Once our eight week workshop is over we still have one additional event to culminate our experience. Trey provides an opportunity for the playwrights involved to hear their plays read by a group of actors. These readings are scheduled to take place two to three weeks after the final class. This will give the writers some time to make any updates/additions they feel are necessary. Trey arranged all of these readings through the theater company he is associated with – Moving Arts – which has a space on Hyperion in Los Angeles.
Our play was the only one with a single cast member. From the start my feeling was that watching a play reading with several actors interrelating is interesting and would give the author an idea of how the play was working. I couldn't imagine that me sitting in a chair and reading from the script would be very helpful for Jim or me – I mean, I had been reading pages this way for the past eight weeks. If we were going to get an idea how the play was working/playing I needed to memorize it and perform it...as a kind of staged reading not a full production...but still relating to the audience throughout—not to paper.
The workshop ended on the 31st of May. Jim and I allowed ourselves until the 8th of June to have a final first draft/reading version ready so I could start learning. After meeting to outline the final sections we passed the script back and forth a time or two and were finished a day before the deadline.
For the next couple of weeks I used just about every free moment for memorization of our 27 page script. Turned out that after almost ten years those acting parts of my mind were still working...
We recruited actor and friend, Keith Moreton, to read the stage directions and, as it turned out, to become another character in the piece...When I got to the final weekend I met with Keith on Saturday morning and we worked on the play together. At that point I was still struggling with some of the the transitions between sections—I would finish a story or memory and not be able to pull up what was next. A few words or a sentence was enough to get me back on track and going again—so I asked Keith if he would become “Mud” (name was his choice), my baseball pal and when I asked him for help he would give it to me in a few words or a sentence...when I left Keith's home, just one day before the reading/performance, I was feeling relieved and much more confident that it would all work out OK. I continued working on the play through that afternoon (went through it two more times) and into the evening until the sun started down. That night and the following day I tried to trust, relax and let it go...
There was one other play being read on Sunday night the 22nd and MUNGO! was up second. The theater is small, around 30 seats, with one door stage right and a tiny backstage and bathroom stage left. We set up a few chairs at center stage as the bus stop bench and Keith was sitting in a chair over by the door to read stage directions and give me a boost when I needed it. I did end up calling on Mud...so happy to have him there and on the spot with what I needed...play ran about 90 minutes. The biggest liability was the heat – a small room with about 20 bodies and no air circulation. However, it worked and the process and play was enjoyed and commented on. Lovely feedback and clear ideas for Jim and I as to where we needed to cut some so we could bring MUNGO! down to one hour or perhaps a little bit less...
We have just finished the second draft. Next step will be trying to run it through on my own. That will take a few days because with the cuts and rewrites I will have to go through and learn some bits and unlearn others. Once Jim and I are both happy with the end result we will start sending it out to festivals and such and hopefully find some kind of venue(s) where we can stage a full performance of MUNGO!
This has been another great adventure filled with twists, turns and many more ups than downs—I am grateful for the experience, celebrate the result and all the while I look forward to whatever comes next...
Our play was the only one with a single cast member. From the start my feeling was that watching a play reading with several actors interrelating is interesting and would give the author an idea of how the play was working. I couldn't imagine that me sitting in a chair and reading from the script would be very helpful for Jim or me – I mean, I had been reading pages this way for the past eight weeks. If we were going to get an idea how the play was working/playing I needed to memorize it and perform it...as a kind of staged reading not a full production...but still relating to the audience throughout—not to paper.
The workshop ended on the 31st of May. Jim and I allowed ourselves until the 8th of June to have a final first draft/reading version ready so I could start learning. After meeting to outline the final sections we passed the script back and forth a time or two and were finished a day before the deadline.
For the next couple of weeks I used just about every free moment for memorization of our 27 page script. Turned out that after almost ten years those acting parts of my mind were still working...
We recruited actor and friend, Keith Moreton, to read the stage directions and, as it turned out, to become another character in the piece...When I got to the final weekend I met with Keith on Saturday morning and we worked on the play together. At that point I was still struggling with some of the the transitions between sections—I would finish a story or memory and not be able to pull up what was next. A few words or a sentence was enough to get me back on track and going again—so I asked Keith if he would become “Mud” (name was his choice), my baseball pal and when I asked him for help he would give it to me in a few words or a sentence...when I left Keith's home, just one day before the reading/performance, I was feeling relieved and much more confident that it would all work out OK. I continued working on the play through that afternoon (went through it two more times) and into the evening until the sun started down. That night and the following day I tried to trust, relax and let it go...
There was one other play being read on Sunday night the 22nd and MUNGO! was up second. The theater is small, around 30 seats, with one door stage right and a tiny backstage and bathroom stage left. We set up a few chairs at center stage as the bus stop bench and Keith was sitting in a chair over by the door to read stage directions and give me a boost when I needed it. I did end up calling on Mud...so happy to have him there and on the spot with what I needed...play ran about 90 minutes. The biggest liability was the heat – a small room with about 20 bodies and no air circulation. However, it worked and the process and play was enjoyed and commented on. Lovely feedback and clear ideas for Jim and I as to where we needed to cut some so we could bring MUNGO! down to one hour or perhaps a little bit less...
We have just finished the second draft. Next step will be trying to run it through on my own. That will take a few days because with the cuts and rewrites I will have to go through and learn some bits and unlearn others. Once Jim and I are both happy with the end result we will start sending it out to festivals and such and hopefully find some kind of venue(s) where we can stage a full performance of MUNGO!
This has been another great adventure filled with twists, turns and many more ups than downs—I am grateful for the experience, celebrate the result and all the while I look forward to whatever comes next...
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