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

BOO

Twenty-one years ago today, I went to New York City for the first time in my life.  I had just finished a cross country trip with a friend I had made that summer doing summer stock at the Barn Theatre in Michigan.  He was from a little town in Jersey called Peapack.  We spent about a week traversing the country, and had gone to places like Ashland, Oregon to see the Shakespeare festival, and Twin Falls, Idaho to see where Evel Kneivel tried to jump the Snake River with his rocket/motorcycle thing.  I even saw my first moose when we drove through Yellowstone days before it closed for the winter.  Somewhere, there is an old box full of old photos of that trip- I don't know where, exactly, and hope to come across it before I kick- but until then, I have to rely on my mind's eye.  Anyway, we ended up in Peapack on October 30, and on the next day we took the train into NYC, crossing under the Hudson River and emerging from Penn station like ants crawling out of their colony.  I remember thinking of the Hopi, and their belief that when they were created, they came into this world from an older one via a hole in the ground.  Here I was, a neo-Hopi, coming out of a hole in the ground from my old world and into a new one.  It was exciting, strange, and a little scary.  We walked all over town, first going up to Hell's Kitchen, then down to the Village, ending up near Union Square where a my buddies girl friend from the summer- a drama major at NYU- lived.   We watched the Halloween parade, which to me looked like a cross between Mardi-gras and a zombie apocalypse.  It was glorious.  From there, we proceeded to Rock Around the Clock, and bistro near St. Mark's Place, and drank a lot of raspberry kamikazes.  A lot.  At one point in the evening, after things had become fuzzy, my buddy's girl made a pass at me- which was shocking and flattering and uncomfortable.  The three of us staggered back to her place, and crashed.  Well, I crashed- they got into an argument.   I was awoken at dawn by my friend, who informed me that he and his lady friend were breaking up, and it was time to go.  I was exhausted, somewhere between hung over and still drunk, and not in the mood to go anywhere.  But he was insistent.  So off we trudged, through now mostly empty streets, which were full of the remnants of the nights revelries.

That's NYC to me- dramatic, strange, and intriguing.  She's been very good to me over the years.  I've had the great fortune of having most of my plays produced there, and for several years wrote reviews for nytheatre.com - one of the best sites for theatre in the country.  I can't think of another city in the world where you can go to a show every day of the year, and never repeat yourself.  

And this November, Gotham is treating me kindly again, with two readings.  First, on November 14, Harvardwood NYC is presenting a reading of Burning Man, a screenplay based on my play Burning the Old Man, at 6pm at Solas 232 E. 9th St.  And then on November 19, Boomerang Theatre Co. is presenting a reading of my latest play, Riddle Lost, at 5pm at ART/NY 520 8th Ave. 3rd floor.  If you are around NYC, I really hope you can make it.  I don't know if it'll be as amazing for you as that first day in Manhattan was for me, but it just might be.

EAT A BAG OF WHAT?

So I had just finished directing Muse of Fire, my second full length play, for hope theatre, inc. as part of the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival, and feeling really good about all things theatre.   The play had gotten a rave review from Martin Denton, sold out most its performances, and everyone involved in the show had kicked ass.  On top of that, I had just gotten cast as Boxer the Horse in a puppet version of Animal Farm being produced by Synapse Productions and directed by David Travis- and it was a really shaping up to be a cool, cutting edge, brilliant show.  And on top of that awesomeness, Tim Errickson, old friend and the Artistic Director of Boomerang Theatre Company, asked me if I wanted to write a play for the Boomerangs.

I said yes before he had finished his sentence.

So, now I had to find a play.  At this point in my writing, I wanted to set all my plays in California.  I'm not sure if it was a sense of loyalty of where I came from, a severe belief in the dictum "write what you know", or just something that struck my fancy.  In any event, the new play would be set in California.  So I started thinking about the Golden State, and what would make a good play.   And I came across an article in the SF Gate, the online version of the old newspaper The Chronicle, about Burning Man.  It was a brief history of the festival- how it had started on a Baker Beach in San Francisco one summer solstice night in 1986, and had grown into this huge festival held every summer in the desert outside of Reno, Nevada that culminated with a bonfire where a huge figure would be burnt in effigy.  According to the article, people are supposed to bring things to the festival that want to be rid of- bad feelings, old wounds, etc.- and symbolically toss them in the fire and move on with their lives.

This sounded like a good thing to have in a play.  And Reno is very close to the California border- in fact, I spent a fair amount of time near there when I was a kid, as my Uncle Donald had a ranch near there.  So cool, Burning Man would be part of the story.  And I thought, what is someone was trying to get to Burning Man to toss some past wound into the fire, but got stuck on the way?  That would be a good obstacle for someone to try and overcome.  And while trying to get there, lots of juicy stuff could come out.

Now, my father had recently died- and it really sucked ass.  And I had been thinking a lot about how when people die, you are left with a lot of unresolved issues- unspoken grievances, unanswered questions, un-cried tears.  So I would have someone trying to get over a death.  No- why not have two people?  Brothers, who are opposite in almost every way, bound together by blood, constantly at each other's throats?  Yeah, that sounded good to me.  I often have two opposites stuck together in my plays- yins and yangs, order and chaos...and Bobby and Marty.  That would be their names- and they would sort of represent two aspects of me.  The slacker and the worrier.   Of course, once I started writing, they took a life of their own, and did what they wanted.  Which is how it usually goes with me- I'll come up with some idea for a story, and start writing, and all of a sudden the characters take on a life of their own, and do and say what they want, and I just write down whatever it is I see and hear then doing.  Which might make me a little crazy, but I think it was Zorba who said a man needs a little craziness in his life.

Now, I would be lying to say that there is not a lot of me in this show, a lot of my issues with death, and my father, as well as my mom and my step-dad.  I grew up in a rather dramatic household- a world of fathers who had left long ago, alcoholism, and denial.  And a lot of that is in Burning the Old Man.  But I'd also be lying if I said this is an autobiographical play.  It is a story, told by me, about people who are sort of crazy.

Anyhow.  I let all these ideas run around in my head for a day or two, and then sat down, and started writing...and it came out in a torrent.  I mean the whole thing.  I couldn't type fast enough.  I'd write until two or three in the morning, fall asleep, then wake up an hour later with a new bit of dialogue that demanded attention.  It was pretty freaky, and liberating, and exciting.

The play starts with Marty and Bobby on their way to Burning Man.   They are taking their late father's ashes, with the intent of throwing them on the fire at the end of the festival.  This is per their late father's dying wishes.  To up the stakes, I make it the day before the bonfire.  They're running late.  And then, their car explodes.  Well, first it catches fire, they pull into a run down motel in the middle of nowhere, and then it blows up.  And there's no cell phone reception.  And the explosion has taken down the phone line.  And the only person at the motel is Jo, a sort of Stepford Wife wannabe who has no car and whose husband works far away and won't be home until very late.   And figuring all that out took about as long as it did to type this paragraph.

It just poured out, pre-formed and beautiful.  I named the motel The Delphi, after the famous oracle of Greek mythology who people went to for wisdom and guidance.  In the opening scene, Jo is at the counter in the lobby, singing show tunes to herself, when Bobby runs in, screaming at his brother "Eat a bag of dicks, fuckhole!", a phrase I had once heard Brett Christensen say.  In my mind, Brett was Bobby, and indeed ended up playing him in the first production, so I figured what the hell?

I wrote the first draft in less than a month, and Boomerang did a reading of it as part of their First Flight series, directed by Tim Errickson.  The cast included Tim McCracken as Marty, Brett Christensen as Bobby, Siobhan Mahoney as Candy, Philip Emeott as Earth, Mac Brydon as Eddy, and Sara Thigpen as Jo.

And with that reading, we were off to the races.

To Be Continued...

Burning the Old Man is currently available in the anthology "Plays and Playwrights 2006", available here:
http://www.nytesmallpress.com/pp06.php

It also won the 2005 NYIT Award for Outstanding Full Length Script.   For more info, go here:
http://www.nyitawards.com/

It also went on to a long run at Divadlo na Zabradli of Prauge.  For more info, go here:
http://www.nazabradli.cz/repertoar/repertoar/kelly-mcallister-cesta-horiciho-muze/

And next month, it opens at another there in the Czech Republic, Divadlo Exil.  For more info, go here:
http://www.divadloexil.cz/?page_id=12

BACKWARDS AND WRONG

Love is evil, spelled backwards and wrong.

So says Earth, neo-hippie and seeker of truth in my third play, BURNING THE OLD MAN.  It's a great line.  People quote it often, and I've seen it used by others on blogs, aritcles, etc.

I stole it.

There's a saying that I first heard from Richard Parks, one of my teachers at San Jose State University.  Richard was a mad man, a genius, and one of the most memorable people I ever met- one of those teachers who would say something in such a way as to make it funny, revelatory, and pertinent all at the same time.  He also had a wicked temper, which would show up now and then, usually during rehearsal for something he was directing and which wasn't going well.  One memorable night during dress rehearsal for Lysistrata he shouted out "Change your majors!" and marched out of the building.  At the time, it was both hilarious and embarrassing.  But he also was brilliant, and knew how to get the best out of us.    Once, I think it was during rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream,  somebody mentioned how Shakespeare had taken a lot of his plot lines from other sources, and somebody else opined that that meant Shakespeare was just a copy cat.  Doctor Parks raised he eyebrows dramatically, and pronounced to us all that "great artists don't copy, they steal", meaning that if you aren't that good at what you do, then you will often imitate other peoples work- but if you're a true artist, you can take that idea and make it your own- improved, or at least different, and unique.

And that's why I feel okay about stealing Earth's line, and indeed, the character of Earth himself.

Let me explain.  Long ago, and far away, my brother Jerry and I worked for a children's theatre company in Pleasanton, California.  The money was good, and that job was fun- but we had a lot of extra time on our hands, and needed an extra outlet for ourselves.  Somehow, we convinced the local cable company to give us a cable access show- and not only that, but to provide us with cameras and editing room time- all for free.   We named the show Pleasantonland, and basically just shot hours and hours of ourselves goofing around, drinking beer, and talking with other theatre people about life, art, and whatever else came to mind.   It was self-indulgent in the extreme- and we had a blast.  During one of our shoots, we decided that the show should have a guest poet- a sort of fake, over the top, new age gone bad kind of poet- and my buddy Brian Faraone volunteered for the job.  But he didn't want to be called Brian- he wanted to be called Earth.  We thought that sounded perfect- so, while filming, I looked at the camera "And now it's time for a poem from our guest today, Earth!"  Brian walked up, wearing a beret and lots of attitude, looked at the camera and said in perfect deadpan, "Love is evil, spelled backwards, and wrong", and walked off.  It was friggin' brilliant.  We laughed our asses off.

Cut to ten years later.  I'm writing a play for Boomerang Theatre Company about two brothers on their way to the Burning Man festival who get stuck in the desert and run into, among other things, a couple of neo-hippies.  Somewhere in my brain, I remember Brian as Earth, and write him into the show- and it's a perfect fit.  

And that's how I stole Earth from Brian for my show.  Not that I feel too bad- Brian had stolen the idea of Earth from an actual neo-hippie he met in Santa Cruz who would say ridiculous things like "I don't wear shoes- they're a rule of society I find silly".  So fair's fair.

To Be Continued...

Burning the Old Man is available in print in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2006 and will soon be featured on Indie Theater Now.
http://www.nytesmallpress.com/pp06.php
www.indietheaternow.com