. My fourth play spanned only three notebooks, which seems to be my average number of notebooks for a play. Film scripts (three in total) spanned four notebooks. These numbers include only the 8 1/2″ x 11  11/2″ size notebooks. I have a ridiculous amount of pocket size notebooks containing random notes. Tomorrow is another day for those.

I have a twelve-year cluster of notebooks made by Rediform, under the name National Brand Porta Desk. I like them because they have a thick cardboard back flap, making them easy to write on if I don’t have acess to a table or a desk. They also have the wire binding at the top, like a steno pad does. I find side binding gets in my way and interrupts my thinking because I am constantly annoyed by the wire. The top binding keeps my simple brain clear of binding thoughts. My inventorying uncovered that for the last two years, I have used the cheap yellow notepads. I don’t know why, other than they must have been on deep, deep discount, because I do not like lined, yellow paper. I am not a yellow pad writer. Sue me. I don’t like the flimsy, floppsie backboard. I like white paper, with a firm backboard. Yeah. And none of this “legal” pad business either. Those days ended when I was twenty, and thought legal pads were sophisticated or something.

Another favorite notebook is by Apica, imported from Japan.
I found them at a bookstore in Calistoga. The bookstore no longer exists, and I rarely see these notebooks anywhere. The paper holds ink well, the notebook is thick, the size is 10″ x 7″. There’s no wire binding on the side. The cover is thick cardstock. So, uh, yeah, the backboard has no stiffness to it. I just really like how this notebook feels to the touch.

The Beloved had never seen the notebook collection before we moved to Kentucky. I used to store the notebooks behind a closed door. In the old house I could do that. Can’t in the new house. There’s a lack of doors. My notebooks are out in the open, displayed on bookshelves next to my desk. The Beloved registered some shock at the sight of all my notebooks. I didn’t have the heart to show her all the tiny notebooks stored in drawers.

Now that’s more than you need to know.

We don’t need microphones. We’re in the theater.

Patti LuPone when the mics failed at a benefit for New Dramatists …so Legend has it (NY Post, 4/16/06)

I feel compelled to share a story about an experience at the San Francisco Opera, lo so many years ago. I’m aware that because I tell you I’ve been to the Opera, and that I rather love opera, you will form opinions about me. I believe these opinions will say more about you than they do me.

.My story meanders in my Irish-American fashion.

Back in the 80′s, a friend and I decided to start attending the Opera. Both of us came to the music as adults. Well, my Opera friend grew up listening to her mother’s Enzio Pinza records. Maybe that counts as opera exposure. I’m not sure. I grew up in a parental house divided by two demi-gods, Frank Sinatra and Hank Williams. I first heard opera music in public school. I learned to love a lot of Mozart, Strauss, and Wagner. Today, I love Verdi, Puccini, Glass, and Tchaikovsky.

As an adult, I came to opera as a means to reducing the stress of being newly sober. My Opera Friend suggested we start attending the opera together, and it was a year before we saved enough for a season subscription. Previously, I had volunteered as an usher, and never having purchased a seat before, much less even had a seat to sit in, a subscription was a radical idea. I knew, though, after standing through Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I wanted to finally sit down.

We not only became subscribers, we chose box seat tickets. I don’t remember how we latched onto the idea of box seats. I do remember being stopped by security each performance and my ticket being scrutinized. Clearly, I did not belong, wearing jeans and tennis shoes, in seats designated for the wealthy. Eating M&Ms in our box gave me an odd feeling of pleasure. Watching the audience was often as meaningful as watching the stage. I marveled at the number of box patrons who slept through performances. I knew they spent more than I did for their seats. Tickets not only cost a premium, a donation was required. My own donation was small; as large as I could afford. Later on, the Opera upped the "suggested" donation beyond anything I could muster without sacrificing rent, food, and a better pair of jeans. My box seat days ended. I like to think they figured out how to bar me, a scruffy, working-class girl from CoCo County, and keep the patron classes intact.

We had great seats, up close, slightly above the stage, and able to see the singers’ sweat. And there were no microphones for singers. We heard some great music, although tenors were usually a disappointment. Tenors never carried as well, as strongly, as sopranos. Until Pavarotti showed up. During his season of no-shows, he managed a performance of La Bohème. When Pavarotti sang, I understood the difference between an average tenor and a GREAT tenor. Recorded music cannot relay this kind of understanding. Pavarotti, along with Mirella Freni, filled the air in such a satisfying way, I have refused to see another performance of La Bohème. Seeing Rent a couple of times doesn’t count, ya know.

Opera combines elements I love, yet cannot abide in other art forms. There is bad acting, loads of melodrama1, and sweet music relaying horrible sentiments. A friend of mine, Baritone BB, says it is impossible to sing correctly, and act at the same time. Opera voices spoiled me, and made for a difficult transition to the microphoned world of musical theatre. Yeah, not to dismiss the colorful musicals my drunken mother took the childhood-me to, musical theatre found a place in my life long after opera. My love for singers who can fill a theatre without a mic cannot be diminished. In concerts or at cabaret when Betty Buckley or Patti LuPone steps away from the mic, and trust me, they will step away from the mic, spiritual awakenings result. Without a mic, k.d. lang’s beautiful voice is lost. (Tragically, she was once persuaded to step away from the mic at an otherwise lovely evening at Davies Hall.) The last notes of La Bohème’s O Soave Fanciulla are sung off stage. You have to witness the song performed live, in its context, to feel the achievement the voice accomplishes.

Well, I have traveled too far a-gone in my thoughts.

One SF Opera season, Der Fleiglende Hollander came to town. Sitting in our box seat, we experienced the worst, maybe the only worst, production we endured at the Opera House. The singing was not enough to carry the evening. The performance, which included animated set pieces, was vaudevillian and laughable. And we did laugh. We were the only people laughing. None of the snoozers complained. I don’t know why we were not thrown out.

A few days later, I compared notes with my Best Friend. He was at the same Dutchman performance. He loved it. I hated it. How could he be so wrong? Or I, in his eyes?

The next season, my Best Friend, gave me his seat to a performance of Bellini’s I Capuleti ed i Montecchi. He was ill, sadly the beginning of his passing from AIDs. I’ve since been very grateful to have sat in "his" seat, which he was assigned for many seasons at the Opera House. I didn’t have tickets to the Bellini opera, as I could not afford a full season of shows. Back then, the Opera had a series called "triplets." At this writing, the Opera calls the three ticket subscription a "mini." A-gone, again, I know.

My Best Friend’s seat, I knew was in the balcony. I did not, however, understand his seat was in the balcony. Not only in the balcony, he sat in the section known as the balcony rear. I did not bring binoculars, and the singers were tiny specks in the center of the stage. Somewhere, down there, I’m sure was the stage. The music…the music…was crystalline. It was sublime. The sound, magnanimous. Better than from my box seat. I think, though not, even now, am I sure.

Of course, then and there, I understood my Best Friend had seen a very different Der Fleiglende Hollander than I. He couldn’t have seen the show at all from his seat. He couldn’t know that shutters and doors opened and closed in inappropriate fashion, that the singers lumbered about badly on stage, fell over each other, and that mechanical set pieces failed to work as presumably planned.

Ohhhhhhhhh.

He only heard the music, savored the music, loved the music, that wafted up to the rear balcony, while he watched the little dots on stage. No wonder he enjoyed the Dutchman.

Although I have not tried with Der Fleig-YouKnowDutchman…I suppose, if you can only hear the music, there is much to enjoy.

Knock me over with a feather, will ya?

Of course, where we sit in the house informs our perspective, our experience. Of course it does. We all know that, right?

(Did I ever tell you, by the way, about the time in the Kennedy Center, and the guy sitting in front of us smelled bad-like-sleeping-in-the-park-BAD-and-the-people-sitting-on-either-side-had-to-leave-and-I-almost-barfed-it-was-so-bad, and somehow we got through it because we were swept away by Sondheim’s music in the form of Company?)

And some of us, a lot of us, cannot afford a seat on the inside of the House.

There are words I do not like. "Try" is one. The word implies something a person would like to do but cannot or will not ultimately do. "But" is another, implying someone is not being heard or that they are special in a way you do not understand therefore they are right and cannot ultimately be helped or understood or something like that. I, uh, try not to use words that do not mean what I say.

Writing the Play is about my writing process. There is much that is meaningful to me I do not write about here. If I did write about my obsessions, my concerns over the world, the things that are important to me, I would not write plays. I pour the important stuff into my plays. Plays are my compulsion, my disease, my joy, my confusion, my politics, my hope, my understanding and lack thereof. If I wrote about all that matters to me, I would not write anything meaningful at all.

And so, I have meandered and gone a-far.

1from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
1802, melodrame, "a stage-play in which songs were interspersed and music accompanied the action," from Fr. mélodrame, from Gk. melos "song" (see melody) + Fr. drame "drama" (see drama). Meaning "a romantic and sensational dramatic piece with a happy ending" is from 1883, since this was often the form of the original melodramas.

Although (from myself), opera rarely encounters a happy ending.

Since first hearing about Avenue Q, I derided it as "cute and cynical" theatre. Couldn’t be talked into seeing it, no-way, no-how, and cursed the puppets who made endless appearances outside the musical show. When the show flew off to Las Vegas for a sit-down, leaving regional theatres in the lurch, I hoped for its failure and quick demise.

Vegas, being Vegas, required adjustments to the show, and a half hour was cut from its original runtime. For those of you who hope to combine your theatre with a little gambling,* you should know that you’ll see Phantom of the Opera Lite, and Spamalot minus a couple of original songs. Shows are cut down to 90 minutes in length, the attention span of gamblers.

On the other hand, even Shakespeare knew to accommodate a variety of attention spans.

Avenue Q, after not doing so well in Vegas, has finally begun it’s national tour. The Devil, I’ve discovered, sometimes comes with free tickets in his hands. Well, not the Devil. A good friend in the loop. As I was in San Francisco last week, tickets were offered for opening night at the Orpheum. I took a breath, and thought, "My Dear Friend, letting me sleep in her dining room, might really like to see the show." Tickets taken, show seen, and I have to now apologize to all my friends I chided as superficial, and bent on being angry just because they wanna hang on to angry.

I’m sorry, my dears. Forgive me.

What a great show.

__________________________

*A little theatre with your gambling, is more accurate. I can say it. I am the daughter of poor, white-trash, gamblers.

• Philip Henslowe
• Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
• Hugh Fennyman
• So what do we do?
• Philip Henslowe
• Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
• Hugh Fennyman
• How?
• Philip Henslowe
• I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
• Tom Stoppard, the film Shakespeare in Love

Over the weekend, we saw Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy at The Bunbury Theatre. While the actors were delightfully skilled, and the set design was lovely, the pacing of the play did not live up to the farce it is required to be.

The Bunbury crew have setup a permanent new home in an old YMCA building. The stage, I’m told, used to be a basketball court. I’d never been in a brand, spanking new theatre. There was a lot of excitement in the audience over the theatre. It was beautiful, comfortable, and, well, smelled really nice. 150 seats. Bunbury folks did an outstanding job on the gym’s transformation.

The next play up is Juergen K. Tossman’s AUTOCARE. Mr. Tossmann is also Bunbury’s Artistic Director. (Maybe I should start a theatre?) I always look forward to seeing new work, so of course, I’m signing up for this one.

Bunbury has a cool alternative to subscriptions. You can purchase a "Season Passport" which allows you to see all six shows as a single person, or multiple tickets for some combination of shows. Uh…like if you and yer girlfriend wanna take two people to one show, that configuration uses up four tickets. And then you have two tickets left over for one more show if yer girlfriend goes with you. Or you can take yourself by yourself to two shows. Something like that. I like it.

You’re To Kill a Mockingbird!
by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you’ve also taken a significant amount of flack. But you’ve had the admirable guts to persevere. There’s a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you, but you’re pretty sure it’s worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

The link I took to the book quiz came from Matthew Freeman.

If I were a play, I think I’d be Tales of the Lost Formicans.

Last month, we saw Take Me Out put up by Pandora Productions, at the Thrust Theatre/University of Louisville, Pandora’s last stop before they open in their new home at the Bunbury Theatre.

My expectations were low, being new to town, and having seen the original Broadway production a couple of times.  J. Daniel Herring was the best Mason I’ve seen yet. How could that be? Imagine my ignorant surprise. I’ll watching for him again. Tim Kitchen was a wonderful Kippy, and Joseph Hatfield quite a believable Shane. Brett Gettefield’s performance as Darren was softer, not as arrogant as I expect Darren to be, and I was ambivalent about his performance. The house on a thursday night was full. Maybe the naked men had something to do with that. I like to think it was also Richard Greenberg’s fine writing. Pandora certainly did justice to it.

I have been largely disappointed by gay theatre companies in the West. The performances are often substandard, and the plays catering to men. (An exception to this is Diversionary Theatre in San Diego where the production values are outstanding, and they are trying to broaden their audience.) Pandora clearly sets a high standard for its company, and it is a welcome relief to be so pleased with a gay theatre.

Pandora’s upcoming season includes Jane Chambers’ Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. I’ve read every Chambers play I could get my hands on, and never seen a production of her plays. I’m looking forward to this particular production. (I did see an outstanding reading of this same play, last year in Chicago, by the wonderful About Face theatre company.)

Pandora is my new favorite theatre company. I can’t wait to see what they do in their new home.

I added two other software programs to the last post:

DocumentWallet (’cause I forgot the first time around)

and

Journler (thank you to the reader who turned me on to it)

For those of you who care about such things.

Please, I’m not advocating any products, and I didn’t write a software review. I wrote a list of software, with a Mac bias, for note storage and retrieval. I know there are other writers out there who are looking for tools, just as I am. And I like to talk about tools.

Friends of theatre, writers, and assorted not-nots are always welcome to email.

However, I ain’t gonna hawk anyone’s products. I did see The Devil Wears Prada, after all.

One of my ongoing projects is an historical play I plan to write. The subject requires a lot of research. I do so love to induldge myself with research. The story involves some complicated and little known material from San Francisco, circa 1830-1860. I’ve been reading and collecting material for several years.Quite a bit of material I’ve transfered to PDF files. Some of the material, however, remains in books. Some of the materials are JPEGs, a few RTF and Word documents, and even an Excel spreadsheet or two.

I have struggled with a convenient way to catalog my research. More accurately,  even with OS X’s Spotlight feature, I have not been able to easily call up a given computer document on command. Even with organizing them into digital folders. The books and paper are easy. They’re sitting on a bookshelf or in a file folder. The computer documents are numerous, and, in and of themselves, useful. However, I end up scouring through several before I find the one I’m looking for, wasting a lot of time.

I’ve tried on many software solutions. One that has worked, for a handful of years, has been StickyBrain, now known as SOHO Notes (Commercial, $39.95). I’ve used this program as a dumping ground for free form notes, and it’s easy to find those notes when I need them. I wish the “Get Info” button did not produce a pop-up screen. I’d like this info to be displayed along the side of the browser. Particularly when I’m looking at images or PDFs. Such is my major complaint about SOHO Notes. And that I prefer the old name, StickyBrain. Nothing has come close to replacing it for me, until…

I came across Papers. I love the interface, which allows me to see entire lists of PDF, as well as other files, by title. Papers is for people, uh, scientists, working with scientific papers.It’s a Mac only product and costs $39. As I’m a scientist only in my imagination, Papers may not survive it’s 30 day trial on my laptop. And as for free form notes, SOHO is still my baby.

I’ve tried out a lot of progams, many of which are perfectly good note organizers.  Some even use “mind maps.” As visual as I am in my thinking, the mind maps just overwhelm me. Many programs remind me too much of SOHO Notes to replace it. Below, you’ll find the short list of what I’ve tried. All of the software works on OS X. Note that I don’t care about WinDoze. All of them have demo or trial versions available. The list is in no particular order.  Check ‘em out and decide for yourself, because my idiosyncrasies, surely, are not yours. I’ll be sticking (*ahem*) with SOHO Notes for now.

• DevonThink Pro – allows PDFs, image files, Word and RTF files. Everything I needed. Just didn’t like the “look” of it. Commercial,$79.95. $39.95 for Devonthink Personal..
• NoteList – Basic notetaking app. Text files, images, free form. Shareware, $20.
• NoteMind - PDFs, Images, other files. Could only add one file at
  a time, as far as I could tell, which I found annoyiing. All notes defaulted to “untitled” and required hand editing. Mind maps I could actually understand. Shareware, $20.
• KIT (Keep It Together) – Nice product, handles all types of files. Reminded me a lot of SOHO Notes, which if I didn’t already have, I might have stuck with KIT. I used the company’s RSS Feeder software for a long time, which I liked, too. Shareware, $24.95.
• CopyWrite- Nice interface. Too basic for my needs; text files only. Considers itself a tool for writers.Exports to RTF. Shareware, $24.99.
• Mori – Basic. Easy to use. A lot of people I know swear by this program. Shareware, $39.95.
• Yep – I really wanted Yep to save me. Sadly, tracks PDF only. Indexes all the PDFs it can find. Be prepared to have it take over, while it indexes, the very first time you run the app. Shareware, $34.
• Yojimbo - Imports text files, and PDFs. Does not import image files, although allows drag and drop of images into notes. Solid product, by the company that brought us one of my favorite apps, Too much like SOHO Notes. BBEdit. (I use that for html editing.) Commercial, $39.
• MyNotes - Basic notetaking. Text files. Allows drag and drop image files, although the user is cautioned these will impede performance. Not very robust. Shareware, $19.95.
• NovaMind- Mind mapping software. Commercial, lots of different options, starting at $49 for the Express version. There’s a NovaMind Screenwriter for $119.
• DocumentWallet – This is a nifty note organizer I nearly forgot about. Shareware, $29.95. Jeez, for ten bucks more, you can buy SOHO Notes.
• Journier – Excellent! Donation-ware for personal use.

Shareware has gone up a lot in price! I don’t know why some of these aren’t classified as commercial packages, (according to listings on VersionTracker), except perhaps they are one person shops?

For more a more notebook type interface, I still use Aquaminds Notetaker (Commercial, $69.95). While Notetaker will hold all kinds of files (images, webpages, pdfs, on and on), I don’t use all that power. I use it for each project to keep a random notes about the play, detailed information on each play act as I write along, character biographies, and the play outlines. For these specific kinds of notes, the notebook interface delights me. For intense research on a play topic, I always go back to SOHO Notes. Go figure.

A good alternative to Notetaker are Circus Ponies’ NoteBook (Commercial,$49.95).

I gotta say, neither SOHO Notes or Notetaker cost me a lot when I initially signed on for them.

I’ve played a little with reference/bibliographic software. such as BibDesk (freeware), BookEnds ($99), and EndNote ($299), Sente ($89.95).  I don’t need such specialized software. I just can’t help looking. Although RefSaver (Shareware $20) would suit my tiny need for a reference formatting program. Reference Miner (freeware), which searches the Library of Congress, PubMed, and Amazon, has made its way to my dock.

Once you’re done with all the demos and trials you can stand, a great way to get rid of these applications, once and for all, is AppZapper. It’s $12.95 with free updates for life. Can’t beat that. I found this at MacWorld a couple of years ago, and Appzapper‘s power and ease of use keep my laptop free of the ghosts many applications leave behind.