So, a year ago I put out my goals for 2012, for which I can say: some came to pass, some not so much. I still don't have a book deal, for Thorn, Holver Alley or Maradaine Constabulary. However, I can honestly say I feel like I'm a lot closer on those. All three of those were re-drafted or fine-tuned, so this year I have finished-until-a-paying-editor-tells-me-otherwise levels of drafts for all three. I got a really excellent rejection letter for Thorn. So for the first three goals, I'm still a bit short of the line.
Number 4: Finish Rough Draft of Way of the Shield, did not come together. I see now that my initial outline for it was woefully flawed. In outline, it was a politically-themed murder mystery, but that was far too thin. It needed scope, grandeur, and more antagonists who had a clue. I need to get back in there and work out the details. I've had recent epiphanies that made things gel in my head. Now I need to get them onto the page.
I did do more outlining and worldbuilding-- and some scene writing-- for what Banshee has morphed into. I feel good about how this is coming together. The bits that I have written, I really like. But I need to solidify the outline before it really starts to live and breathe as a novel. The finale is still something of a mystery to me.
Also, had Out of Ink produce one short play, wrote another for this year's. I wrote an actual short story that I feel pretty good about. ArmadilloCon and the Writers' Workshop went very well.
All in all, 2012 went strongly. Not as well as I would have liked, but still: progression on the writers' path. That's good, though. It serves as a humbling reminder that I can always do better.
Showing posts with label Out of Ink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Out of Ink. Show all posts
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Out of Ink Season Again
For the past 13 years, I've participated in Austin Scriptworks Out of Ink ten-minute playwriting "fling", as it is called, which basically works like this: Every year in November, on a Friday evening we receive three "rules" for a ten-minute play. The deadline is 48 hours later (give or take, since it's usually by 6pm on Sunday). Then eight of those ten-minute plays are selected for production in April-ish. (It varies from year-to-year, but it's usually April.)
It's a process I really enjoy, and it keeps various tools in my toolbox sharp. This is a key reason why I participate every year.
2000: Last Train Out of Illinois (Selected) My first year with Scriptworks, the rules involved boots, a character directly addressing the audience, and someone performing an "aria". I had, at the time, had the vague idea of a Tom Waitsish Musical called "Last Train Out of Illinois", but all I had was Atmosphere and an Ending. Which is just fine for a ten-minute piece.
2001: Dead Air On The Open Road (Not Selected) I don't remember all the details, but one of the rules here was an "incongruous element". So the story involved people in a car breaking down in the desert, and then a foul-mouthed puppet shows up to save them. When we did the reading, it was actually pretty hysterical, but I can see that as a script, it's rather thin.
2002: Freaks of Nature and Acts of God (Selected) The rules aren't quite in my memory, save "only one chair" as set. I came up with three young women stuck in a near-empty beach house during a hurricane, who are then rescued by a pizza-delivery guy who has the wrong address. It's probably the weakest of mine that was chosen.
2003: Danger Girl's Night Off (Selected) The rules dictated 1. something involving superheroes and 2. a seduction, so I immediately thought of a grown-up sidekick who just wanted to have a date night. This was a lot of fun. Elements of this story ended up fueling the core ideas behind my story in The Protectors, which you can still purchase on Amazon.
2004: Triangles and Broken Circles (Not Selected) The rules had something to do with chalk and a ceremony, but what I wrote was pretty much weak sauce. Can't blame it not being selected.
2005: No Entry. This year, for budgetary reasons (I think, I could be wrong) the format changed, asking for a 5-minute radio play. I was at something of a loss with that idea, so I didn't enter this time around.
2006: Alignment of Celestial Bodies (Not Selected) Of the "not selected" ones, this is probably my favorite. I forget the details of the rules, but it was a sweet romantic story of a couple going stargazing, with an interconnecting Creation-of-the-World Myth of my own creation.
2007: Hourglass (Selected) I'm really pleased with this one. The rules involved 1. A physical transformation on stage, 2. a secret and 3. a piece of music connecting to a memory. This may have been, for me, the most synergous set of rules. The discovery of an old hourglass reminds an old woman of the true paternity of her child. Hannah Kenah did really lovely work on stage going from 107 to 20.
2008: Ten Minutes Ago (Selected) The play goes backwards! That was the rule that had to define this one. The idea I was struck with here was having an innocuous instigation (a woman answering her door) lead to events that had disastrous consequences (her husband and a stranger dead in her living room), and then show it Consequences-Events-Instigation. This one was challenging to stage, but enjoyable.
2009: The Q (Not Selected) Here, I think I bit off more than I could chew. The core idea was about people being smuggled out of a quarantine-zone after a biological attack. I think it ended up too dense and too vague. I like it, I may revisit it at some point, but I'll admit in the writing, I wasn't quite "feeling" it. So when it wasn't chosen, I wasn't all that surprised.
2010: Entropy (Selected) "Time is Running Out", "Use the Beginning and End of Finnegan's Wake" and "A Ceremony of Forgetting". How does this NOT say "two people stuck in a time loop"? OK, it does to me, because I'm a sci-fi geek.
2011: Slept the Whole Way (Selected) Again, the rules sent me to an SF place: the play needed to span 3000 years and have 300 characters. So a cryosleep ship that missed its target and kept everyone in stasis for 3000 years made perfect sense to me.
2012: I Asked My Friend Art, And He Said It Isn't Him. Given that I just sent this, and don't know what it's fate is, I won't talk about it too much. I will say I enjoyed writing it a lot. I found myself cackling and grinning much of the time, and I'm hoping that's a good sign.
It's a process I really enjoy, and it keeps various tools in my toolbox sharp. This is a key reason why I participate every year.
2000: Last Train Out of Illinois (Selected) My first year with Scriptworks, the rules involved boots, a character directly addressing the audience, and someone performing an "aria". I had, at the time, had the vague idea of a Tom Waitsish Musical called "Last Train Out of Illinois", but all I had was Atmosphere and an Ending. Which is just fine for a ten-minute piece.
2001: Dead Air On The Open Road (Not Selected) I don't remember all the details, but one of the rules here was an "incongruous element". So the story involved people in a car breaking down in the desert, and then a foul-mouthed puppet shows up to save them. When we did the reading, it was actually pretty hysterical, but I can see that as a script, it's rather thin.
2002: Freaks of Nature and Acts of God (Selected) The rules aren't quite in my memory, save "only one chair" as set. I came up with three young women stuck in a near-empty beach house during a hurricane, who are then rescued by a pizza-delivery guy who has the wrong address. It's probably the weakest of mine that was chosen.
2003: Danger Girl's Night Off (Selected) The rules dictated 1. something involving superheroes and 2. a seduction, so I immediately thought of a grown-up sidekick who just wanted to have a date night. This was a lot of fun. Elements of this story ended up fueling the core ideas behind my story in The Protectors, which you can still purchase on Amazon.
2004: Triangles and Broken Circles (Not Selected) The rules had something to do with chalk and a ceremony, but what I wrote was pretty much weak sauce. Can't blame it not being selected.
2005: No Entry. This year, for budgetary reasons (I think, I could be wrong) the format changed, asking for a 5-minute radio play. I was at something of a loss with that idea, so I didn't enter this time around.
2006: Alignment of Celestial Bodies (Not Selected) Of the "not selected" ones, this is probably my favorite. I forget the details of the rules, but it was a sweet romantic story of a couple going stargazing, with an interconnecting Creation-of-the-World Myth of my own creation.
2007: Hourglass (Selected) I'm really pleased with this one. The rules involved 1. A physical transformation on stage, 2. a secret and 3. a piece of music connecting to a memory. This may have been, for me, the most synergous set of rules. The discovery of an old hourglass reminds an old woman of the true paternity of her child. Hannah Kenah did really lovely work on stage going from 107 to 20.
2008: Ten Minutes Ago (Selected) The play goes backwards! That was the rule that had to define this one. The idea I was struck with here was having an innocuous instigation (a woman answering her door) lead to events that had disastrous consequences (her husband and a stranger dead in her living room), and then show it Consequences-Events-Instigation. This one was challenging to stage, but enjoyable.
2009: The Q (Not Selected) Here, I think I bit off more than I could chew. The core idea was about people being smuggled out of a quarantine-zone after a biological attack. I think it ended up too dense and too vague. I like it, I may revisit it at some point, but I'll admit in the writing, I wasn't quite "feeling" it. So when it wasn't chosen, I wasn't all that surprised.
2010: Entropy (Selected) "Time is Running Out", "Use the Beginning and End of Finnegan's Wake" and "A Ceremony of Forgetting". How does this NOT say "two people stuck in a time loop"? OK, it does to me, because I'm a sci-fi geek.
2011: Slept the Whole Way (Selected) Again, the rules sent me to an SF place: the play needed to span 3000 years and have 300 characters. So a cryosleep ship that missed its target and kept everyone in stasis for 3000 years made perfect sense to me.
2012: I Asked My Friend Art, And He Said It Isn't Him. Given that I just sent this, and don't know what it's fate is, I won't talk about it too much. I will say I enjoyed writing it a lot. I found myself cackling and grinning much of the time, and I'm hoping that's a good sign.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Slept The Whole Way Interview
I was interviewed for my play for ScriptWork's Out of Ink, opening this weekend.
--
Marshall Ryan Maresca's SLEPT THE WHOLE WAY is part of Out of Ink: Sound Off, the 14th Annual Showcase of 10 Minute Plays.
"Four people wake up from suspension sleep on a space ship to find something has gone horribly wrong."
1) Three required ingredients, 48 hours - how did you start your play?
In this case, it was with a series of false starts. For the Out of Ink plays, I've found that one ingredient has to form the spine of the play, the driving force. So the first step was figuring out which ingredient worked best in that role. This year, I analyzed the three ingredients to see how they worked with each other, which ingredient might "demand" being the driving force of the play. The 3000/300 ingredient gave of a sense of scope, that the play needed to be epic in scale. This made it the most logical choice to be the spine. But figuring out what that scope would mean became the big challenge. Let alone the 300 characters-- how to express 3000 years in a way that can make sense on stage in a 10-minute play? I tried several different paths, most of which showed my roots as a sci-fi/fantasy writer, such as time travel.
2) Did one of the ingredients this provide a special challenge? If so, how did you approach it?
This time around, it was the children's song/rhyme/fairytale rule. Just as one rule makes the spine of the play, one rule tends to be almost tangential. In one of my failed paths, I played around with the idea of using it as a code phrase. ("Mother Goose, this is Rapunzel. I need to let down my hair. Repeat, Rapunzel needs to let down her hair.") Once I reached a certain point in "Slept the Whole Way", I knew I was going to need a code phrase, so that was the obvious way I could use that ingredient.
3) How do you like to approach a rehearsal process and collaborators - what are your expectations for any revisions?
For Out Of Ink, I'm personally opposed to making revisions, beyond the most minor of line/business changes. Anything more feels like cheating the process of the 48 hours.
4) What else are you working on right now?
I'm a fantasy/sci-fi novelist, and I'm currently working on a draft of an action-heavy political-thriller fantasy. I have three other manuscripts currently seeking a publisher. Excerpts of those three are available at my website, www.mrmaresca.com
--
OUT OF INK 2012: SOUND OFF
ScriptWork’s 14th Annual Ten Minute Play Showcase
Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Rd.
April 19-21 and 26-28, 2012 at 8 PM
Tickets: $15 general admission, $12 students/seniors/ScriptWorks
April 19th is a Pay-What-You-Wish preview
$25 includes pre-show reception at Zhi Tea (4607 Bolm Road) and performance on Saturday, April 21st
Purchase tickets online.
--
Marshall Ryan Maresca's SLEPT THE WHOLE WAY is part of Out of Ink: Sound Off, the 14th Annual Showcase of 10 Minute Plays.
"Four people wake up from suspension sleep on a space ship to find something has gone horribly wrong."
1) Three required ingredients, 48 hours - how did you start your play?
In this case, it was with a series of false starts. For the Out of Ink plays, I've found that one ingredient has to form the spine of the play, the driving force. So the first step was figuring out which ingredient worked best in that role. This year, I analyzed the three ingredients to see how they worked with each other, which ingredient might "demand" being the driving force of the play. The 3000/300 ingredient gave of a sense of scope, that the play needed to be epic in scale. This made it the most logical choice to be the spine. But figuring out what that scope would mean became the big challenge. Let alone the 300 characters-- how to express 3000 years in a way that can make sense on stage in a 10-minute play? I tried several different paths, most of which showed my roots as a sci-fi/fantasy writer, such as time travel.
2) Did one of the ingredients this provide a special challenge? If so, how did you approach it?
This time around, it was the children's song/rhyme/fairytale rule. Just as one rule makes the spine of the play, one rule tends to be almost tangential. In one of my failed paths, I played around with the idea of using it as a code phrase. ("Mother Goose, this is Rapunzel. I need to let down my hair. Repeat, Rapunzel needs to let down her hair.") Once I reached a certain point in "Slept the Whole Way", I knew I was going to need a code phrase, so that was the obvious way I could use that ingredient.
3) How do you like to approach a rehearsal process and collaborators - what are your expectations for any revisions?
For Out Of Ink, I'm personally opposed to making revisions, beyond the most minor of line/business changes. Anything more feels like cheating the process of the 48 hours.
4) What else are you working on right now?
I'm a fantasy/sci-fi novelist, and I'm currently working on a draft of an action-heavy political-thriller fantasy. I have three other manuscripts currently seeking a publisher. Excerpts of those three are available at my website, www.mrmaresca.com
--
OUT OF INK 2012: SOUND OFF
ScriptWork’s 14th Annual Ten Minute Play Showcase
Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Rd.
April 19-21 and 26-28, 2012 at 8 PM
Tickets: $15 general admission, $12 students/seniors/ScriptWorks
April 19th is a Pay-What-You-Wish preview
$25 includes pre-show reception at Zhi Tea (4607 Bolm Road) and performance on Saturday, April 21st
Purchase tickets online.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
"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.
--
*- 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?
--
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.
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.
--
*- 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?
--
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.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Austin Theatre Announcement, and the "Process Play"
I received this in my email last week:
Excellent news! I always enjoy being part of this yearly production. This year was the 11th time I've participated, and the 7th time my play has been chosen. It's a fun experience, and a fun process.
I've often heard the term "process play" used for this kind of production. A "process play" doesn't have a specific definition, but in my mind its a play that invites the audience to look under the hood to get a better appreciation of what's going on in the production. At its best a process play is something where an additional level of understanding enhances the enjoyment of something that's already enjoyable.
In the case of Out of Ink, I think it works well because the process is front-loaded in the writing phase. We write the plays in a specific time frame, within a specific set of rules, and then eight are chosen. Do you need to know that, in order to enjoy the show? No. But in knowing it, your experience changes. Case in point, in my piece from last year, there's a laugh line when one of the characters mentions Finnegan's Wake. This isn't because Finnegan's Wake is inherently funny, but because the audience knew that including Finnegan's Wake was one of our rules. But the play stands on its own without knowing that. The scripts are developed via the process, but the production of the show itself is straightforward.
"Process play", though, can be used as a pejorative. At its worst, a process play becomes a masturbatory exercise where more emphasis is put on how the performance got put together over the performance itself. I've known a few actor friends who have used the phrase as a backhanded knock on shows they were in. "How are rehearsals going?" "Well, it's a process play." Code for, "The director doesn't have a plan and we're meandering and wasting time." I've been involved in shows like that. It's no fun.
But with Out of Ink? I've always had fun. I've always found it a fun show to watch. If you're in Austin the last two weekends in April, come check it out.
At long last, selections for the upcoming ScriptWorks 10-minute play showcase have been made!
SOFTLY AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE - Bob Barr
UNFAIR PRACTICES AT THE DPS - Elizabeth Cobbe
THE MANY SUICIDES OF MOLLY McVEIGH - Trey Deason
OCEAN SONG FROM A DESERT PLACE - Amparo Garcia-Crow
MS. EDWINA BACKLE'S APPOINTMENT - Aimée Gonzalez
SLEPT THE WHOLE WAY - Marshall Ryan Maresca
THE NORTH STAR TRANSGALACTIC - Anne Maria Newsome
THE GREEKS - Colin Denby Swanson
The plays will run April 19-21 and 26-28 at the Blue Theatre.
Excellent news! I always enjoy being part of this yearly production. This year was the 11th time I've participated, and the 7th time my play has been chosen. It's a fun experience, and a fun process.
I've often heard the term "process play" used for this kind of production. A "process play" doesn't have a specific definition, but in my mind its a play that invites the audience to look under the hood to get a better appreciation of what's going on in the production. At its best a process play is something where an additional level of understanding enhances the enjoyment of something that's already enjoyable.
In the case of Out of Ink, I think it works well because the process is front-loaded in the writing phase. We write the plays in a specific time frame, within a specific set of rules, and then eight are chosen. Do you need to know that, in order to enjoy the show? No. But in knowing it, your experience changes. Case in point, in my piece from last year, there's a laugh line when one of the characters mentions Finnegan's Wake. This isn't because Finnegan's Wake is inherently funny, but because the audience knew that including Finnegan's Wake was one of our rules. But the play stands on its own without knowing that. The scripts are developed via the process, but the production of the show itself is straightforward.
"Process play", though, can be used as a pejorative. At its worst, a process play becomes a masturbatory exercise where more emphasis is put on how the performance got put together over the performance itself. I've known a few actor friends who have used the phrase as a backhanded knock on shows they were in. "How are rehearsals going?" "Well, it's a process play." Code for, "The director doesn't have a plan and we're meandering and wasting time." I've been involved in shows like that. It's no fun.
But with Out of Ink? I've always had fun. I've always found it a fun show to watch. If you're in Austin the last two weekends in April, come check it out.
Monday, December 26, 2011
2011 in Review
This has been a good year for me, in terms of growing as a writer. Honestly, I think every year since 2007 (which is probably the year I knocked the training wheels off an got serious about I'm Going To Be A Writer) has been an improvement. But 2011 was a year with a few notable highlights:
First and foremost, there's acquiring Mike as my agent. This has been such a joy and relief in my life this year. I really am quite happy to have him in my corner. Getting an agent has become such a huge (and sometimes insurmountable-seeming) step in the path to publication, I really can't express how glad I am to have moved up to the next step.
And while I did have an excellent time attending the DFW Writers Con this past year (and would recommend the experience to those seeking agents), I'm glad I don't have to do that again.
This year is also when I decided to be diligent and post here on the blog every Monday and Thursday. It's a project that's sometimes challenged me (I almost forgot that today was a Monday), but I've been pleased with the results. It's built the regular readership, and driven traffic to my blog. So that's been a good thing.
This was also my first year at ArmadilloCon in a panelist/professional capacity, as well as a coordinator and teacher for the Writers' Workshop. This was a fantastic experience, and I do owe a lot of it to Stina Leicht. She's been a fantastic source of moral support on this journey.
What else? This year I have Thorn finished and shopping, Holver Alley Crew redrafted and (hopefully) ready to shop. This year I also finished the draft of Maradaine Constabulary and will hope to have the revision ready to send to Mike in just a few weeks. I wrote a couple short plays, including Entropy, produced by Austin Scriptworks.
So it's been a pretty good year. Fingers crossed for 2012 being even better.
First and foremost, there's acquiring Mike as my agent. This has been such a joy and relief in my life this year. I really am quite happy to have him in my corner. Getting an agent has become such a huge (and sometimes insurmountable-seeming) step in the path to publication, I really can't express how glad I am to have moved up to the next step.
And while I did have an excellent time attending the DFW Writers Con this past year (and would recommend the experience to those seeking agents), I'm glad I don't have to do that again.
This year is also when I decided to be diligent and post here on the blog every Monday and Thursday. It's a project that's sometimes challenged me (I almost forgot that today was a Monday), but I've been pleased with the results. It's built the regular readership, and driven traffic to my blog. So that's been a good thing.
This was also my first year at ArmadilloCon in a panelist/professional capacity, as well as a coordinator and teacher for the Writers' Workshop. This was a fantastic experience, and I do owe a lot of it to Stina Leicht. She's been a fantastic source of moral support on this journey.
What else? This year I have Thorn finished and shopping, Holver Alley Crew redrafted and (hopefully) ready to shop. This year I also finished the draft of Maradaine Constabulary and will hope to have the revision ready to send to Mike in just a few weeks. I wrote a couple short plays, including Entropy, produced by Austin Scriptworks.
So it's been a pretty good year. Fingers crossed for 2012 being even better.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Out of Ink: Review and some other thoughts
The Austin Chronicle has a review of this year's Out of Ink. I can't help but be pleased with this bit:
Got to love that. And you know what? It IS laugh-out-loud funny, but I've got to give most of the credit for that to Jose and Jacob. Those two really click, both with spitting out the, I'll admit, downright Trekkian technobabble ("The integrity of the field is quantum tied to the half-life of the sample!") as well as building the necessary spiraling momentum. And Sharon was the perfect director for this piece. Rare is the artist who not only is an ace at coordinating movement and text into a stronger integrated whole, but ALSO reads quantum physics for fun.
In short, I am incredibly happy, but mostly because I had a fantastic group of people who brought the absolute best out of my text.
Take, for example, the most successful piece in the evening: "Entropy," directed by Sharon Sparlin. (And yes, I'm going to spoil some of this, so stop reading here if you're going to see it.) In it, two scientists, Boson (Jose Marenco) and Higgs (Jacob Trussell), gradually discover that they are caught in a time loop. Playwright Marshall Ryan Maresca changes up the repetitive dialogue in each successive scene so that we discover what is happening at the same time the scientists do, utilizing just enough techno-speak to make it all sound real and possible, while actors Morenco and Trussell use a blistering tempo, a chair on wheels, a laptop, and not much else to make us imagine huge control rooms, massive computers, and the swirling vortex of time. Plus, it's laugh-out-loud funny.
Got to love that. And you know what? It IS laugh-out-loud funny, but I've got to give most of the credit for that to Jose and Jacob. Those two really click, both with spitting out the, I'll admit, downright Trekkian technobabble ("The integrity of the field is quantum tied to the half-life of the sample!") as well as building the necessary spiraling momentum. And Sharon was the perfect director for this piece. Rare is the artist who not only is an ace at coordinating movement and text into a stronger integrated whole, but ALSO reads quantum physics for fun.
In short, I am incredibly happy, but mostly because I had a fantastic group of people who brought the absolute best out of my text.
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