Chime: A new play is born

It has been head down, butt in the chair for the past couple of weeks as I wrapped up the first draft of my first full length play of the new year: "The Stars Are Our Ancestors." Along the way, I also lost one of my best friends. RIP Ginny Foster. She died Saturday night February 4th. She and I were writing buddies for more than 20 years. I am now her literary executor, a great honor. Her works will be archived with the International Centre for Women Playwrights Collection at Ohio State University (as will mine, some are already there). So, there was Ginny's memorial to attend to, and I learned another friend of mine had also died 10 months ago without my having heard, and then two days later another friend died suddenly, shocking many of us. Rough week. In times like these I am especially grateful to be a writer.
"The Stars..." is a satisfying first draft. It did everything I wanted it to do for me, it surprised me, it came together when it should and as it should. I'm feeling pleased with it right now. I know I need to have a reading soon so I can hear all the places it needs rewriting (they always do need rewriting), and at the same time, I'd like to just be in love with it for a few weeks. This is my science play. Not terribly heavy on the science at the moment. I'll leave that for the rewrites. It has a simple set, only four characters, all women, one young, one old, two in their 40s. There is a love story, mother/daughter stories, it addresses adoption, different ethnicities, but it is never an issue play. It is a character-driven play about love and how we are all one, how we are all the stuff of stars. I listened to all kinds of music while I wrote this play: classical, rap, country, rock, blues, jazz, and opera.
I wrote when I didn't feel like writing. I would stop and think, well that's it for today. Then I'd look at the page number. And I'd say to myself, no you have to write ten more pages. Ten more pages? It's already 5 o'clock. Or whatever time it was. And then I'd kick my butt and keep writing. One day I did something I've never done before. I snacked while I wrote. I ate crackers while I was writing! It was past dinner time, I was hungry, and I was unwilling to stop writing. So. Crackers. And water. No dinner until I got those pages finished. What a task master! And guess what? It worked.
Do you ever write this way? And if so, are you pleased with the results? Surprised? Please tell me.

Asylum No More -- Last Night was Opening Night

We had a decent house, sold more than half the seats. Not bad when the show doesn't start until 11PM, and it is POURING down rain on a Friday night in January. We handed out feedback forms and writing utensils before the show and almost everyone took the time afterward to complete the three questions. This after a lots of laughter, lots of applause for the actors who really delivered. I saw more places to cut, places I want to change, and the actors helped to illuminate the script so I could see and hear what I needed to see and hear. All feedback for the actors was glowing. As it should be! The director, well I can't say enough about Brian Demar Jones. He was a gift. I found him because I needed a new director after mine bailed, and Sven Bonnichsen sent me his headshot because Brian had applied to audition and Sven noticed that Brian also directs. Lucky me, Brian was brand new to Portland and hadn't yet been snapped up. By now, he is overloaded with projects, and I will not likely ever get to work with him again as he will be employed by all the big theaters from now on. So, I'm celebrating the fact that we are working together now, and he has been a tremendous help to me on Asylum No More.
We do it again tonight, for our second and last time in this run. It's a festival, we have only two nights. Maybe we will get to do a full production later in the year. I will do my best to raise the funds. All but one person who turned in feedback said they wanted to see the show in full production. The one negative person was negative in every way -- except toward the cast. When I read that feedback (so out of step with everyone else) I suddenly heard my NYC friend speaking in my ear "remember, when playwrights give negative feedback, they are telling you the problems they have in their own plays. It is not about you." So, I took it like that. Because seriously, it didn't seem to be about my play. After tonight, I will write about what I plan to change in the play, based on feedback, based on my own observations. Because it is, of course, still a work in progress.

Starting a New Play as the Old Year passes

Just a quick note before the year ends. I might have time to write more tomorrow, but in case I don't...
I'm outlining a new play. My title is The Stars Are Our Ancestors. It's my first science play. Might be my last, but I hope not. I've always had an interest in science, I didn't have the self-confidence to write about it. Now that I've reached the third act of my life, I will write whatever I please. Note to young writers: write whatever you please for all three acts. In this new play, my protagonist Jenny spends most of her waking life looking at the stars. She has become agoraphobic, but lucky her she has a flat roof where she feels safe. She spends her nights lying on the roof. As an astronomer, she feels comfortable with what she knows. As a genealogist, she has come to believe that her ancestry stretches back to the heavens. Her adoptive mother Verge thinks she has lost her mind. Her 17 year-old daughter is trying to get through her senior year of high school, get into MIT, and get her mom out of the house. No urgency except daughter Djuna is doing her senior thesis on her family tree, so wants Jenny to find her biological family in South Korea, meaning Jenny has to get cured of agoraphobia before Gramma Verge dies of her metastasizing brain cancer and can help them find the family.
South Korea is like a black hole pulling them all closer and closer to the edge, faster and faster ... What happens on the other side of a black hole anyway? Is it true that we all become one?