DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?

I do.  I hear them all the freaking time.  Of course, most of it is in my head, a sort of movie soundtrack/music video to go along with all the images passing before me at the speed of life, but what can I say?  I've always been a sort of geek, musical theatre speaking- and there are often moments when I will see something, experience a feeling or observe people, and some song from one play or another pops into my head, and boom, the soundtrack/playlist continues.  When I was first seeing my wife, we would often take walks in the park early in the morning, and it felt to me like there was a bright, golden haze on the meadow, and the sounds of the world were like music, so I'd sing, loudly and probably not so much on key, Oh What a Beautiful Morning.  How could I not.  It's a great song.  Just ask Wolverine.

It made total sense to me.  And Lisa, my wife, smiled.

But I don't just hear and/or sing happy songs.  This very morning, I got news that the mother of an old friend passed away, and in my mind I Kristin Chenoweth singing to a green Idina Menzel:

"I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you."

Geeky and lame, I know, but what can I say?  That's how it goes with me.  

And of late, the musical that keeps playing in my mind the most is Les Miserables, the mega hit show from the '80's that has been parodied, reviled, and beloved by people since it first opened.  What makes me think of Les Mis?  Occupy Wall Street.  

In Les Mis, the world is unfair, and the powerful don't really take care of the less fortunate- the ones who work in their factories and fields.  The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer.  The lower ranks, the 99% of pre-revolutionary France, sing "at the end of the day your another day older, and that's all you can say for the life of the poor... and the righteous hurry past, they don't hear the little ones crying".  Eventually, a large group of mostly students get pissed off and start camping out in the biggest city in the land, demanding equality and justice and a new way of doing things.  The voice of the law, a dude named Javert, thinks the lord is on his side, and that somehow Jesus wants the wealthy to stay wealthy and the poor to stay poor.  Can you imagine that?  Anyway, the students build a bunch of barricades, and sing "do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?  It is the music of a people who will not be slavess again.  When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drums, their is a life about to start when tomorrow comes".  

Why don't the rich and powerful ever pay attention to history and/or musical theatre?  Don't they get it?  People are angry, and if they don't change their nasty, greedy way, things are going to get ugly and uglier.  

Here's a suggestion for you, wherever you are.  Get a copy of Les Mis, listen to it, and then go to your local Occupy movement (seems there's one in every town now) and see if it doesn't provide the perfect soundtrack for what's going on.

That's about all I have today- please remember, if you're in NYC, I have a reading of my latest play RIDDLE LOST  Saturday Nov. 19 at 5pm at ART/NY.  For more info, go here:

http://boomerangtheatre.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/three-questions-for-kelly-mcallister/

Also, we're about 75% of the way to our goal for the short film STRONG TEA.  For more info on that, go here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/169962067/strong-teahttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/169962067/strong-tea

I AM THE MOST OFFENDING SOUL ALIVE

So, as most of you know, I've been working on several projects of late.  A short film , a screenplay reading, and a new play called Riddle Lost.  As such, I've been busting my ass promoting, begging, borrowing, and stealing.  And there have been times when I've just felt tired and alone and confused.  I think most of us have moments like that in life- you know, those times when you think your only true supporter is your dog, and you're starting to suspect that his so-called unconditional love has more to do with you feeding him every day than with your inherent worth as a living being in this universe.  Those days when you keep checking your inbox- hoping that at least a couple of folks from the dozens you have emailed about whatever it is you're doing will write back telling you to be strong, fight the good fight, and to believe in yourself because they always have and always will.  It's pathetic, really.  I am one of the luckiest people I know.  To have something to strive towards, to have several projects ongoing in which I get to create theatre and film- my God, it's what I've always wanted.  Still, despair tries to get a toe hold.

Too bad for despair.  My dog does indeed love me- I mean, look at him.

On top of my dog Padfoot, I have an amazing group of friends and family who have supported me time and time again.  I mean, I always cry at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life", when all the people of Bedford Falls come to George's aid in his hour of need, because I can relate- I know what it is to have friends and family like that- and it's beautiful.

The three projects I'm working on now are huge- daunting, really.  Let's face it, success in the arts, at least on the superficial but important level of finance, is tough.  And I have run into the occasional old friend or colleague who has doubted my chances.  Which can be a drag.

But then, I think of what good old Will Shakespeare said in Henry V, and I feel better.   In particular, I think of the St. Crispians Day speech, which in part goes like this:

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

I get that.  Who cares about money?  I want glory- to kick it in the ass and know I did something special and unique and real.  And if you don't want to get on board with me, then I proclaim:

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

I had the great fortune of playing Henry a while back in the fabled early days  of Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot.  It was glorious and fun and one of the experiences that has served me well these many years.  We were a rag tag group of lunatics and artists, with little to no resources.  And we shook the Lower East Side of New York.  

What I'm saying is this- to all who doubt- God bless you, and good luck.  

To those who believe, and you know who you are:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters);
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Last night, my screenplay Burning Man was presented in a reading put on by Harvardwood in NYC.  It was well received, and we shall see what comes of it.  This Saturday, Riddle Lost will be given a reading at ART/NY at 5pm.  I just did a mini-interview about it that you can read here.  Strong Tea, the short film I'm making, has a Kickstarter campaign that so far is doing great- to check that out, go click here.  

I have gathered my forces, and the sun is rising on Agincourt.

MAKING MOVIES, ON LOCATION, DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS

Of late, I'm working on movies.  Two to be exact:  Strong Tea and Burning Man.

Strong Tea is a short about Thanksgiving, family, and murder.  And what is really weird is that when I tell people the basic plot, they all say "oh, that sounds like my family on Turkey Day!"  Weird in that, in the movie, people get killed so that other people in the family can move from the kids table to the adults table.  Apparently, most families have the dreaded two table system at Thanksgiving- the nice table for the adults, and the not so nice table for the kids.  In my family, the kids table was usually a card table, or on one infamous night, a ping-pong table in the garage.  It's one of those things that we laugh about now, but at the time was a source of tension.

And fodder for drama.

About a year ago, I needed to write a new one act for the Humana Festival.  My play Hela and Troy was just a finalist for the Heideman award there, and I wanted to enter something new.   It was around November, and the kids table came to mind, and in about a day, I wrote the play version of Strong Tea.  People liked it, one thing lead to another, and I decided to make  a short film of it.  And it's been really fun, so far.  We shoot in about a month.

Burning Man is the screen adaptation of my most successful play to date, Burning the Old Man.  This too is one of my stories that people say they can relate to- and that's weird, because this one is about some really messed up brothers stuck in the middle of the Nevada desert shortly after their father commits suicide.  The brothers fight, hate and love each other in equal measure, and can't seem to get where they want to go.   First produced by Boomerang Theatre Comapany, it won the 2005 NYIT award for Outstanding Full Length Script, went on to a production in Prague at Divadlo na Zabradi, and has been published in Plays and Playwrights 2006, several scene and monologue books, and is now available online via Indie Theater Now.

And on top of that, this Monday, Nov. 14 at 6pm at Solas, Harvardwood is presenting a reading of it.  If you're in NYC, I hope you come see it.

I don't know what any of this means, other than than when I write about sad, strange, lost people- the public seems to respond.  And that I think the movie gods are trying to tell me something about where I am going and what I should be doing.

BURNING MAN AT SOLAS

The Harvardwood Actors' Program, in association with the American Repertory Theatre / Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University Alumni Association will present a reading of Kelly McAllister's screenplay Burning Man.

Photograph ©GretjenHelene.com

Burning Man photography provided by Gretjen Helene <www.gretjenhelene.com/burningman>

Photograph ©GretjenHelene.com

Burning Man photography provided by Gretjen Helene <www.gretjenhelene.com/burningman>

Monday November 14th
6:00 PM (reading will start promptly at 6:00 - please arrive a little early to grab a drink and find a seat)

Solas Bar
2nd floor seating area - no elevator access
232 E 9th St

Free admission
No reservations needed, seating is first come first serve on the upper level.Trying to fulfill their father’s dying wish of having his ashes scattered at the Burning Man festival, two brothers who can’t stand each other find themselves stranded in the middle of the Nevada Desert.  They have no money, no car, and only 24 hours before the festival ends. An epic story about two not-so-epic lives

*Christian Grunnah - MARTY
*Paul Murillo - BOBBY
*Rebecca West - JO
*Anna Rahn - CANDY
*Jason Beaubien - EARTH
*Tim Eliot - EDDY / THE OLD MAN
*Doug Chapman - LIQUOR STORE CLERK, GAS STATION ATTENDANT & BIKER DUDE
*Chudney Sykes - LADY BARFLY, Stage DirectionsAll actors are alumni from the American Repertory Theatre / Moscow Art Theatre Institute at Harvard MFA program.

Kelly McAllister- Plays include: Burning the Old Man, which won the 2005 NYIT award for Outstanding Full Length Script and is featured in One on One- Best Men’s
Monologues for the 21st Century and Duo! The Best Scenes for Two for the 21st Century (Applause Books), Best Men’s Monologue’s 2005 (Smith & Kraus), and Plays and Playwrights 2006 (NYTE); Hela and Troy, finalist 2011 Humana Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, published by Playscripts, inc.; Last Call, 2002 FringeNYC Excellence in Playwriting award, featured in Best Stage Scenes 2002 (Smith & Kraus) and the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2003 (NYTE); Muse of Fire; The Morons, winner 2005 Ten by Ten one act contest at Triangle Theatre Company, NC; Some Unfortunate Hour; The Rembrandt section of The Heist Project, in collaboration with Art House Productions; and Fenway: Last of the Bohemians. He had his first international production in May 2009, when Divadlo na Zabradli of Prague opened Cesta Horiciho Muze, the Czech translation of Burning the Old Man- where it is still performing to sold out houses. He is currently working on his first film, a short called Strong Tea. His plays have been produced and/or workshopped by many fine theatres, including Boomerang Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, hope theatre, inc., Impetuous Theatre Group, Gravity and Glass Productions, the Playwrights Collective of Seattle, Children’s Theatre Workshop, and The Other Theatre of Denver. In 2003, San Jose State University named him Graduate of the Last Decade for the School of Humanities. He was also a senior reviewer for nytheatre.com for 2003-2005. You can read his blog at rkmcallister.blogspot.com. He is represented by Scott Edwards of Harden-Curtis NYC, 212-977-8502.

PAST projects of the Harvardwood group include The Pilot Season Survival Guide, a reading of Marc Sulley's Last of the Navesink River Divers, Beth McGee's The Possessions of Mary Todd Lincoln, Kate Mulley's screenplay Zandy, and Elana Zucker's screenplay The Weathergirl.

For more information email Adam Kern at hapnyc@gmail.com