Out of the cold

Last night was our first meeting at Venue 515 in Manitou Springs. We were originally scheduled to meet in the Manitou Art Center next door, but the 3-D gallery was being used for an art exhibit so the very gracious and helpful Natalie Johnson let us use Spencer Hall inside the main building.

The space was nice and big, and I loved the various artworks on the walls, but the room was very cold and many of the attendees kept their winter coats on for the duration of the meeting. There were also some comments that the room was echoey. But it was nice having coffee and tea available from Mabel's Cafe, at least until 8, when they closed up shop. We haven't always had that luxury (necessity?) in the past.

We had sixteen attendees, including one new actor, the very talented teenager Victoria, who enjoyed our previous two meetings so much that she decided to become an official, card-carrying member.

The very gifted playwright August Mergelman also stopped by (he wrote The Restless Ghost of Emma Crawford, which played at the Iron Springs Chateau in October). He had to leave early, but he enjoyed the discussion very much and hopes to retrun soon with some of his own stuff.

We read five plays. We started the evening with Grant Swenson's 10-minute drama In Time For Tea. The play was intriguing, with an almost Twilight Zone feel, and the final twist took many people by surprise.

By the way, Grant wrote this play as a submission for the Ashley Crockett Women of Vintage Playwriting Contest. That contest was supposed to have ended in August, but considering that no winner was announced, I'm thinking that Ashley is still open to submissions. I'll find out where's she at with this.

We followed this with the beginning of Sue Bachman's drama Out of the Cold, a short drama that she wrote to explore the boredom and staleness that comes between many long-term married couples. Here the wife makes a decision to break it, and the husband's response let to a long discussion about his motives and where the story should go next.

After that, we read a rewrite of the beginning of Tim Phillips' teenage relationship drama Never Said. He has jettisoned the 1980's sitcom characters he used last time as spiritual guides for the main character Seth and replaced them with the figures of Augustine and Eros. Most of the people liked this much better, as it set up an interesting dichotomy between the anti-sex philosophy of the Catholic saint and the more libertine leanings of the Greek God.

Next we read the penultimate section of Jess's romance drama Georgee's On My Mind. This section had a twist that blew everyon away, although Jess was careful to leave clues earlier on. Unfortunately, it's hard to keep those clues in mind when a play is read over several months. I'm sure we're all eager to get back together again next month so we can see how this one wraps up.

We ended the evening with two more scenes from my fractured fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye. Here we got to meet the two wolves (Big Bad and Virginia) as well as Little Red Riding Hood. Most of the jokes found their mark, while several attendees suggested additional gags that I might end up adding. If you steal, make sure you steal from the best.

As I mentioned earlier, our January meeting will be at Springs Ensemble Theatre, 1903 E. Cache La Poudre. After that, we'll vote on where we'd like to meet on a regular basis.

Everybody have a great holiday season and we'll see you in the New Year!

Finding a new home

As you all know, the Drama Lab has amicably parted ways with Black Box Theatre. What's more, Millibo Art Theatre recently informed me that with their move and the planned expansion of classes they'll be offering, they can no longer fit us in to their schedule. In short, we need to find a new home. I have good news. We'll be trying out not one but two new meeting places over the next two months, then vote on which one we'd like to continue meeting at.
Our December meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 9 at the Manitou Art Center in Manitou Springs, 513 Manitou Avenue (just east of Venue 515). We'll be meeting in their one of their galleries which is normally empty but twice a year is used to exhibit 3-D artworks. They're only charging us $20 a night, so if we stay with them, we should be able to drop our dues to $10 per year.
Our January meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 13 at Springs Ensemble Theatre, 1903 E. Cache la Poudre. They're charging us $50 a night, so if we stay with them, we'll need to keep our dues at $25 per year. We can meet in their theater when they're not in rehearsal or building a set. The rest of the time we'll meet in their lobby.
See you Monday!

Moving on

We were unable to meet at the Millibo Art Theatre last night due to the ongoing construction (they're a couple months behind), so we returned one last time to Black Box Theatre.

The meeting was a small one, with just 11 attendees. Several of our actors were missing because they'd just finished a show this weekend and needed the night off.

The audience included Jess's new baby Campbell, who, at 10 days old, is easily our youngest attendee ever, although it must be said she did not have a lot to contribute to the discussion.

Despite our low turnout, it was a lively, constructive meeting.

We started the evening reading Tim Phillip's teenage relationship drama Never Said. We followed this with the latest pages from Grant Swenson's twist on The Wizard of Oz titled And Your Little Dog, Too. After that, we read more of Jess Weaver's star-crossed romantic drama Georgee's On My Mind. And we finished up with two scenes from my fractured fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye.

As it turns out, we won't be able to meet at the MAT at all anymore anyway because they're going to need all available space for classes, which they hope to expand this Spring. And Black Box is no longer an option because their Christian-centered mission does not align with our desire for free, uncensored theatre.

I'm currently in dialogue with another theatre company in the hope that we can establish a long-term relationship with them. Attendees offered several other suggestions as well, including the Manitou Art Center (formerly Venue 515) and Kathy Paradise's garage studio. All of these options will be looked into.

See you all at our next meeting on Monday, December 9, wherever it is!

A lot on our plate

With a definite nip in the air, 17 of us gathered last night for our final Drama Lab meeting at Black Box Theatre. The MAT is wrapping up their renovation work this week, and we're looking forward to breaking in their brand new performance space next month.

We read 7 plays--a record!--but we managed to get through them at a healthy clip, winding up the meeting just a few minutes past 9 o'clock. Of course, it helped that one of the plays was a 1-minute play and at least a couple of the others were under 10 pages.

There weren't any new writers, but we did have a dad from Tim, Jeff and Grant's novel-writing group and his daughter try us out as readers. They did a great job, and I hope they come back next month.

We started the evening with Jeff Schmoyer's new play Keeping Up Appearances, a 10-minute comedy about a stoner who takes over Superman's job after the Man of Steel crashes through his window. Jeff did a good job setting up the scene transitions to make them easily producible and the play was extremely funny, especially the dialogue between the stoner and his equally stoned friend. Roy and Charlie were suspiciously realistic as the stoners.

That was followed by Sue Bachman's short play One Bedroom One Bath: A Space Odyssey. Based on a real-life couple she knows, the play is a delightful, heartwarming comedy about a once affluent couple downsizing into a small apartment. Some thought the dialogue was too expository, but everyone agreed that the characters were well-drawn, especially the many eccentic neighbors who keep barging in on the couple.

After that we read a rewrite of Tim Phillip's teenage relationship drama, Never Said. Here he got rid of the mother and threw in Dr. Hux, a kind fatherly figure based on Bill Cosby's character in The Cosby Show. Tim's clever idea was to have Seth turn to several 80's sitcom characters for advice in his relationship with Miranda. There was some discussion whether Seth should call on one or several characters, and whether Miranda should have her own spiritual mentor (Roseanne Barr?).

Then we read the next part of Jess Weaver's full-length drama, Georgie's on my Mind. Nora's struggle to help Hoagy learn to talk was powerful, made even more so by the way it kept slipping back into Hoagy's memories of his mixed-race romance with Georgie. Jess was worried that the dialogue might be too corny, but everyone agreed it was very touching. There was one suggestion that the doctor should be made an antagonist to Nora in order to heighten the tension.

We followed that with scenes 3 and 4 from Grant Swenson's full-length comedy And Your Little Dog Too, a version of The Wizard of Oz told from a blues-loving Toto's point of view. Here we got to meet the Scarecrow's Brain and the Tin Man's Heart. These characters' monologues took us deeper than many expected after the lighthearted humor of the scenes we read last month.

Next we read the beginning of my full-length comedy, Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye. People seemed to like the gags and the hard-boiled dialogue, and there was quite a bit of discussion about where the story should go next. My big challenge is to squeeze in the 30 or so roles that most school groups are looking for. Of course, the real reason I wrote it was to see Buck play Baby Bear.

We wrapped up with Jess's second play of the evening, The Meaning of Life. Or, Why? Or, I May Be a Woman But Don't Underestimate the Size of my Balls. And since it's a 1-minute play, that title is almost as long as the script. These kind of plays really need a big punch at the end, and Jess got it as an erudite couple applauds the unintentionally violent end of a theatre performance, thinking it very "avant garde". Sue did a nice job as the more enthusiastic half of the couple.

Everyone who needed to pay their dues this fall has done so. A big thanks to all of you for making this unpleasant part of my job very painless.

See you at our next meeting on Monday, November 11!

Drying out

After the torrential rains and horrific flooding of the last two weeks, it was nice to get together last night and remind ourselves why we're put on this earth: to make great theatre.

We had a healthy turnout. At least everyone looked pretty fit. There were 21 attendees, including one new writer, two actors who officially joined (a mother and teenage daughter--our youngest member yet!) and two more actors who were just trying us out.

We opened the evening with the beginning of Jess Weaver's new memory play Georgie's on my Mind. The play is about a troubled young woman who befriends an elderly stroke victim. Everyone loved how the transitions back to the past were handled, with the nursing home staff ripping off their scrubs to reveal the spangly costumes of their long-ago soul-singing counterparts underneath.

We followed that with the beginning of our newest writer Grant Swenson's full-length comedy And Your Little Dog Too. It's an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz from Toto's viewpoint, only in this version, Toto is a laid-back beatnik-type. It had a lot of humor, and the bickering between the two munchkins was particularly humorous.

Next up was the 2nd half of Tim Phillips' one-act teenage relationship drama Never Said. The characters were again well-drawn, but the consensus was that the resolution was too ambiguous. It wasn't clear why Seth never pursued the girl he loved or whether he loved her at all.

We wrapped up with a rewrite from the middle section of my cocktail party farce Butterfly Effect. I dump some good stuff to make the story work. Unfortunately, the result was overly talky and unfunny. Ashley Crockett was particularly adamant that she wants to see more frantic behavior and physical comedy throughout.

The renovations at the MAT won't be done in time for our next meeting, so we'll be getting together one last time at Black Box Theatre. We'll be back on our regular schedule, with the meeting falling on Monday, October 14. See you then!

Sitting around the campfire

The MAT's new theatre is undergoing renovations, so this month we met at our old stomping grounds on Pecan Street, now occupied by Nancy Holaday's Black Box Theatre. Since she's deep in rehearsals for Kill the Critic!, we had to meet in the backroom, kind of like when we first started out.

I didn't know how many people were coming or how many chairs Nancy had, so I brought over some old camp chairs from my garage. It's a good thing I did, as we ended up using all of them. Too bad I didn't think to bring marshmallows.

We had 16 attendees, including one new actor (Emmy McAllister) and one potential writer (Grant Swenson) who were trying us out. We drafted Grant into a couple of plays as an actor, and even cast his adorable little daughter Zoe in one. I sure hope she had no clue what the plays were about. She certainly didn't seem fazed by all the F-bombs.

We opened the evening with the finale of Jess Weaver's suicide drama A Pact for Stray Cat. We had a particularly meaty discussion about this one. Although the ending was powerful, everyone thought it was less ambiguous than Jess intended. I really liked her continued use of the documentary narrator, which provides a pointed contrast to the action on stage. Also of note was Roy Kieffer's scary performance as the manipulative Doc. I hope we get to see him in a real production some time.

Next up was Sue Bachman's 10-minute play, Torn. This one centers around a dysfunctional family on vacation in Mexico. The mother was nicely drawn, serving as the calm eye of the family storm, but there was some debate over whether the widowed daughter should be so bitter. Other people suggested that the play might work better as a longer piece, maybe even a full length.

After that we read the next part of my cocktail party farce Butterfly Effect. Mary Sprunger-Froese and Roy really got into the spirit of the piece as the increasingly frantic host and hostess. I was concerned that some of the disasters might be difficult to produce, but the audience said I should keep them. A good director will find a way to stage them.

We finished the evening with the first half of Tim Phillip's one-act drama Never Said, about a lovestruck teenage girl and the boy who wants to keep their friendship platonic. This piece has some really nice characterizations. It will be interesting to see how it wraps up.

The renovations at the MAT continue through September so we'll be meeting once more at Black Box. And in order to get the theatre space, I'm moving it to the third Monday of the month, September 16.

See you then!

Cooler climes

It was a near unanimous vote. Given the choice between the non-air-conditioned theatre in the Millibo Art Theatre's new building, or the cluttered but naturally cool basement, nearly everyone opted for comfort.

And the space worked great. The sound was good, and we got to break in the MAT's newly-delivered folding chairs.

The meeting went amazingly well. We had 19 attendees, including two new actors and one new writer. The actors included Berry Huffman, who played the sorely-abused critic in my recent production of Kill the Critic!, and Sallie Walker, who I'm sure everyone already knows from her appearances with the MAT and Springs Ensemble Theatre.

The new writer was the gifted Hannah Rockey, who has participated before as an actor. It was great to see what she could do with a pen.

It was also great to have Craig Engle back after his long sojourn to the Sunshine State.

We read four plays. We opened with the finale of Tim Phillips' girl-band drama The Decibelles. Ashley Crockett got fully into the spirit of the play, sprawling drunkenly on the floor to open these last scenes. Tim was concerned that the ending of the play may have wrapped things up too neatly. The consensus was that punk music itself is raw and messy, so any story about that world should leave its threads dangling.

We followed that with the latest scenes from Jess Weaver's family drama A Pact for a Stray Cat. Here we saw a new conflict erupt between the teenage Cat and her mother, and Roy Kieffer held the audience spellbound with an incredibly moving monologue in which his character Doc told the story of his abusive childhood.

After that came Hannah Rockey's family drama Ma. Hannah admitted she broke just about every rule of playwriting in this short, 3-scene play, but it worked. From its comical opening on a jetliner to its explosive resolution several years later in a living room, the play gave an insightful peek into the troubled relationship between a woman and her aging mother, who may or may not be suffering from dementia.

We wrapped it all up with the final two pieces in my driver's ed comedy You're Driving Me Crazy. They featured a smart alecky girl commenting on her ex-boyfriend's driving skills and a girl who couldn't put her smartphone down long enough to start the car. The humor seemed to work well, but a couple of spots were confusing to people. I'll be sure to fix those up.

Nancy announced that she'd like to produce an evening of short plays similar to the show Craft Production Resources (formerly Craft Theatre) is putting on next month. She'll be keeping an eye out for promising pieces, so if you'd like to have something considered, either bring it to the Drama Lab to be read by our talented actors or give Nancy a hardcopy to read on her own. She's thinking the production will probably take place in December.

Next month, the MAT will be closed for renovations. There's a ton of work to be done, including the installation of a brand spanking new A/C system. Fortunately, Nancy Holaday has graciously offered the use of her Black Box Theatre, which just happens to be the old MAT space. So you'd better not get lost on the way there.

That meeting will be postponed one week to Monday, August 19--a whopping six weeks after our July meeting. I hope all of you will survive the long dry spell.

See you next month!