"Slow and steady wins the race" - Blog Post 200

Way back in high school, for a drama class, I strapped a spray-painted cardboard box to my back and played the Tortoise in a little production of The Tortoise and the Hare for elementary school kids.*    It's kind of funny, because if you look at the history of this blog, the first month I had it, I wrote Hare-style.  Twenty-seven posts in September of 2009-- BAM!  I was blogging something fierce then.  Then it tapers off to a slow drip.  Burned out fast. Once I switched to my twice-a-week Tortoise-style, I've grown and built and slowly but surely... two hundred posts. 

And that's really what it took, both in terms of this blog and in writing in general-- that willingness to take the long view approach, slowly and sometimes painfully, acknowledging, "It may take a while to get there, but I AM getting there."**

Slow and steady.  Always moving forward.

In the meantime, I've got a play opening in two weeks.  If your in the Austin-ish area, check it out.

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*- This is an important lesson in theatre and acting, though it can apply to all writing: if you want to be on stage, leave your shame at the coat check on your way in, because it's only going to hold you back.
**- If I want to start something, I might compare the self/e-publishing model to Hare-style-- rushing to nowhere because now and fast is more important than right and done well.   But, you know, I'm not going to start something on my 200th post, am I?
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We are very excited to announce Out of Ink! festival: Sound Off!

April 19-21 and 26-28, 8 p.m. at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale (click for map)

Playwrights: Colin Denby Swanson, Trey Deason, Aimee Gonzalez, Anne Marie Newsome, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Robert M Barr, Elizabeth Cobbe

Directors: Jason Phelps, Ellie McBride, Lowell Bartholomee, Sharon Sparlin, and Debbie Lynn Carriger

Dramaturgs: Kristen Harrison, Ellie McBride, Debbie Lynn Carriger

Production & Design Team: Christi Moore, Kayla Newman, Cassandra Castillo, Christina Smith, Pam Friday, George Marsolek, Jen Rogers and Robert Fisher

ScriptWorks presents OUT OF INK 2012: Sound Off, the 14th annual showcase of 10 minute plays

$15 general admission, $12 students/seniors/ScriptWorks members; April 19th is a Pay-What-You-Wish preview;

$25 for pre-show reception at Zhi Tea (4607 Bolm Road) and performance on Saturday, April 21st

RESERVATIONS/INFORMATION: www.scriptworks.org 512-454-9727

How do you encompass 3000 years in ten minutes? And do it in 48 hours? That was the challenge set before ScriptWorks members last fall at the annual Weekend Fling 48-hour writing event. At the Fling, member playwrights were tasked with writing a ten-minute play over 48 hours using three arbitrary ingredients.


This year's ingredients were:

1) Write a play with three hundred characters that takes place over 3000 years.
2) Include a children's song, game or fairy tale.
3) Include a sound that everyone hears differently.

At the end of the Fling, the plays were read in a ScriptWorks Salon at the State Theater. A selection committee picked eight of the plays to produce in the Out of Ink Festival. The selection committee included ScriptWorks co-founder Emily Cicchini, non-applying member Rhonda Kulhanek, and Cleveland Playhouse Artistic Associate, Corey Atkins.

The Sound Off scripts were written by: Bob Barr, Elizabeth Cobbe, Trey Deason, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Aimée Gonzalez, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Anne Maria Newsome and C. Denby Swanson. The plays will be performed by an ensemble of actors including Sarah Bading, Beth Burroughs, Amy Chang, David DuBose, Anna Maria Garcia, Heather Hanna, Anne Hulsman, Rhonda Kulhanek, Jenny Lavery, Christopher Loveless, Jason Phelps and Aron Taylor. They'll be directed by Lowell Bartholomee, Debbie Lynn Carriger, Ellie McBride, Jason Phelps, and Sharon Sparlin with dramaturgy by Kristin Harrison. Designers for the project are Robert Fisher, Pam Friday, George Marsolek, and Jennifer Rogers.

ABOUT SCRIPTWORKS ScriptWorks (formerly Austin Script Works) is a playwright-driven organization that seeks to promote the craft of dramatic writing and protect the writer's integrity by encouraging playwright initiative and harnessing collective potential. ScriptWorks is funded and supported in part by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future.