Monday, November 16, 2015
Drama Lab is cancelled for Monday, November 16
Due to the poor weather conditions, Drama Lab is cancelled for tonight. I'll see about getting a space for next Monday. Otherwise, we'll wait until December. Check back here for updates.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
High spirits
Appropriately for this spooky time of year, we met last night in the shadows of TheatreWorks' set for Ibsen's Ghosts. There weren't any spooky plays. Instead we read a raft of comedies, five in all. And we did have some very "spirited" discussions (sorry). Total attendance was a healthy fifteen.
We opened with some pages from The Goblin and the Gremlin, the last of August Mergelman's short plays exploring different theatrical traditions. This one gave us a taste of English mummer's theatre, which August explained is full of "cheese and corn". In the play, August deftly mashes up two popular stories from England, the romance of Pyramus of Thisbe from A Midsummer Night's Dream and the legend of St. George and the Dragon. The audience thought it was a lot of fun and that the rhymes worked really well.
After that we read Deirdre Gilbert's short play Requiem for Octavia, the humorous tale of a funeral at which an older couple is shocked to learn that their son's deceased mate was an octopus. People loved the naivete of the mom and dad as well as the clever puns (e.g. the son met his girlfriend in a "dive"). There was a lot of discussion about when people first realized that Octavia was an octopus and whether that should have occurred earlier or later in the story.
We next read the beginning of Tim Phillips' fairy tale comedy Grimmland. Tim first brought it to Drama Lab three years ago, but Black Box Theatre director Nancy Holaday has been bugging him to finish it so he decided to bring it back. The play gets off to a comical start as the rank-smelling Bearksin kidnaps Jacqueline, a young girl who gripes non-stop about her captor's aroma. The audience agreed that the scene had nice, sharp dialogue but wondered whether some of the action might be too violent for children.
Next up was the beginning of Young Love, a romantic comedy by our newest writer Will Prenevost. In it, an older couple, patterned after Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, try to seduce a younger couple, based on Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard. Everyone loved the characters, but several people were confused by the seeming anachronisms in the dialogue. Will explained that while the play is meant to convey the tone of a 1940's screwball comedy, it's actually set in the early 1990's.
We wrapped everything up with some more pages from my old-time radio farce The Last Radio Show. Here the hapless cast loses three more actors as Roxie loses her glasses, Rita gets stage fright and Maggie is forced to fend off the hamsters who have invaded the control room. We also get a western drama, Tex King, the Humming Cowboy. The audience enjoyed the humor, although some people pointed out that there were anachronisms (middle school and duct tape) and another person felt that the character descriptions weren't accurate.
There was an extra treat this evening as Chuck Cabell went over the critique he received from Linda Seger on his assisted suicide comedy, Hemlock (Linda is a screenwriting guru had a successful career in Hollywood working on films like Harrison Ford's Witness). Linda's comments matched many of those made during our meetings, including the fact that much of the most interesting action happens offstage and we never see the thug who serves as the main antagonist. Linda also pointed out that it's hard to get the tone right in a black comedy like this and that Chuck might want to try making it funnier. Chuck admitted that many of her comments were dead on and is seriously considering the rest. For more info on Linda's services, visit her website at www.lindaseger.com.
Our next meeting is Monday, November 16. See you then!
Friday, September 25, 2015
The Last Radio Show auditions
I'll be directing the world premiere of my old-time radio farce, The Last Radio Show, in January. Auditions are scheduled for 1:00pm to 4:00pm on Sunday, October 18 at Library 21c in Colorado Springs. For complete information about the auditions, please visit the play's blog.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Movin' in
Last night we had out first meeting in the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre, just steps away from the elegant set TheatreWorks created for their production of Noel Coward's Private Lives. The ambience was fabulous--we're ina real theatre now!--although it appears that we still have to figure out the seating. For this meeting, we set up chairs in a row in front of the house seats, and while that made it easy for the audience to hear and see the actors, the actors themselves complained about not being able to hear each other. Some alternative seating arrangements were suggested and we will be exploring these in the next few weeks.
We had a decent turnout, with 12 people showing up, including our newest writer Rebekah Shardy, as well as TheatreWorks' new managing director Will Prenevost, who has extensive experience in acting and promises to bring some of his own writing to future meetings.
We opened with the beginning of Tim Phillips' historical drama Celtic Warrior Queen. In it, real life figure Bodica tries to inspire her subjects to revolt against the Romans, with the would-be queen finding her greatest opposition in the practical-minded gladiator Lugaid. The audience liked the Shakespearean scope of this action-packed story. Tim said that he doesn't have a theme that he's working towards but expects one to naturally come out of the work by the time he's finished.
After that we read some pages from August Mergelman's A Comedy of Pairs. August originally intended this commedia dell'arte twist on Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors to be one of his series of show plays exploring world theatrical traditions, but in writing it, he found he had so much material that he decided to make it a longer, standalone play. Here we see Dottore hypnotizing Pantalone's jewel-crazy fiancee Adriana to make her less materialistic. The humor was great and the characters well-drawn.
We followed that with Rebekah Shardy's An Honest Woman, which was inspired by the life and writings of Dorothy Parker. The play featured an array of quirky characters including Death, an outspoken evangelical housewife, actor/writer Robert Benchley and a version of God inspired by 1920's jazz singer Josephine Baker. Rebekah did a great job hitting the high points of Parker's life while maintaining Parker's wonderfully snarky tone throughout. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to seeing more of Rebekah's work.
Next up were some more pages from my old-time radio farce The Last Radio Show. Here we heard an episode of Clint Hazard, Wardrobe Detective in which the stalwart gumshoe tries to find out who's responsible for a woman's missing sock. After that, the hapless radio crew loses another actor as Maureen suffers a debilitating allergy attack. People liked the fast pace and the humor, although there were several gags that could be tweaked and at least one anachronism that I may or may not keep (Kenny G?).
We wrapped it all up with the first scene of a Time to Live by Howard Kirstel. Howard has participated as an actor for several months now, but this is the first time he has brought his own writing. Not only is he a talented writer, but he's a gifted pianist as well and he put those gifts to good use in this work, creating a musical that explores a family that is threatened to tear apart on the eve of the daughter's wedding. Everyone enjoyed the mixture of poetry and prose, with the poetry serving as the lyrics of the songs which Howard says he has already written.
Our next meeting is in just three weeks. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday, October 12.
We had a decent turnout, with 12 people showing up, including our newest writer Rebekah Shardy, as well as TheatreWorks' new managing director Will Prenevost, who has extensive experience in acting and promises to bring some of his own writing to future meetings.
We opened with the beginning of Tim Phillips' historical drama Celtic Warrior Queen. In it, real life figure Bodica tries to inspire her subjects to revolt against the Romans, with the would-be queen finding her greatest opposition in the practical-minded gladiator Lugaid. The audience liked the Shakespearean scope of this action-packed story. Tim said that he doesn't have a theme that he's working towards but expects one to naturally come out of the work by the time he's finished.
After that we read some pages from August Mergelman's A Comedy of Pairs. August originally intended this commedia dell'arte twist on Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors to be one of his series of show plays exploring world theatrical traditions, but in writing it, he found he had so much material that he decided to make it a longer, standalone play. Here we see Dottore hypnotizing Pantalone's jewel-crazy fiancee Adriana to make her less materialistic. The humor was great and the characters well-drawn.
We followed that with Rebekah Shardy's An Honest Woman, which was inspired by the life and writings of Dorothy Parker. The play featured an array of quirky characters including Death, an outspoken evangelical housewife, actor/writer Robert Benchley and a version of God inspired by 1920's jazz singer Josephine Baker. Rebekah did a great job hitting the high points of Parker's life while maintaining Parker's wonderfully snarky tone throughout. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to seeing more of Rebekah's work.
Next up were some more pages from my old-time radio farce The Last Radio Show. Here we heard an episode of Clint Hazard, Wardrobe Detective in which the stalwart gumshoe tries to find out who's responsible for a woman's missing sock. After that, the hapless radio crew loses another actor as Maureen suffers a debilitating allergy attack. People liked the fast pace and the humor, although there were several gags that could be tweaked and at least one anachronism that I may or may not keep (Kenny G?).
We wrapped it all up with the first scene of a Time to Live by Howard Kirstel. Howard has participated as an actor for several months now, but this is the first time he has brought his own writing. Not only is he a talented writer, but he's a gifted pianist as well and he put those gifts to good use in this work, creating a musical that explores a family that is threatened to tear apart on the eve of the daughter's wedding. Everyone enjoyed the mixture of poetry and prose, with the poetry serving as the lyrics of the songs which Howard says he has already written.
Our next meeting is in just three weeks. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday, October 12.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
New venue
Exciting news! Thanks to the generosity and support of TheatreWorks, especially their new managing director and Drama Lab member Will Prenevost, our group will now be meeting in...
Drumroll please...
The Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre!
The classroom served us well for a year and a half, but I'm excited about our move into the Big Room as it represents a whole new level of commitment from TheatreWorks and should make our readings a whole lot more professional and fun.
Of course, the Dusty Loo is a busy place, so from now on, we're going to need to be flexible with our meeting dates. The second Monday of the month will continue to be our default date. However, I may move the meeting forward or backward a week as needed to get the theatre.
Our meeting dates for the next six months are:
Monday, September 21
Monday, October 12
Monday, November 16
Monday, December 14
Monday, January 18
Monday, February 22
As always, the latest info for the next meeting is shown on the right side of this page.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Private Lives opens September 10 at TheatreWorks
Next up on TheatreWorks's season is the classic Noel Coward comedy, Private Lives.The play offers a biting and hilarious look at modern relationships as it follows a divorced couple forced to reexamine their failed marriage after booking adjoining rooms with their new spouses on the French Riviera. Showtimes are 7:30pm Tuesdays through Fridays, 2pm and 7:30 pm Saturdays (no matinee September 12) and 4pm Sundays through September 27.
This month's Prologue promises to be a special one. John Lahr is perhaps most famous for being the son of actor Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. But he's also a respected show business personality in his own right as the longtime theatre critic for The New Yorker and biographer of such theatrical luminaries as Noel Coward and Tennessee Williams. A discussion Lahr starts at 2:30pm on Sunday, September 20 in the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre. Afterwards, Lahr will sign his new book, Joy Ride: Show People and their Shows, a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most important playwrights of the last 70 years.
See you there!
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Feast to famine
Okay, that might be overstating things a bit, but last night's abbreviated meeting (it was barely two hours) certainly felt like a famine after the lengthy meetings of the last few months.
The problem wasn't the quality, of course. The scripts were as good as ever. The problem was the quantity. We only had five scripts to read, and one of those was only 2 pages long.
The shortage of material was due to the fact that several people were traveling on vacation--I guess it's still summer for some of us--while others were in rehearsal for Craft Production Resources' upcoming Our Shorts Are Showing 3. And that hurt our actor turnout as well. Only nine people showed up, and five of those were playwrights so a lot of the writers pulled double duty last night.
And while we're on the subject, next month is expected to be even worse as all of the Our Shorts Are Showing people will be in rehearsal on the second Monday, and that includes almost all of our members. For this reason, I'm postponing the meeting to the following Monday, September 21.
We opened the meeting with August Mergelman's The Magpies, another in his series of short plays exploring various theatrical traditions. This one takes a look at Greek comedy. In it, we see the famous muses of Greek mythology trick Orfeo into signing a peace treaty. August explained that the muses were not part of the original story, but that he added them in order to pad out the cast for female-heavy high school theater departments. They worked well, and everyone liked the humor and the fast-paced dialogue.
Next up was a rewrite of the end of Sue Bachman's family drama Torn. This scene features the alcoholic son prodding his AA partner to apologize to the woman whose son he'd killed in a car accident. Sue rewrote it in order to better portray the reality of restorative justice today, and while there was some discussion about what the mom knew or should know about her son's death, everyone agreed that the scene was more powerful now and the mother's reaction was more genuine.
We then read Chuck Cabell's short play Something Like A Star. It's about a high school AP class discussing Robert Frost's poem Choose Something Like A Star. The characters were well-drawn, with unique viewpoints and strong personalities, and the dialogue brought out some interesting points about the poem. But some wondered whether it was really a story, since the characters don't really change or grow.
After that we read the ending of Tim Phillips' Prohibition-era romance When I Met You. Here, Paul the piano player's ex-fiancee Iva returns to reveal a picture of their 2-year-old daughter, convincing Abigail that she should let Paul go to Hollywood without her. Everything wrapped up nicely, although some thought that Abigail should show more emotion when she learns about Paul's child.
We concluded the meeting with another section from my old-time radio farce, The Last Radio Show. These pages gave us our first show-within-a-show, Good Doctor Goode, a parody of those hospital dramas featuring a man with a pineapple growing out of his head. The audience seemed to like the humor and the rapid-fire pace, and there were several suggestions for ways to punch up the gags.
If this month's meeting showed us anything, it's that we can always use more members. I've already invited a new writer to the group, and I expect to get one or two others. Please invite any actors you know to join us as well. We're open to all!
Oh, and for an extra treat this month, here's a fantastic podcast from one of my favorite blogs, The Producer's Perspective. In it, Ken Davenport interviews Theresa Rebeck, author of the 2011 Broadway play Seminar and creator of the TV series Smash. Enjoy!
The problem wasn't the quality, of course. The scripts were as good as ever. The problem was the quantity. We only had five scripts to read, and one of those was only 2 pages long.
The shortage of material was due to the fact that several people were traveling on vacation--I guess it's still summer for some of us--while others were in rehearsal for Craft Production Resources' upcoming Our Shorts Are Showing 3. And that hurt our actor turnout as well. Only nine people showed up, and five of those were playwrights so a lot of the writers pulled double duty last night.
And while we're on the subject, next month is expected to be even worse as all of the Our Shorts Are Showing people will be in rehearsal on the second Monday, and that includes almost all of our members. For this reason, I'm postponing the meeting to the following Monday, September 21.
We opened the meeting with August Mergelman's The Magpies, another in his series of short plays exploring various theatrical traditions. This one takes a look at Greek comedy. In it, we see the famous muses of Greek mythology trick Orfeo into signing a peace treaty. August explained that the muses were not part of the original story, but that he added them in order to pad out the cast for female-heavy high school theater departments. They worked well, and everyone liked the humor and the fast-paced dialogue.
Next up was a rewrite of the end of Sue Bachman's family drama Torn. This scene features the alcoholic son prodding his AA partner to apologize to the woman whose son he'd killed in a car accident. Sue rewrote it in order to better portray the reality of restorative justice today, and while there was some discussion about what the mom knew or should know about her son's death, everyone agreed that the scene was more powerful now and the mother's reaction was more genuine.
We then read Chuck Cabell's short play Something Like A Star. It's about a high school AP class discussing Robert Frost's poem Choose Something Like A Star. The characters were well-drawn, with unique viewpoints and strong personalities, and the dialogue brought out some interesting points about the poem. But some wondered whether it was really a story, since the characters don't really change or grow.
After that we read the ending of Tim Phillips' Prohibition-era romance When I Met You. Here, Paul the piano player's ex-fiancee Iva returns to reveal a picture of their 2-year-old daughter, convincing Abigail that she should let Paul go to Hollywood without her. Everything wrapped up nicely, although some thought that Abigail should show more emotion when she learns about Paul's child.
We concluded the meeting with another section from my old-time radio farce, The Last Radio Show. These pages gave us our first show-within-a-show, Good Doctor Goode, a parody of those hospital dramas featuring a man with a pineapple growing out of his head. The audience seemed to like the humor and the rapid-fire pace, and there were several suggestions for ways to punch up the gags.
If this month's meeting showed us anything, it's that we can always use more members. I've already invited a new writer to the group, and I expect to get one or two others. Please invite any actors you know to join us as well. We're open to all!
Oh, and for an extra treat this month, here's a fantastic podcast from one of my favorite blogs, The Producer's Perspective. In it, Ken Davenport interviews Theresa Rebeck, author of the 2011 Broadway play Seminar and creator of the TV series Smash. Enjoy!
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