Storm warning

Fortunately, we missed a winter storm that was originally forecast to come through last night, threatening to disrupt or even cancel our monthly meeting. But the storm decided to hold off until morning instead, giving all of us lots of fluffy white stuff to shovel when we woke up.

What with all the holiday shows going on in town, we were missing quite a few of our regulars last night, but we ended up with a respectable turnout anyways, with 13 people attending. The play count was down again, however, with only three plays read.

Before the readings, we spent some time discussing what we could do to take the Drama Lab further. There's been a lot of interest in providing collaboration opportunities for writers and actors, as well as producing our own evening of short plays. There's no consensus yet on which direction we're going to take, but we're open to ideas. Let us know what you'd like to see!

Our first script was Quest for the Golden Fangs, another in Grant Swenson's series of four short plays representing different literary styles. This one represented irony and focused on four teenagers who are given a quest to steal a rival school's mascot head (a walrus). The ironic turn comes at the end when Julio, the leader of the quartet, decides he doesn't want to steal the head after all because his father had done the same thins when he was in school. Some people thought that the language was too mature and sophisticated for teenagers, but everyone loved the characters.

After that, we read a 10-minute romantic musical comedy by Howard Kirstel titled Reno. Here, we see a recently widowed Jewish man dip a tentative toe back into the dating pool, only to find himself winning the hearts of, not one, but two women. The script includes lyrics to a song that the multi-talented Howard still needs to wrote the melody for. The audience liked the story but thought that the relationships moved too fast. They wanted to see the characters fall in love.

We wrapped up the evening with the beginning of my large-cast comedy Trouble in Paradise Junction, a satire about a reality TV crew that invades a near-perfect, Frank Capra-inspired town. I was worried that the beginning might be too hokey, but people thought it worked because the townsfolk truly believed that their town was perfect.

Our next meeting will be postponed by one week since several members are going to be in rehearsal for my play The Last Radio Show. We'll see you on Monday, January 18!

Back to school

Well, it was fun using the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre for the last two meetings, but in practice, it didn't work as well as we thought. There was little room for the actors to sit between the edge of the set and the house, and the sound wasn't as good as we though.

For this reason, we moved back into our old classroom for this month's meeting, and will continue to meet there from here on out. This also allows us to go back to our second Monday of the month schedule, since we're no longer dependent on the move-in/move-out dates of of the shows in the theatre.

We had an excellent turnout, 16 people, which was our best turnout in months. And we only had four scripts, our lowest count in months. I've got to admit, it was nice having time to discuss each of the plays in detail, and still getting out by 9pm. Whether it makes sense to reduce the number of scripts per meeting is something I plan to explore.

We opened with the beginning of Sue Bachman's new drama, Ladies of the Chameleon. In it, the recently widowed Cynthia dishes to her best friend Maggie about the man who has swept her off her feet. Some said it was suspenseful and that they liked Cynthia's nervousness, while others thought it needed tightening. One person suggested that it might be fun to add a dash of alcohol, with the women revealing more and more about themselves as they get drunk.

Next up was Grant Swenson's 10-minute comedy Quest for the Golden Moustache. He originally wrote it for a collection of four short plays that start the same and end up going in different directions, with this one being the comedic one. Here, a teenage girl is sent by her father on a quest for happiness, only to find her real father at the end. The audience thought there was a nice contrast between the flippant attitudes of Tessa's teenage friends and the serious theme of parental abandonment that the play addresses. But some thought the characters weren't differentiated enough, and several thought that Tessa accepted her new father too quickly.

After that we read Snow White - Alternate Ending, the rewrite of a 10-minute comedy that Jeff Schmoyer brought to Drama Lab a year or two ago. He did a great job beefing up the humor, as both the audience and actors laughed a lot. Everybody liked the rapid-fire dialogue and thought that the Disney-with-a-twist-of-sass characters were fun. There was some concern that the contemporary references might quickly date the play, but others said those could easily be generalized in the script.

We finished up with the next scene from my old-time radio farce The Last Radio Show. In it, we get a Frankenstein spoof called "The Thing with Two Spleens". The consensus was that this show-within-a-show was not as funny as the previous three and that it needs to be to keep the energy rising. The audience also didn't like ending of this show, feeling that it was anticlimatic to have the Monster merely dent the wall of the lab rather than burst through to cause even more havoc.

Our next meeting is Monday, December 14. See you all then!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.