MONDAY PLAYLIST: SPIKE, HELA, TROY, & KILL ME NOW

Monday morning, cold and bright. Clear as can be, really. Took our morning walk, and the mountains were so perfectly visible it didn't seem real. Snow capped and pink in the dawn, they seemed to exude glory and hope and magic, while maintaining the aloof mystery that nature keeps at all times to remind us we are but fleas on the backs of giants. I'm sitting in my little den, listening to suggested songs from Apple Music, an eclectic mix based on what I've played before, a little Courtney Barnett, a bit of Jane's Addiction. The songs wander my mind, mixing with the coffee and toast. 

And I stare at the screen. 

I jumped back into this blog when the lockdown happened. Back in that other dimension known as the past. Isn't time fucked up these days? In every sense, I think time has gone out of joint, that we've all taken Billy Pilgrim's cue and gotten unhinged, bouncing back and forth from then to then, now to now, with no rhyme or reason or proper sense of the season. Some days last a month. Some months come and go unnoticed. 

And I don't even care that much that I live in a different universe than I once did. I still hear the music. I still see the mountains. I still enjoy the warmth of my covers when the alarm goes off each day. And somehow, even within this disjointed timey-wimey reality, I wake up three minutes before the alarm, with out fail. So maybe somewhere in my brain, in my soul, in this Elseworld, a little timepiece clicks on in precisely measured steps.

Who knows?

Whatever the case, I am working on several projects, and I think the next chunk of this blog will be about a new script I'm working on, my journey while I create it, and all that jazz.

The script has no title as of yet, but I am leaning towards Kill Me Now. It's loosely based on my play Burning the Old Man. And when I say loosely, I mean it. 

But the spirit is there. The essence. The idea of how we are all haunted and crazy and in need of love. Not very new, but what is? I find most movies and shows that claim over and over how they are new and different are anything but that. Let's face it, when someone has to tell you what they are, how what they are selling is the next step in evolution, it is more often than not a bunch of bullshit wrapped in glittery paper.

So Kill Me Now. Set in Texas. Funny, sad, maybe exciting. It's the result of meeting a director at the Austin Film Festival and hitting it off and deciding we should do something together. From there, director introduces me to producer, we have some phone calls, and next thing you know, I'm working on getting a draft out by the end of the month.

End of the month. Fuck. That's soon. And in this month, I've opened a large production of Wizard of Oz down at the PACE, am about to open a pair of one acts, and began a high school production of the Wedding Singer up at StageDoor. 

The one acts start Thursday, at Chaos Bloom, a little performance space on Broadway here in Denver. The first is a play called Spike, and it is intense and brilliant and written by my good friend Shannon Brady. It's about a woman coming to terms with her past in the form of an old friend coming to town on a dark mission.  The other one act is Hela and Troy, by yours truly. It's about what happens when the Norse Goddess of Death goes speed dating. 

If you want to come see it, click HERE.

So yeah. 

That's me today. Hope to see you at the theatre, or on the street so we can gaze at the mountains in wonder, or in my eclectic mind as I write these stories of lunatics and poets.

Until then, here's a song from this mornings suggested playlist. It's I've Been Down by Haim, a group I've been listening to a lot lately as I just discovered them. 

I AM A MYSTIC IN TRAINING

I think the universe leads me around the planet, and I happen upon certain things- pieces of music, people, events- at appointed times. Well, maybe not appointed, like "on March 1, 2013 at 10:15 am, while walking his dog Padfoot, he will hear a song on his Hawk and a Handsaw station on Pandora that will inspire him to write a scene between Jaypes and Norn as a hot dog vendor ala Ignatius from Confederacy of Dunces", but more like there are all these secret doorways to insight and spiritual tranquility that have are set all around the universe, and if I want to follow a certain path, achieve some sort of destiny, I need to find those doorways, those hidden Easter Eggs on the DVD of me. Maybe life is like whatever algorithm Pandora uses to figure out what music we would like, and the choices we make lead us to logical places. I read a book when I'm in fourth grade that turns me on to Norse mythology, which leads me to read other books on myths and fate, and over the years I accumulate all this seemingly useless knowledge, trivia really- until one day I write a play with Hela in it, which leads to another play with Hel and Raven in it, which leads to yet another play with the three Norns smashed into one character in it.

I really don't know, and I suppose in the grand scheme of things, and in the not so grand as well, it doesn't really matter. As Popeye, famous one-eyed sailor and lover of spinach would proclaim, I am what I am, whether by choice or fate, and all I can do it live my life as well as I can, try to find some sort of moral compass- be it part of natural law or of human construct.

Which is a long winded way of saying I am feeling connected to the world at this particular moment in time. I feel as if I am doing what I should be doing with myself in order to live the life I want to live. And a huge part of that is because I am happy with my latest play. At the same time, there is a loneliness when writing something- a feeling like no one else can see this brave new world coming to life in your brain, or alternate universe, or where ever it is that stories live.  Still, it's quite euphoric being me right now. And this feeling of well being urges me further- not only to work on the new show (working title: Don't Get Too Comfy, Pal), but to finally finish post-production of Strong Tea, get to work on a screenplay idea I have that mashes up the story of Edgar Cayce with all those reality/paranormal shows on cable these days, clean up Rose Red- which is having another production this June in Boulder and possibly more in Ohio and California- and on and on. Nothing inspires like inspiration.

Right now, I'm rewriting and rewriting and then rewriting Don't Get Too Comfy, Pal. At the same time, the first draft is being read and judged by the good people at the Fine Arts Center in Colorado Springs as an entrant in their Rough Writers event. So I want all of you to face Colorado Springs from wherever you are, and send a telepathic command to whomever is reading the play, telling them to put it in the festival.

I am fairly certain I am hoping to become, or already am, a mystic.

SABRINA

So now that we’re in, what’s the plan?

AHAB

Grab the pinball machine Dickhead gave her, throw it out the window, and escape into the night!

RIDDLE'S IN THE DARK

Jefferson Davis Riddle wasn't always Jefferson Davis Riddle. Until he was about ten years old, he was a boy named Charka, which meant handsome youth in the language of his mother's people. He came from the Lost River. His mother was a Modoc, his father a white settler. He was born during the Civil War, and died as World War II was beginning. I don't know why, but the guy haunts me. So I wrote a play about him, and the events that twisted him into a riddle.

Well, that's not entirely true- but then again, what is?

I set out initially to write a play about the Modoc War of 1872-1873 that happened in Northern California and Oregon, which is mainly a story about Captain Jack, a Modoc chief whose story is Shakespearean in scope. His story is one of heroism and betrayal on a massive scale- and I do include that in my play.

But once I began writing, the play quickly became about Riddle himself, and what it means to be a mix of good and bad- to not really know what your roots are, where you come from, and where you're going. I think most of us here in America can relate to that. Seems like most of us have family trees that get lost in the mists of time. We all come from the displaced, the lost, the removed ones- and our family histories are mixed up collages of myth and mystery.



As I wrote the play, more and more characters who are lost, twisted, and/or crazy started showing up. First came Hel- Norse goddess of death who is half beautiful enchantress, half dead thing whose father is Loki- god of chaos, thieves, and madness and whose mother is an ice giantess named Angrboda. Clearly, she has some family issues of her own. (I also have a one act about her going speed-dating called Hela and Troy) Then along came Raven- trickster god of the Pacific Northwest who sometimes is his own grandpa- just like that stupid song. Raven was my own father's favorite mythological character- and as such, he carries a lot of weight.  Then there's Mimir, a chopped off head of a wise man that's still alive. In the play, I've made Mimir be a wise-woman whose sex has been misrepresented in the stories to both illustrate how stories change with time, and also to make the show have more female roles.  And then there's ghost of Pocahantas- after they changed her name to Lady Rolfe and shipped her off to England, where she died of a broken heart. She shows up in the third act, and I find her hysterical and really sad.

The play is just full of happy folk.

And it's got a lot of humor. Sounds weird, I know- but let's face it, we turn to humor most when things are going particularly bad- and it's been that way from Aristophanes to SNL. I think the reason the Irish and Russians have such dark senses of humor is because if they didn't, they'd go mad.

Anyhow, I'm telling you all this because this August 24, there's going to be a free staged reading of the play- which is called RIDDLE LOST, presented by 2X4 BASH at The Western Stage, directed by Skot Davis. That's in Salinas, CA. A beautiful place to spend a day in August.

I want you all to come see it. All of you. Now go.

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.