AT SOME UNFORTUNATE HOUR...

Continuing my series about where my plays come from- here's the story of SOME UNFORTUNATE HOUR, a happy little piece about a guy losing his mind.

I had just gotten through the premiere performance of Burning the Old Man, which was produced by Boomerang Theatre Co., directed by Tim Errickson.  It was a big hit, won the first ever NYIT Award for Outstanding Full Length Script, and got published- first in full by NYTE as part of their Plays and Playwrights Series.  Then it went on to be featured in scene books and anthologies from Applause Books and Smith and Kraus.  And then, to make me feel like Superman, the show gets a 3 year run in Prague at the fabled Divaldlo na Zabradli.  In the Fall of 2004, I didn't know all that was going to happen- just that I had a really good play on my hands, and it was going places.  What to do now?

I thought it would be cool to write as long a scene as possible that would hold people's interest and be viable as a piece of theatre.  It was one of those "this would be a fun experiment" type of notions.  Now all I needed was something to write about- and fate, as usual, provided material.  First, I got a call from an old friend telling me he was getting divorced.  We had many conversations in the following months about divorce, love, life- you know, all the things friends talk about when going through some serious issues.  Second, shortly after hearing about my buddy's divorce, I was at a party, eavesdropping- a habit lots of writers do without even realizing they're doing it.  I was listening to these two young ladies sizing up the party, and in particular the young men at the party.  One girl said "that guy thinks he's gonna end up with you tonight".  The other girl rolled her eyes, and in a very direct tone said "well, at some unfortunate hour, he's gonna realize that he's an asshole".  The girls laughed and changed the subject, but I was struck by the idea that a person would have this hour in their life where they suddenly realize some ugly truths about themselves.  

And the wheels in the playwright section of my brain started to turn.

How about a play set in a bar where a guy who has just gotten divorced has his unfortunate hour, the one where he realizes that maybe he's kind of responsible for what's been happening to him?  Yeah, and the dude is kind of crazy and charming and drunk.   Drunk and/or stoned characters are great to write in that they allow for lots of danger, emotion, and language that is all over the map.  So I start to write.  I test out some of it at The Pool, a writers group in NYC.  People respond positively.  I read some of it over to the phone to my recently divorced friend.  He digs it, a lot.  Things start to fall in place.  I name the guy in the bar Tom, after Poor Mad Tom O'Bedlam- a figure from old English literature who is referenced in King Lear.  At first, I have Tom just ranting to no one in particular- but as I go along, I decide to have him talking to a bar tender.  And then, I think to myself- what if the bar tender is a woman who has always carried a torch for old Tom?   Kind of adds dramatic tension.  I like this idea, and Janus, the smart ass and long suffering bar tender, is born.  I name her Janus after the Old Roman God of doorways and beginnings- because I'm nerdy like that.  

So things are cooking along with the show.  I got an opening monologue that I am pretty happy with- and everyone I read or recite it to by memory really seems to respond.   In that opening monologue, Tom goes on about how all he wants from a wife is some faith, hope, and charity- a reference to First Corinthians 13:13, which you've probably heard at numerous weddings, (and which I recall from my youth, when I wanted to become a minister- but that's a story for another day).  I figure, why not have a lady walk in who Tom instantly falls for- and tries to hook up with?  And, just for shits and giggles, why not have her name be Charity?  

Here's the opening monologue:

TOM

It comes down to two choices, when you get down to it.  You can either be Asshole Happy Clown, or Idiot Sad Clown.  Asshole Happy Clown is happy because he thinks people suck-that we're just a bunch of assholes.  And he is constantly proved right.  So he smiles, not so much because he's glad the world sucks, but because, asshole that he is, nothing makes him happier than being right.  Even if it's about something terrible.   Idiot Sad Clown is the optimist of the pair.  He thinks-no, believes-in the inherent goodness of people.  He holds out great hope for us all.   And he is continually heartbroken.   People do the stupidest shit imaginable, on a constant basis-both to themselves and to each other.  They lie to each other.  They take advantage of each other.  They don't tell you what's really going on inside, even if you ask them again and again.  “What's going on?” “Nothing, everything's fine.”  They leave you.  With little to no explanation.  They say things like, “This package was broke when you bought it,” whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.   Who says shit like that?  Broke when you bought it?  Not only is that fucked up in its own right, it implies a belief that most of us packages aren't broken.  That most of us are just fine.  Which is crazy.   I promise you, there are no unbroken packages.  None of us are without a dent or two or twelve.   Broke when you bought it?  Jesus fucking Christ!  When I got married, what I had hoped for-what I prayed for, in my lapsed Irish Catholic way (takes a shot of whiskey from the bar, steps downstage and looks up.  He crosses himself with the shot)-the three things I was looking for in my wife were, in no particular order: Faith, Hope, and/ or Charity. (downs the shot)  What did I get?  The complaint department at Sears!  I got the fucking Maytag Repairman!  Looking for a wife, I got some old turd telling me that he has the loneliest job on the face of the Earth.  Which is bullshit.  The loneliest job on the face of the Earth was, until this afternoon, according to a certain paper I signed down at the courthouse, held by me.  Oh  my dear God.  I'm the Maytag Repairman!  Ah, Jesus, I don't want to fix washing machines.  I want-No,  I hope-to one day be called upon to repair some lost soul.  Of course, I don't know how to do that, so part of me is happy that the phone never rings down in the soul department at Sears-(Tom's cell phone rings.  He takes it out, looks at the number, pushes cancel, puts phone back in his pocket)-but still, I'd like to give it a try.  Just once.  And for real, not for make-up.  Did you know that most of life is a game of make-up?  It is.  We make up these characters, these people who we'd like to be-and we spend our lives playing our ideas of ourselves.  And that seems crazy to me.  Faith, Hope, and Charity.  The three Weird Sisters.  The Three Amigos.  That's all.

Not terrible, right?  I have a new, three character play in the form of one scene that's almost half an hour long, and full of what I think is brilliance.  And then I get stuck.   Like nothing is coming, the play will never be done, and I hate it all kind of stuck.  

Sometimes, writing is sublime.  Sometimes, not so much.  I've got to figure out a way to get back on course.  The magic, along with Elvis, has left the building, and suddenly I am wandering in the desert.  I take a trip home to California to visit Mom, and hope something will come- some new door will open that will let me finish this play.

To Be Continued...

Links:

To see how to get a digital version of SOME UNFORTUNATE HOUR, go here:

http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/PlayDetail/30

To see how to order a copy of Plays and Playwrights 2006, featuring Burning the Old Man, 

go here:  http://www.nytesmallpress.com/pp06.php

For info on INDIE THEATER NOW, the new digital theatre library, go here:

http://www.indietheaternow.com/

For info on Boomerang Theatre Company, go here:

http://boomerangtheatre.org/boom/index2.php

ONE MORE THING...YOU HAVE TO GET NAKED

It's funny how memories unlock each other.  After writing a little bit about how Last Call came about as part of small way of promoting my plays on Indie Theater Now, all these moments from that show came flooding back- rehearsals, performances, feedback, etc.   Memory is it's own Pandora's box, I suppose- once open, it's own set of devils and angels fly out.  One of the devil/angels that's been flying around in my head these past few weeks is nudity- full frontal male nudity, to be exact.  How I came to have it in the show, how actors re-acted to it, and how the public responded to said nakedness.

You see, in Last Call, the character David has come home to Salinas, California after having an existential crisis in NYC, prompted in part by 9/11, and also by witnessing a man kill himself by throwing himself in front of a subway train.  David freaks out, quits his high paying job, and goes home in search of truth and understanding.  When he arrives home, all his old friends are stuck in ruts of their own, and not interested in what he has to say.  In an effort to shake things up, and in a nod to their younger days when skinny-dipping was part of their lives, David takes all his clothes off in the middle of the bar, and invites his pals to go streaking with him.  They decline.  All except the character Jack.  He likes the idea, and strips down to the essentials.  Hilarity ensues.

I should probably mention that there was a time in my life when I got naked in public.  A lot.  Not for any sexual fetish, or to be an exhibitionist.  I just think we, as a culture, are sort of uptight, and need to be nudged towards a more loose way of being.  And I thought that getting naked and running around laughing was a good way to do that.  So it's not that surprising that I write a scene where a guy gets naked.  Write what you know.

Originally, this was not part of the play.  When the show was accepted into the Fringe, it was still not part of the play.  When I asked Jack Halpin to play the part of Jack, (and more importantly, when he accepted the role) it was not part of the play.   But then I wrote the nude scene, it felt right and more than right, and that was that.  So I called Jack, who was on tour with another show at the time, and told him he was going to be sharing a lot of himself with the world come August.  At first, I think he thought I was joking.  I assured him I wasn't.  He paused, said something about doing more sit ups and taking up jogging, and that was that.  Cool.  One naked guy in the show down, one to go.

Now, at this point, we hadn't held auditions for the show.  Most of the parts were still up for grabs, including the character David.  So, when it was time for try outs, we put an addendum on the audition notice that the role of David would have to get naked.  No ifs, ands, or buts.   So we have auditions, and this one actor, Brett Christensen, shows up and reads for the part of Vince.  At this point, the part of Vince is pretty much locked up by Vinnie Penna, and that's all there is to that.  But Brett does a great job reading for the part.  And I think he'd be a great David.  So I ask him if he'd read for it.  He asks me if that's the part that gets naked.  I say yeah.  Brett thinks for a moment, shrugs, and gives a fantastic audition.  The part is his.  He too says he is going to take up jogging.  And I have my two nudists.

Now it's close to performance time, and we need to send out a press release.  We put all the usual stuff in, and add a disclaimer how there will be full frontal nudity.

FULL FRONTAL NUDITY

It's amazing how one little sentence can get so many responses.  People call from all over, from places I've never heard of, asking me about the naked people.   When I tell them that it's two men who get naked, some get disappointed.   Some get excited.  What's funny is, nobody asks why the characters get naked as it pertains to the story- just how many naked people, what sex they are, and for how long.

As for the show itself, the nudity works perfectly.  It's just part of the story, and we kind of forget about it as being anything but another scene in the show. (except for the day R. Paul Hamilton's daughter, who is about 13, comes to the show and sits in the front row)  Also, I think it's unfair that more women always seem to have to get naked in films and on tv and stage, but hardly ever men.  Why  should women have to be naked so much more than men?  In a way, I'm doing my part for equality among the sexes.   Of course, there are a few guys who show up for the show, and afterwards come out saying things like "nice show, but you should have told us it was only male nudity".  Oh well.

I don't regret for one minute putting that scene in the show- in fact, I'm proud of it.  No doubt, there will be fewer high school and college productions of it due to the nudity- but so what?  It's my play, and I know it was the right thing to do.  The scene is beautiful, and the play would be less without it.

Now go here, buy your own downloadable file of it for about a buck fifty, and see it you agree.

MUSE OF FIRE ASCENDS

So the letter of from the Fringe comes, and I take a deep breath, then open it.  It starts with "Congratulations".  I'm in.  Muse of Fire has been accepted into the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival.  Holy Shit.

I am one of those people who doesn't really know how to take success, on any level.  It never seems quite real, or what I thought it would feel like.  Never.  In my mind, there should be music playing, fist pumping, slow motion leaps in the air, and a sudden, clear understanding of the Universe, and my place in it.  But still, it does feel pretty damn good.  What am I saying?  It feels friggin' fabulous!  Time to call friends, family, acquaintances, and tell them that I have been chosen from over one thousand entrants to be in this summer's festival.

Now I really have to get to work on the script.  The story is going nicely- I have my two muses, Dion and Polly, going down to Earth, to the Theatre Dept. at San Jose State University, and they come upon the girl they need to turn into a great writer.  Everyone ends up in a production of "As You Like It", and valuable lessons area learned by one and all.  I've changed the girl's name to Emily (middle name of my college sweetheart), and the boy she's supposed to fall in love with to Mick (one of many nicknames I had in college).  I realize, as I plot along, that the world of the play is the world of live theatre, and all the insane, funny, noble, and magic things that come with it.  Things start coming fast and furious- characters materialize, full blown, with specific voices- references to pop culture, mythology, and the Dumbarton Bridge all seem to flow and make sense.  Script feeling strong, it's time to get the production itself going.  I have several things I know I want, certain actors for certain parts- but there are other parts I haven't a clue about- and on top of that, it is always a good thing to have an open audition- you never know who you might meet, and what might come from that meeting.   So we have auditions.  Lots of folks show up. I have it all clear in my head, except for the part of Emily.  It gets down to two actresses, both really awesome in different ways.  So I have them read with Brett Christensen, who is cast as Mick.  And Jackie Kamm kicks the part of Emily in the ass, lights up the stage, and I think makes Brett's brain explode.  It is one of the great, rare joys of theatre, to witness an audition that catches fire, that makes it clear to everyone in the room that these people, and no others, must play these parts.   The entire cast is as follows- Dion: Jack Halpin, Polly: Sara Thigpen, Carlos/Hal: R. Paul Hamilton, Emily: Jackie Kamm, Cassandra: Heather McAllister, Phil:  Jerry McAllister, Mick: Brett Christensen, Lenny: Vinnie Penna, Jessie:  Christine Goodman, and the show is stage managed by Matthew Rankin.  They are all super geniuses, and amazing artists, and if you even come across them in this life, hang on to them and figure out a way to work with them.

So the show is cast, and we start rehearsing.  My company, hope theatre inc., is producing the show.  We'd formed a few years before, to present the American premiere of Shakespeare's Edward III, once part of the apocrypha but now recognized by some in that strange realm known as Academia as at least partially written by old Will.  We stayed together to produced Last Call, and now here we are, with show number three.  I am directing my own play.  I think this will be fun- and it is, but also a great pain in the ass.   I keep adding stuff to the show- interpretive dances at a cast party, love affairs, and a new way to end the show.  Instead of having Emily just fall in love with Mick, she has to lose him- and I don't mean they break up.  I mean Mick has to die- that his death is what is supposed to spark Emily's greatness as an artist.  And when Dion and Polly learn this, they have to figure out what to do- make a great artist, or save a young man's life.  I add a scene where Mick and Dion drive to the beach.  Dion knows Mick is supposed to die, but can't say anything.  They talk about Billy the Kid and the song "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi.  It's one of my favorite scenes in the play.

Anyway.  The cast is good, the script is good, and then we find out we are going to be presenting our show at the Cherry Lane Theatre.  If you've never seen this place, let me tell you- it's beautiful, historic, and exactly what you think a theatre in Greenwich Village should look like, right down to the cobble-stone street in front.   This is a theatre that had O'Neill, Albee, and Shephard in it.  I mean the playwrights themselves.  This place is a dream come true.  And I get to premiere my play in it.  This is a dream come true.  This is one of the great moments of my life.

Opening night arrives.  It's a full house.  The play begins.  As usual, I feel like throwing up for most of the performance.  But people are laughing in the audience.  A lot.  And then they're crying.  And at the end of the show, there's a lot of applause.  I have to stay after the show, to clear all our stuff out so that the next  play from the Fringe can load in for their opening, which happens one hour later.  Jack Halpin, who plays Dion, and I haul ass, get everything put in its proper place, and walk outside.  The street seems to be completely full of people- and they all cheer for us.  I come up to an actress I know, Aida Lembo, and she's crying and laughing, and she she's me and says "you're beautiful".

The show sells out its run, even with the great blackout of 2003 happening in the middle of the festival.   Nytheatre.com gives is a rave review- God bless them. On the last night, my mom flies out from California to see the show, and ends up sitting next to a critic from The New Yorker magazine, who is there not to right a review, but to check up on a new writer.  Somehow, I am on their radar.  Not sure how I got there, but I like it.  And now, the script is available online as part of Indie Theater Now, the new digital library of plays that is like the iTunes for plays.

So, like I said, I don't take success well.  But I think I can get used to it.

MUSE OF FIRE

So it's almost Valentine's, 2003, and I need to submit something to the Fringe.  The deadline is the 14th.   I had a pretty good go at the New York International Fringe Festival last summer with Last Call (added performance, Excellence in Playwriting Award, Publication in Plays and Playwrights 2003, etc.), and lots of people think I should do another one.  I  agree with them.  I really like being called a playwright, and having people read my stuff, and think I've found my life's calling.  I take Errant Muses, my unfinished play from a play writing class I took at SJSU, and dust it off.  Could I make a new play out of this old thing?  Should I?


A lot of it is pretty bad- lots of obvious exposition, two dimensional characters, and cliches.  But there is the germ of a good idea in it, so I start to tinker with it a bit.  I take the idea of two muses who are stuck working with each other but have diametrically opposed ideas of what art is about and keep the first scene, scrap most of the rest.  I make one of the muses female, and change their names from Tom and Dave to Dion (after Dionysos) and Polly (after Apollo).  And the reason I do that is because of the song Hemispheres by Rush, which I listened to a lot when I was about 13.  No lie.  In that song, Dionysos is the God of Chaos, and Apollo is the God of Order.  In the play, Dion is chaotic and loves how art makes him feel alive, while Polly is angry, and wants art to have meaning and purpose and be used to make the world a better place.

I also decide to change the title.  Errant muses just sounded clunky to me.  At the top of the show, Dion is alone in the muses apartment, reciting the prologue from Shakespeare's Henry V, the one that starts with "O, for a muse of fire...".    It hits me clear as a bell- name the play "Muse of Fire".  And so I do.

One of the great satisfactions for me is taking a play and twisting it and turning it and trying to find the magic inside- the stuff that seems to have been written by someone else, or better yet, seems to have not been written at all, but dictated by...what ever it is out there in the void, the infinite waters of mysticism.

The plot of Errant Muses was as follows- the muses are given a job, namely to help a young girl named Anne become a great writer.  She is a drama major at San Jose State University.  The muses have lost the report given to them by their superiors, which has all the details, including exactly what it is they are supposed to do- but fearing retribution, they don't tell anyone they've lost the report, head down to earth, meet the girl, figure out that she needs to fall in love with Will, another drama major.  Hilarity follows, and of course it all ends happily (and yes, I named them Anne and Will after Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare).

Also, I had just read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell.  Very cool book, and one I had wanted to read ever since I was a kid and heard that it had influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars (or as the Philistines call it, Episode 4: A New Hope).  In the book, Cambell outlines the basic hero story found in all cultures.  First, there is the young hero.  He or she gets a call to action, sometimes from a frog who comes out of the infinite waters, then there is a series of trials, then the final battle, where the hero has to sacrifice herself/himself in order to further the greater good.

I decide to incorporate the mono-myth into Muse of Fire.  The hero will have two faces, Dion's and Polly's.  The frog becomes Carlos, a god like being who calls himself the Toad of Infinite Waters.   And I start to get into it.   Writing is funny- you write and write and write some more, and it feels like drudgery, like punishment for wanting to be creative or something.  And then, all of a sudden, and usually un-noticed, you slip into the world of the story, and lose all sense of time and place and just go to that other place- then you look up sometime later, and there's page after page of story, and it's later, and you have no idea what happened and no memory of actually typing anything.

So I'm cruising along with the play, finding new characters and situations almost daily.  My mind is in the world of the play pretty much every waking moment.  I'd be a working a lunch shift at Bryant Park Grill, and in my mind I'm thinking "yes, the director will be named Cassandra- but in reverse, because she's crazy and spouts lunacy but everyone believes her!"  I ride the subway home and watch young lovers, eavesdropping and fishing for dialogue.  I read somewhere that there were nine muses in Greek mythology- so I decide there will be nine actors in the show.   I pretty much throw anything and everything I am experiencing and have experienced into the script.   I get as much done as I can, and send off the application to the Fringe.

And wait for May and notification.

To be continued...

ERRANT MUSES

So I'm posting about all my shows that are on Indie Theater Now- how they came about, their first production, and all that jazz.  My last two blogs were about Last Call, which is part of the 9/11 collection, and was my first full length play.  On the docket, Muse of Fire, which had a long, winding road from initial concept to first production spanning over ten years.  Here goes.

Muse of Fire came about because of a touchy feely exercise I did as part of a play writing class at San Jose State University long ago and far away in the Kingdom of My Youth. For those who weren't theatre majors, let me explain.  In the world of drama, there are many, many exercises you are forced to participate in as part of a class, or play you are cast in- usually it involves laying down, closing your eyes, and listening to some teacher, director, or actor lead you through a sort of meditation, picturing your favorite place, a lover's embrace, butterflies- something like that.  These experiments can take ten, twenty, even thirty minutes.  They are all about getting in touch with the inner-self.  Yummy.   So in this class I was taking, which was taught by the great David Kahn, we had a guest artist for a few weeks, the playwright Sheldon Rosen.  Sheldon is a really cool guy, but he did have a penchant for taking us through some routines that could be described as "new age", "spiritual", or "weird".  Being twenty something at the time, I of course thought of them as weird.   I did them anyway.  Why not?  Maybe, just maybe, something would come of it.  So there I was in class, relaxing, listening to my inner voice, when all of a sudden, I saw as clear as day, two guys having a conversation.  One guy was really angry, they other guy was really kind.  The kind one was talking about how he met Van Gogh one day.  How he had been looking at a self portrait that old Vincent had done, and the painting started talking to him.  The mean one said that was a bunch of crap.

I thought that was kind of cool, so I took the initial scenario found in my head, and started making a scene out of it.  Quickly, the scene became about two muses, arguing about the meaning and purpose of art.  I read it out loud in class, and the response was immediate and quite positive, so I kept on trucking.  One of our final assignments for the class was to write at least one act of a play- so I gave the scene the title "Errant Muses", and tried to make up a full length play.  It took a lot of work, and I wrote a good chunk of that first act the night before it was due.   In hindsight, I was an idiot for most of my college career.  But such is life.  At least I got it done.  Also, at the end of the semester, the play writing class teamed up with a directing class and an acting class, and did presentations of new scenes written, directed, and performed by students.  Two different groups wanted to present my scene with the muses.  I said sure.  Why the Hell not?  On the day of the presentation, something extraordinary happened.  People laughed.  A lot.  They really liked the scene.  It felt pretty friggin' sweet, believe me.

Then I graduated, moved to New York City, and had many adventures being an idiot.  It was something I did quite well. (note photo:  I'm the one with the funky glasses)   At the end of my first foray to the big city, I was broke, lonely, and hadn't gotten one paying acting job- so I came home to California to regroup and try and figure out what to do with my life.

A few years later, I was working at the Western Stage in Salinas, CA, when I got a message from the girl who had directed one of the scenes from my play for the final presentation.   Her husband, an actor, was graduating from CalArts, and wanted to do some scenes from Errant Muses for their showcase.    A showcase is a review of scenes, usually put on by a graduating class for people in the theatre/film industry (agents, casting directors, etc.), done with the hopes that said industry people will like what they see and offer everyone big contracts to come to Hollywood or Broadway or wherever.  Ed Harris was going to emcee the show, and the whole thing sounded pretty cool to me, so of course I said yes.  I tinkered with the scenes a bit, went down to help out during rehearsal, and felt pretty good about where everything was.

Then, I left town before the actual show.   Remember, at this point in my life I was still busy being an idiot.  I mean, why stay and be present at a show where tons of people who could help me find work in my chosen field were going to see something I had written?  That made too much sense.  So I headed back to Salinas.  I put Errant Muses into a binder, and didn't really think about it for almost ten years.

Then, as noted in the previous two posts, I got my act together, wrote Last Call, and realized that what made me more happy than anything else was writing plays.  It was the fall of 2002.  Last Call was being published by NYTE, and then featured in a Best Stage Scenes of 2002, published by Smith & Kraus, and being shopped around to some theatres in Germany by a someone who saw the play and really liked it.  On top of that, I had just been named Graduate of the Last Decade for the School of Humanities by San Jose State University.  I'm fairly certain the success of Last Call had a lot to do with that.

I decided to write a new play, and enter it for FringeNYC 2003.  And the source material would be Errant Muses.

To be continued...

LAST CALL

I was sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, waiting for my flight to Fairbanks, Alaska, on my way to see my father, who was in a coma in the ICU room up there. I was told that I probably wouldn't get there in time. That the end was nigh. I was going anyway. There was a layover of several hours, and with me in the airport were dozens of laughing, singing, teen-age born-again Christians on their way to some outreach camp. They were doing cartwheels, singing folk songs like "If I Had a Hammer", and doing all those things one does when young and saved. Their enthusiasm was starting to get to me. I needed a distraction. I took out the notes on my play Last Call, which was opening at the New York International Fringe Festival in a couple of weeks. I went over the play, making cuts, fixing snippets here and there. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking "my dad is in a coma." I wrote a new scene that had two old friends playing hide and seek in a graveyard. They run into the ghost of another old friend, and talk about how everyone seems to go Elsewhere. My dad is in a coma, and everyone goes Elsewhere. The saved teens started singing Blowin' in the Wind.

I made it to Fairbanks, and somehow my dad woke up. I was standing next to him in the room. He looked around, confused at first. Then saw me. It was weird. It seemed like he was pissed to still be around or something. After lots of doctors coming in and out, checking on this level and that, Dad was able to talk. Barely. He said he was tired, that he didn't have anymore fight. That it was time to go. I made him a list of reasons to stay alive. And to cheer him up, and of course feed my ego, I read him some of my play. At the time it seemed like a good idea. I mean, what else would you want to do after coming out of a coma than listen to someone's new play? Also, I thought that may be he'd want to stick around and see the show. That is, if he ever got out of ICU. For the next week, my two sisters and I cleaned up his cabin, went through his things, and tried to figure out what to do if the big "if" happened. Alaska is a great place to go for contemplating eternity and oblivion. Wide and sparse and forlorn.

And then, Dad started getting a little better. Good enough to be moved down to California and live with my Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Mike. So we cleaned up his smoke infused cabin, and I got on a plane and headed back to New York and the Fringe and the show.

Long and the short of it: the show is in great shape- my brother Jerry, director of the show, has managed to put together an awesome production on a shoestring budget- less, on half a shoestring. And everyone seems to think something is happening. Something unique and not quite nameable. We get Theater for the New City for our space. We tech. We open on a matinee. And this guy named Martin Denton, who runs nytheatre.com, shows up for the first performance.

On that first performance, I learn that I feel like throwing up during my shows. Like throwing up and/or exploding. It's very strange, and I had hoped it was just for the opening, but I have since learned that is pretty much what happens everytime a play I've written gets performed. So there I am, pacing next to the risers, house left. There's about 90 people at the show. And it seems they dig it. A lot. I remember feeling really good. Triumphant, even. Then the review comes out. It's a rave, a pick of the Fringe. It is a surreal experience to get a good review, I think. You read it, read it again. Ask someone else to read it and tell you it's a good review. Read it again.

The show starts to sell out. We add a performance. This is hope theatre's second production ever, and our first in the Fringe. None of us are famous or anything close to it- even in the Indie Theatre world. And here we are, adding a show. Friggin' awesome. The rest of the Fringe run goes fantastic. I still feel like throwing up every performance, but I start to get used to it. The one thing I start to get hooked on is audience reaction- laughter, applause, and best of all, tears. One show, I saw a grown man cry like a baby. That was a good day.

Then, at the closing party for the Fringe, the play wins an Excellence in Playwriting award. And shortly after that, I get contacted by Martin Denton, asking if I'd like to have Last Call published in his anthology series, Plays and Playwrights.

And that's pretty much the story of Last Call.

As for my dad, he never got to see it on stage. I did get to tell him it was going to be published. It was close to Thanksgiving, and I was home in California. Dad was sitting in Aunt Bobbie's kitchen, and when I told him, he asked me how it felt to be a success. A nice thing to have your father ask you. He died shortly after New Year's.

INDIE THEATER NOW

Wheels are turning, winds are changing, and something new is coming to a computer near you- Indie Theater Now. It's basically a digital library of plays, put together by the good folks at nytheatre.com, and it will launch with a collection of over a hundred plays from the past 15 years of the New York International Fringe Festival. And I have the great honor of being part of it.

That's right, you heard correctly.

Me, goon among goons and freak among freaks is going to be part of the latest, coolest, cutting edge thing in the world of theatrical publishing.

What plays of mine will be part of this, you ask?

Last Call, Muse of Fire, and Some Unfortunate Hour.

And I have decided to give a little background on each play. What the hell.

So, first off, let me tell you about Last Call, my first full length play and probably the reason I am still writing. Back in the late 1990's, as I wandered Manhattan, lost, young, brilliant, and stupid, I one day had this idea for a scene. It sort of just popped into my head. I was down at the old Expanded Arts theatre space on Ludlow, standing next to my old friend Joe Neisen, and suddenly I saw a bunch of old buddies sitting in a particular bar I used to frequent in Salinas, CA- and I had to write down what was going on, so I cancelled that nights plan of debauchery and headed home to write up whatever it was that I saw in my head.

It was weird, but I felt compelled. So, I wrote this scene where a bunch of dudes who are sort of stuck in a rut sit around in the bar they always go to, having the same conversations they have every night, when into the bar walks their old pal David, who long ago went off to New York. He has come home to wake everyone up after having an existential crisis and coming out of it with a new found sense of life.

I know, not very original, but hey, when the iron strikes, or whatever that metaphor is, etc.

So I had a scene, and I liked it. At this point, I hadn't really written a lot- I was an actor, and writing was cool, but not what I was trying to do with my life. Although whenever I had written things, people were always pretty responsive. In fact, a few years before writing that scene, Taft Miller, one of the coolest people I ever knew in my life, said to me as he lay dying in a hospital, "Keep writing". So, I had written something. Now what? I gave a copy of it to my friend Lisa Zambetti, who at the time was working with the Turnip Theatre group, and the next thing I knew, there was a staged reading of the scene- which had grown into a one act play. The reading was great, we all had a wonderful time, and as soon as it was over, I put the play into a drawer and got on with my pursuit of lunacy on the stages of New York.

Then life got complicated, and strange, and sad, and rough. I quit drinking. My girl friend got cancer. And then 9/11 happened. Things pretty much sucked. And to top it all off, we didn't have any insurance and suddenly had a lot of bills to pay. So I took a second job on top of waiting tables, answering phones on the trading floor of J.P. Morgan. I'd get up at 5 every morning, take the subway to work, and on the week-ends work dinners at Bryant Park Grill. The average work week was about sixty hours, and I remember I stopped dreaming for a while. I'd just lay down, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, and so on. It was, to borrow a phrase, the best of times, and the worst of times- I was tired and scared and going nuts, but also supported by friends and family so much that I felt like George Bailey at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life". Minus the angel.

So there I was, working hard, floating through it all, when my pal Jack Halpin tells me one day that I should take that play I was working on and submit it to the Fringe Festival. So I printed up the application at work, printed up what there was of the play, and sent it off. And forgot about it. This was in February, 2002. Then in April, I got a letter from the Fringe saying "good news, you're in!". Which was great, except for the fact that I had said on the application that the play was going to be two acts, and that in act two there was going to be a murder, and one of the characters would turn out to be gay. None of that was true, but I thought it sounded good for the application. Oops.

It was time to get busy, because it looked like I was going to have a play produced in New York. Now, one of the good things about my office job was that for the first hour, I would watch over the phone lines and sit in front of a computer, free to do whatever I wanted. So every morning for an hour, I wrote. And suddenly my little play with 5 characters, all male, became a play with 9 characters, and 3 of them were female. And I started to dream again. In fact, a lot of the play came out of dreams I had. First, I dreamt that one of the characters kept seeing the ghost of his old girl friend. And the guy who saw the ghost was kind of crazy, and slipping in and out of reality. And it all made sense.

Next, hope theatre, inc. - the theatre company formed by my brother and sister and me- held auditions, cast the show, and started rehearsing. And that's when it got really interesting, because I discovered that with some tweaks here and some edits there, plus a few new scenes the show was not terrible. In fact, it felt like something special was happening. It helped to have so many talented people working on it. My brother Jerry was directing, my sister producing, and the cast was: Jack Halpin, Christine Goodman, Vinnie Penna, Brett Christensen, R. Paul Hamilton, J.P. Nord, Matthew Rankin, Masha Sapron, and Sara Thigpen. It was the best feeling, working on that play. It felt like I could fly. We all did. I'd rewrite a scene, bring it in, and it would be better, and we'd all look at each other like we were all part of some wonderful, powerful secret.

Then one night, I arrived at rehearsal after working a dinner shift at the restaurant, and everyone was outside, and Jerry wasn't there. This was back before cell phones were everywhere, and news took a little bit of time to get to people, but it seemed that my father was in a coma, and not expected to live long, and Jerry cancelled rehearsal. So I got a ticket to Alaska, where my Dad was, and wondered what would happen next.

To be continued...