THE LORAX IS COMING

Went on a long hike today, near Mt. Evans. Had a thought. What if there were tons of Loraxes? Literally an army of them, sort of a brightly colored zombie mob type of thing, and they stormed the White House and ate Trump? Wouldn't that be nice? I really am enjoying the fresh air, the clear skies, the energy I can feel off the plants and animals. One thing, among many, that I hope we retain after this is all over, is a renewed appreciation for the glory of nature.

Here's a monologue from my play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians. It's an adaptation of Uncle Vanya, and I dig it.

MOSS

I have this work space up in the attic I use when I'm really burned out - it's got a great view of the Sound. The crickets sing, and I stand at my easel and work on these maps. It's nice. (takes out a map) See this! It's what the Sound looked like around the end of World War One. The green stands for the trees, red dots for moose, the orange for elk, and the yellow for bear. Oh, and the blue are for wolves. There were all sorts of birds- ravens, eagles, hawks- and spotted tree owls. Supposedly, the birds would block out the sun at noon. Imagine that. There's Seattle, and a few little towns. Over here -I love this- on this little river, just sixty years ago, there was still a functioning water mill. (flips to the next map) Now, this is the same area, around thirty years later. Look at what we've done. Whole forests, wiped out. The wolves, bears, elk - you name it- all the animals are either dead or dying off. Still with me?

MADISON
Yes. Of course.

MOSS
Great. (flips over another map) And this is today. One
giant suburb. Most of the trees- gone. And, of course, with those great forests have gone all of its tenants. All the birds and beasts- poof- vanished. What this is, really, is a time-line of our own, self-inflicted destruction. Some people don't see it that way, say it's progress, the price we pay and all that jazz- maybe they make a peace sign, or tell me to "save the whales", and go their way. Which is just so fucking insulting that it hardly merits a reaction. It breaks my heart- it really does. I could understand, a little, if our quality of life increased with the destruction of the forests- but it doesn't. Look at any inner-city- does that look like progress to you? No- we leave the corpse of our cities to the poor and the weak- and those same people, tired of this ugly world left to them by seemingly indifferent strangers, turn to drugs to escape this madness. I don't blame them. That's Manifest Destiny- a vanished wilderness, and in it's place, a squalid, urban landscape... (takes a long look at Madison) We're doomed.

MADISON
Doomed...Right.

Here's a song. It's Gilda Radner doing Talk Dirty to the Animals.

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!

MADISON'S LAMENT

My description of Fenway: Last of the Bohemains continues with the character of Madison.  I named the character Madison after the VJ from MTV Kennedy, who was this right wing, hipster that was all the rage for a while back in the day.  Get it?  Madison and Kennedy are both former presidents.  Oh, the cleverness of me!  Anyway, Kennedy always seemed a little nutty to me- like she was trying to prove something, and was sort of pissed off at the left for some unknown, personal reason that had nothing to do with politics.

Madison is the beautiful trophy wife of a right wing pundit named Big Jon.  Their marriage is not exactly the portrait of marital bliss   She once was a headstrong young woman in love with her college professor, Moss- but that was seven years ago.  She has since rejected the politics and idealism of the left for the supposedly more down to earth thinking of the right.   Now, Moss has come into her life again.  And to make matters worse, her step-daughter Sunny has just confessed to being in love with Moss.   Here she is talking to herself.

MADISON

This is hopeless.  Of course he wouldn't think of her like that, she’s just a kid...Why don't people ever end up with the ones who'd make them happy?  Why am I talking to myself?   It's this place.  Drives everyone crazy. A crumbling commune full of faded hippies and forgotten dreams.  Then along comes Moss- the passionate artiste who quotes Wordsworth by heart and actually lives in the real world...I bet he makes love with his entire being.  Oh my God.  What the Hell am I talking about?  This is nuts - I'm crazy! What am I thinking.  No! No!  NO!  (pause) He does something to me, though. Fenway's right.  I should do something wild.  Shake things up. Who am I kidding?  That'll never happen.  Will I tell my husband how I feel?  Of course not.  Do I go to Moss and confess that the last seven years of my life have been a complete and total disaster?  Never.  So what will I do?  Fearless modern woman that I am, I stay in my little cage.  Brilliant.  Fear may be over-rated, but it scares the shit out of me.  But then again, sometimes he looks at me, and...God Damn it!  I wish I had never heard of Moss or this island or Big Jon Humphrey!

That's Carrie Brewer as Madison and Jack Halpin as Moss in the production of Fenway staged by Boomerang Theatre Company and Impetuous Theatre Group.

You can buy a digital copy of Fenway at Indie Theater Now for less than two bucks- 

so what are you waiting for?  

GET YOUR THEATRE ON

MADISON & BIG JON- THE HAPPY COUPLE

As I've been saying, my play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians has just been published by Indie Theater Now.  It's an American Vanya, set on a fading commune in the mid-1980's.  Among the characters are Big Jon, a self proclaimed "born-again convservative".  Big Jon used to be a minor figure in the counter-cultural movement of the 1960's.  He got into the trouble with the law, and for years lived underground.  Now, he's sold out, become a conservative pundit, and has a new trophy wife, Madison.  Madison is coming to realize that life as a young Republican is not all it's cracked up to be.  Here's a bit of a scene between the two of them late one rainy night:

BIG JON

Isn't it funny that everybody listens to Fenway and his fellow burn outs, but the moment I say a fucking word, everyone goes ballistic? Even if I am an asshole, even if I am a selfish jack-ass, haven't I the right to be one, at my age? Haven't I earned it? I'm seriously asking you, haven't I the right to be respected?

MADISON

(shudders) It's freezing, I'm shutting the window. (shuts it) Have I ever said you don't deserve respect?

BIG JON

I dedicated my whole fucking life to the pursuit of truth.  (stands up and begins to pace the room, gesturing with his joint for emphasis) I was a freedom rider!  I went to Woodstock, for fuck's sake.  I got arrested with Abbie Hoffman.  That's where I'm coming from- and, while I will never regret my decision to grow up and join the real world - I do find a lot of it tiresome.  No matter what side of the fence you're on, people are still assholes.  That's one of the great truths of life, baby.  People suck.  I want you to know that, because I love you. (takes another hit off his joint) I want it all, you know?  The whole enchilada. I want my book to sell more copies so that we can live a better life! At least in the sixties I was a minor celebrity.  Not that I miss that time- But, God damn, sitting around up here with nobody to talk to sucks ass.  What I'm trying to say is, I'm miserable enough as it is- I don't need you to make me feel worse- you hate me because you think I'm old!

MADISON

Age has nothing to do with it.  Besides, I'll be an old hag soon enough, and then we can bitch and moan together until we drop dead.

Don't they seem happy?

FENWAY & ZEHNER

I have decided to give a bit about each character in my play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, which has just been published online at Indie Theater Now.  Last time, we met Moss, the local doctor and environmentalist.  Now let's meet Fenway, the angst ridden survivor of the 1960's, and Zehner, local hippie who is not the brightest bulb in the show, as they chat with Moss.

MOSS

Fen, what’s is going on here?

FENWAY

What?

MOSS

Everyone's acting weirder than usual.

FENWAY

What are you talking about?  I am totally fine.  No- that's not true!  Jesus, I feel old- what the fuck happened to me?

MOSS

Time, life, reality- the usual suspects.  So, that's Big Jon?

FENWAY

Yeah, that's the Benedict Arnold of the Age of Aquarius.  "Finding Me- Confessions of a Former Radical; A How-to Guide for Born-Again Conservatives".  That's the eternal title of his latest, crapulous book.  He should’ve called it "Asshole- a true story".

MOSS

Well, he-

FENWAY

You know why he became a born-again conservative?  It made him famous again, for all of fifteen minutes.

MOSS

Why do you-

FENWAY

Of course, he's already spent every last dime he made off that piece of crap, and now he's back, living in his dead wife's house.  The fucking ghoul!  My sister built this commune from nothing!  With money she sweated and slaved like a dog for because she believed!  And Big Jon- that fake!  He's never put a God damned penny into this place.  All he's ever done is take, take, take! Starting with my sister Grace- all those years when he was in trouble with the law and underground - Christ, what kind of life was that for her?  Away from her child, her family- everything that meant anything to her. Who do you think supported them, who took care of things?  We did, idiots that we were. And Grace?  She went and got cancer.  And that was that.  We didn't even get to go to the funeral- it was secret because he was in hiding.  My own sister's funeral!  The son of a bitch- can you believe that I used to admire him?  We all did.

MOSS

Come on, Fen, you can’t-

FENWAY

We believed in him! We thought he stood for something, you know?  Something profound, something sacred.  We were gonna change the world, and take everyone to the promised land.  Unfortunately, he was a false prophet. And still is. (pause) Benedict Fucking Arnold!

MOSS

Why do you think she married him?

FENWAY

Who?  Grace?

MOSS

No, Madison.

FENWAY

Oh, who the fuck knows?  Maybe he hypnotized her.  He's a regular Svengali when it comes to women- but it's all smoke and mirrors. The Great man- ha!  I'll tell you what he is- the Emperor.  The Emperor's new clothes! Ha! My sister Grace- Sunny's mom- she was beautiful, gentle - every guy I knew had a crush on her.  Seriously.  Who does she fall in love with?  Captain Shit-for-Brains.  I don't understand women! (pause)  And Madison- sexy, young, vibrant- she married that dried up old turd.  Can you explain that to me?

MOSS

Is it a happy marriage?

FENWAY

Fuckity fuck no.

MOSS

Fuckity fuck?

FENWAY

What's so great about wasting the best years of your all too short life being true to Captain Fuckwad?

MOSS

I thought it was Captain Shit-for-Brains.

FENWAY

Whatever.

ZEHNER

What do you know about marriage, Fenway?  Were you ever married?  No, you weren't.   But I was, man, and I know what it's all about.  Sure, it was only for three days- and yeah, she left me for some guy she met at a Dead concert- but that's not the point.

FENWAY

What is the point?

ZEHNER

The sanctity of marriage, man.  So what if she left me?  I never left her.  Never.  That's love, dude.  That's commitment!  Sure, I'm a moron, but at least I'm a moron who can look at himself in the mirror each day and say, "Carry on, my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done".  And here's the p.s. - she got old and ugly, the dude she left me for turned around and left her, and now she works at Denny's.  So like the man said, all's well that ends well.

Now get out there and download your copy for about a buck fifty.

GET YOUR THEATRE ON!

FENWAY- AN AMERICAN VANYA

My play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, just got published online by Indie Theatre Now. This is the fifth play I've had published on that most indispensable site, and I couldn't be happier.  Of course, the voices told me to cut an entire scene last night.  Woke me up, in fact.

What voices?  The ones that tell me what to do from time to time.  I know, that makes me insane.  I'm cool with that.  It's not like they're  telling me to go on a shooting spree or anything like that.  No, they just wake me up from time to time and tell me what to write.

What scene did they tell me to cut?  The first scene of the play.  The entire freakin' scene.

What's left?  A leaner, faster show- the product of several readings in NYC, a reading by Seattle Playwrights Collective, a production by Boomerang Theatre Company & Impetuous Theatre Group, and a workshop reading by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  As I wrote in my last entry, it's based on Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov- but it's one hundred percent American- dealing with the rise of conservatism, and the struggle of the liberals to cling to their ideals in an increasingly hostile world.  It's also kind of funny.

Here's an excerpt- Moss, the local environmentalist who also works as a doctor at the methodone clinic is talking with Rita, hippie chick with pot brownies, about how old he feels:

MOSS

I fight the good fight, try to stop them from destroying the planet- they lock me up.  You know what I am?  The Lorax.  I speak for the trees- and it's made me little and ugly and alone.

RITA

Have a brownie.

MOSS

I don't want a fucking brownie! (pause) I pulled a triple shift at the clinic last week.  Junkies to the left of me, junkies to the right...this one- he was fourteen.  Isn't that crazy?  We live in a world that has fourteen year old junkies.  He went into cardiac arrest.  Fourteen years old, addicted to junk, and going into cardiac arrest. And I...I did everything right- everything!  I shot him up with adrenaline- pounded his chest, blew air into him...I just wanted to force him to stay alive, to maybe somehow become a normal little boy...but he was more determined than I was.  Fourteen years old.  You should have seen his face-  his sweet, sad, dead little innocent face. Like a fallen angel. (pause)  I don't think I was ever fourteen.

RITA

Have a brownie.

Yes, I want you to buy a copy.

And yes, more excerpts will be coming soon.

LAST OF THE BOHEMIANS

So Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, is set to be published online by Indie Theatre Now.

And I dig that.  As soon as it's up, I'll put the link up here.  Of course, you already can go there and buy Last Call, Muse of Fire, Burning the Old man, and Some Unfortunate Hour- all for less than a buck fifty.  

Anyway, below are my author's notes for Fenway.  No doubt, there are names missing that I will add as soon as I get them. 

AUTHOR’S NOTES – The inspiration to write Fenway came on the night that George W. Bush got re-elected.  I was at The Magician, a bar on the Lower East Side of NYC, watching the returns with some friends, and I wondered what happened to all those people from the 1960’s who were supposed to change the world?  Where were those lost idealists and protesters? It seemed like they had all vanished, died, or sold out.  I started to think about how liberalism had seemed to be on the decline in America since about 1980, when Reagan got elected, and how hippies were now pretty much a joke, a mostly forgotten stereotype.  And somehow, I got to thinking about Uncle Vanya.

I have loved the play Uncle Vanya ever since I saw a production of it done at The Western Stage of Salinas directed by my friend Jon Selover.  It’s so funny and sad and pertinent. I remember watching Julian Lopez-Morillas as Astrov in Act Three going on about the shrinking forests and thinking maybe the speech was an insert, penned by a modern writer.  But no, turns out old Anton was an environmentalist.  This particular production was brilliant- fast and furious and thought provoking- not unusual for that theatre company.  If there was one part of the play that I didn’t completely relate to, it was how Vanya was so mad at Serebryakov.  I got that Vanya was in love with the professor’s wife- but there was a deeper sense of betrayal at the professor.  I don’t know if it was that version of the script (Mamet’s), or where I was in my life at the time, but it just didn’t quite click for me.  But then, watching George W. Bush on the screen, it clicked.  Serebryakov was a sell-out, the equivalent of all those people from the 1960’s who had once stood for peace, love and understanding but had decided to instead become staunch defenders of the status quo.  And I could see in my mind’s eye Uncle Vanya set in the 1980’s, during the Reagan Revolution, on an old hippie commune.  Astrov could be a Greenpeace type who works at a methadone clinic, Vanya a burnt out ex-hippie, and Serebyrakov a former radical turned conservative.  Often, when I get an idea for a play, it’s like that.  I see the whole world, and several of it’s characters.  I don’t sleep much, and become sort of annoying to people, as all I can talk about for weeks is the story.  I wrote the first draft quickly.  I would have friends over to read scenes as they were being written- including Jack Halpin, Christine Goodman, Heather McAllister, and Tim McCracken.  I told Tim Errickson about the idea.  He had directed a production of Vanya at Expanded Arts in which I played Astrov, and I knew he would dig it.  He did, and soon there was a reading as part of Boomerang Theatre’s First Flight, and it felt pretty groovy.  Re-writes were done, and another reading/lab was done up at Lincoln Center, using the talents many fine actors, including Julie Congress and Dan O’Neill.   The next draft was given a reading by BeaconNY Productions, and used such talented wonders as Christopher Grabowski, Tara Falk, and Diane Buglewics Foote.   One of the great joys of writing plays is all the talented artists you get to work with- each with a unique perspective that adds to the soul of the show.  I wrote and re-wrote, and the wrote some more.  Many rewrites- with so much help from Lisa that she became co-author- and it was ready for a full production, which happened in the fall of 2006 as a co-production between the Boomerang Theatre Company and Impetuous Theatre Group, with Jack Halpin, Carrie Brewer,
Reyna de Courcy,
Margaret A. Flanagan,James David Jackson,
Tom Knutson,
Paul Navarra and was directed by Tim Errickson.

In 2009, there was a workshop reading of the play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in their Black Swan Lab run by Lue Morgan Douthit with a cast that included Gregory Lingington, Richard Howard, Jeffrey King, Derrick Lee Weeden, Terri McMahon, Vilma Silva, Catherine E. Coulson, Miriam A. Laube, Ryan Anderson and Tyrone Wilson.  In early 2010, a reading was given by the Seattle Playwrights Collective directed by Dan Tarker with Alysha Curry, Gene Thorkidsen, Sherry Narens, Gary Estrada, Griffith Kadiner, Dolores Rodgers, and Richard Hawkin.   Several re-writes came about from those two readings, and the version you have is the latest draft, based on all three productions/workshops.

I would encourage people doing this play to seek the comedy as much as possible.  And look up all the songs they mention in the script.  In this day of the interne, Youtube and Google, it is inexcusable to not research all references in a play. 

Enjoy!