1 GIANT LEAP DAY

I'm having a good day.

Make that a good week.  Things are just happening that are sweet, empowering, and exciting.  Where to begin?

First, I got notified this morning that I'm a finalist for Pitch-n-play, a contest put on by Playscripts, inc. where you entered via twitter various pitches, or ideas, for plays based on the quote "the course of true love never did run smooth. (if you want to follow me on twitter, I'm @rkmcallister)   From the hundreds of submissions, 30 semi-finalists were chosen. Then there was a week-long online voting period, where the general public voted on the 30 entries.  The top 10 were named today, and I am in.  My pitch was "real Puck messes with hearts of teens during high school prod of Midsummer Nights Dream".  The announcement was made by direct message on twitter.  When I didn't get a tweet notifying me I was a finalist by 9pm NYC time, which is where Playscripts is located, I figured I wasn't in, and took the dog for a walk.  Then, about an hour later, my iPhone told me I was mentioned in a tweet from Playscripts.  And there it was- the magic words congratulations.  Now I wait a week, while they decide from those ten finalist the final three pitches, which will each get a chance to be published.  For more on the contest, go here.

I like winning contests.

Second, I wrapped Strong Tea, my first movie, this week-end.  Making movies is a lot of work- much more than I had thought it would be.  But it's also exhilarating.   And addictive.  The cast and crew were outstanding, and the shoot could not have gone better.  More on that in the next blog.

Third, tonight my play Burning the Old Man is performing yet again in the Czech Repbulic, at Divadlo Exil in the city of Pardubice.  Still can't get over the idea that thousands of miles away, people I have never met are performing something I wrote, translated into a language I don't speak.  Amazing.

And Fourth, it's Leap Day.  Here's a little 1 Giant Leap love for you.

So Happy Leap Day, world.  Thanks for everything.

IN THE NEXT ROOM

The theatre at the Fine Arts Center in Colorado Springs has done it again.  I've had the great good fortune of seeing every show there this season, and so far, each production has exceeded my expectations in every way imaginable.  First I saw Leslie Bramm's Lovers Leapt- fantastic, tragic, timely.  Then I saw Stephen Sondheim's Assassins.  Brilliant.  Then came A Year with Frog and Toad- sweet, joyous fun.  And now Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, which was funny, sad, thought provoking- your basic outstanding night at the theatre.  The first three plays I saw at the FAC were all deftly directed by Scott RC Levy, the new Artistic Director of the company who has programmed a season that is just fantastic- exciting, entertaining, and elevating.  In the Next Room is directed by Joye Cook-Levy perfectly, with just the right balance between comedy and drama.  I don't know what they eat in the Levy/Cook-Levy house, but it must be some kind of meta-theatre super food that produces super powered theatre people.  How else can you explain so much talent in one household?

The play itself is a comedic drama, or rather a dramatic comedy, is set somewhere in the Victorian age, and is about a Doctor Givings, who uses the fairly new invention of what we call a vibrator to help women, and some men, overcome "hysteria".  The central character in the play is the doctors wife, Catherine- who goes from scatter-brained housewife to fairly modern woman in the course of the play.  The actors are to a one pitch perfect.  The dialogue is somewhere between the well made plays of Shaw or Wilde and the hard hitting realism of Ibsen- but the cast pulls it off wonderfully, at just the right pace for us to digest what is going on and still keep us leaning into the action.  Stephanie Phil plays Catherine with intelligence, sensitivity, and a keen sense of humor.  Chad Siebert plays Doc Givings just right, making him at once a bit of an insensitive husband and also a lost, sad man who doesn't really know how to connect to his wife.  Max Ferguson plays an artist who suffers from hysteria and has several memorable run ins with a device from Chattanooga that brought the house down.  Marisa Hebert is strong as Elizabeth, a wet nurse who serves as the catalyst for Catherine's journey, and then provides some insight into martial bliss in the second act.  Tracy Liz Miller and Tom Auclair play a couple who come to the doctor for help with their hysteria problems, and bring humanity to these rather silly people.  And Amy Brooks plays Annie, the doctors assistant, so sweetly, so softly and sadly that she was my favorite character in the play.

Next at the FAC:  Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.  I can't wait.

And now, on a complete tangent of self promotion- I am a semi-finalist in a pitch contest that Playscripts, inc. is throwing.   A pitch is a basic idea for a story.  In this contest, called Pitch-n-Play, hundreds of playwrights tweeted their pitches, and 30 were chosen as semi-finalists.  Now, through online voting, 3 finalists will be chosen, and then one winner will be given an advance on their play, whihc will be published by Playscripts, inc.  Please go here and vote for me- my pitch in the one about the real Puck messing with teens during a high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Now go out there and GET YOUR THEATRE ON.

HELA, TROY, AND THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

So I'm taking part in this twitter based contest, sponsored by Playscripts, inc.  It's called Pitch-n-Play, and what you do is tweet a pitch for a short play than can have around 8 characters and be about 20-40 minutes long.   The play has to somehow relate to the quote "the course of true love never did run smooth."  It's actually quite fun coming up with different ideas, and a great excuse to kick some stuff around that might become my next play.

Some of my ideas, in no particular order:

Doctor trying save wife finds cure for cancer, but side effect is you lose the ability to love

Right wing undercover reporter falls for OWS protester and must hide identity

Minister trying to pray away the gay accidentally summons Cupid and falls in love with him.

For a list of all tweets in the contest, go here.  And enter yourself.  It's fun, it's free, and takes very little time.  While you're there, if you haven't already, give me a follow @rkmcallister.

I like Playscripts.  This is no doubt due to the fact that they already publish one of my plays, a one act called Hela and Troy.  I wrote it at the request of Reyna de Courcy, a fantastic young actress who played Sunny in the first production of Fenway.  Her company, Gravity & Glass Productions, was doing a festival called Bell, Book, and Candle- all about love in fantastical settings, and she asked me if I wanted to submit something.  Being the always hungry writer that I am, I immediately said yes.  And I got this image of the Norse Goddess of death, Hela, being lonely and going speed dating.  And the play sort of just popped out of my head, like Aphrodite from the brow of Zeus, if I may mix my pantheons.



Here's a snippet from the play, where Hela meets Troy- who tries to be witty be asking unusual questions.

TROY

Hi.  I’m speed date number 10- also known as Troy.  This might sound strange- what doesn’t when you’re speed dating- anyway, I’m asking everyone- all my dates of speed- the same question:  do you want to steal a car with me?

HELA

I don’t know- if I told you that my little brother was a huge Wolf named Fenris and that he once bit off the hand of Tyr in anger at being tricked by the Gods, would that disgust you?

TROY

I don’t know- I’ve never met your brother, so it isn’t really my business, is it?

HELA

Sit down.

The play got an awesome production.  It was directed by John Hurley, and had Shashanah Dattilo as Hela, Ben Ellis Fine as Troy, and Alisha Speilmann as Mandy.  It was well received, and soon I got a call from my agent saying Playscripts wanted to publish it.  I said yippee, and that was that.  So far, lots of copies have been sold, and another production came about as a direct result of those, in Canada.

Next week-end, I'm shooting my short film Strong Tea.  More on that soon.

One more thing- if you're in NYC this week-end, Robbie Gil is playing the Rockwood Music Hall at 10pm.  He's an amazing singer/songwriter, and if you haven't seen him yet, do so.  You will not regret it.

FINDING BIGFOOT

I am a geek- always have been, always will be.  I love Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, and played Dungeons & Dragons a lot in high school.  I read comic books at the book store- and I mean comic books, as opposed to graphic novels (which I also read).  I always check to see what's on Discovery, History, Science and such in the hopes that some paranormal show will be on.  Sometimes I call myself a nerdling- part nerd, part halfling, all geek.  I don't know why, I just know that it is so.

Of late, one of my favorite shows to watch is Finding Bigfoot, a sort of reality show that I think might secretly be the latest product from Christopher Guest, the genius who gave us Waiting for Guffman.  It just seems a little too weird, and the people a little...well, let's just say they strain credulity.

The show follows the adventures of a supposedly real life field team for BFRO- which stands for Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.  There are four researchers on the team, and they go from town to town, investigating sightings of Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, or as they like to call him on the show, Squatch- which sounds to me like something that happens to you after eating too much spicy food.  "Are you ok in there?"  "No, I got a bad case of Squatch".  "Well, light a match when you're done".

The team consists of Matt Moneymaker, who reminds me of Corky from Waiting for Guffman; Bobo Fay- a big stoner who may or may not be part Squatch himself; Cliff Barackman, another Squatch enthusiast with slightly better hair than Mr. Moneymaker; and Ranae Holland- the kind of butch skeptic who might secretly be Jane Lynch.

It's awesome.

I mean, you do get the eye witness reports of sightings of the big guy, the occasional video of something in the distance that may or may not be an ape man, and all that good stuff.  But the real fun is the crew- how they talk about themselves, each other, and all things Squatch.  There's something sweet, and also very silly, about the team- sometimes they take themselves way too seriously, and there's a lot of bickering- but underneath all are these goofy people who want to find something mysterious out there in the world that can take our breath away.  I like that.

And I do believe in Bigfoot, UFO's, and the Loch Ness Monster.  I even saw a pair of ghosts once, which I will write about in a future blog.

Please don't forget to check out my plays available online at Indie Theater Now:  Last Call; Muse of Fire; Burning the Old Man; Some Unfortunate Hour; and Fenway: Last of the Bohemians.

Now go find some Squatch!