This spring has been very busy. Sometimes I don't know how I do it. I think its sheer force of the universe that allows me to accomplish all I do. Or magic.
This audition season was sparse for me. I didn't book a performing gig for the summer or any other time for that matter. I think it's partly because I didn't attend as many auditions as I could have...or should have. I did get a callback for a role that I believe I'm right for. I didn't book it though. I think my acting may be a bit rusty at the moment. I'll put that on my list of things to do...
Thankfully I have many creative outlets to occupy my time, not to mention a demanding day job.
In March I won a grant to produce a concept CD for the musical I wrote with Jeneen Terrana (shameless Jeneen plug!). Our musical is called McGurk's Suicide Hall, a fictional account of actual events. The grant money doesn't cover paying the artists for their time (or Jeneen and me either). That means the CD will only be used for promotional purposes, to submit to developmental festivals, production teams and theatres.
Jeneen started working on the music long after the book was finished. The grant helps the music catch up to where the book is in terms of development. I promised Jeneen not to make any more script changes until the CD was finished. I was having a bit of writer's withdrawal. However that was quickly cured when I joined The Playground Experiment.
PGE is a group of writers and actors who meet twice a month for three hours. Five playwrights are chosen to present fifteen minutes of a new work. As Mike Lesser the founder and organizer of the group says "the messy stuff. The stuff that might not make it into the final script".
Mission:
To create
a safe, fun environment for Playwrights, Actors, Directors, Producers who are
looking to build new relationships among like minded artists. We are an
inclusive community of a diverse cross section of the New York theatre artists,
creators and patrons. By using Actor/Playwright short work sessions and public
readings our ultimate goal is to generate new works and new collaborations that
have a life beyond The PlayGround.There's a roster of over forty writers so getting chosen to have your work read takes time. But it does happen. As luck would have it the date for my stuff to be read was May 23. Final drafts of the fifteen minutes being presented are due the Friday before the reading. In my case this was Friday the 20th: a firm deadline to be ready to be viewed by the world. Okay maybe not the entire world...
At any rate I guess the universe decided that I needed more projects. On top of all of this a directing opportunity came along.
A guy I work at one of my day jobs with, Justin Yurio, runs a theatre company called Amios. It's an acronym that stands for Art and Music In Our Souls. Its mission is to "build community through art". Under the umbrella of Amios is a monthly presentation of six groups of six minute pieces. All are presented the first monday of every month after two weeks of writing, two weeks of rehearsing and two hours of tech. This mini festival of new works is called "Shotz".
I had been wanting to write for Shotz for the last year or so. I had talked to Justin, who is the Artistic Director about it. He thought it was a great idea and put my name on the list to receive the application. I applied and Justin's colleagues responded. I was told that even though I knew Justin and he had recommended me I had to supply samples of my work, videos and or scripts.
I was later told that a new policy was implemented. Because they had so many people wanting to write for Shotz, over 40, each new writer had to go through an apprenticeship with a current Shotz writer. He or she would write as if the piece was going to be presented and have it read at the table read with all the other pieces for that month's performance. Only the piece would not be performed.
So for May I applied as a director and viola I was in.
This all started happening in March. I had time to plan and conquer. I think I'm one of the last people on the planet to actually use a date book, as in a paper planner and an ink pen. So I got out my "wand" and my "spell book" to start making magic.
Everything was scheduled right down to when to do laundry, grocery shopping and what I was eating to exactly when I had to iron clothes for my day job. Things were humming along smoothly.
The breakdown started simply enough. One of the singers for the CD couldn't make the recording date. He was currently away on tour and then afterwards would go on to do a regional theatre season. He had one week between the two contracts, much of that time would be spent visiting his family.
Both day jobs started really picking up. More and more work was being offered. I couldn't refuse since the lean times were just around the corner. I currently cater, which runs on definite cycles. It's usually all or nothing. Right now it was all.
I get news from one of my nieces. She's getting married in July and has sent out the invitations. The wedding will take place in Minnesota.
Shotz gave me my cast and my writer. They needed me to figure out a rehearsal schedule based on everyone's availability, including the writer. Unfortunately one of the cast would not be able to make the tech rehearsal which was set by the Artistic Director.
I had a writing deadline for PGE looming in front of me.
So now I'm juggling my catering schedule with two companies, auditions, the schedules of 20 singers recording the concept CD, 4 actors and a writer's schedule for Shotz, my writing schedule and the set schedule of my niece's wedding in July.
Things were getting cray-cray!
Just keep your head down and keep working and keep waving that wand...
The singer on tour gives me the choice of one of two days to record. Jeneen, the composer, can't make it one day and I can't make it the other day. So I suck it up and schedule the recording session for the day Jeneen can make it. After all, her being an independent recording artist means this is her area of expertise. I know nothing about it. Me being there would be useless. Besides the day was listed as a priority date for work. That means I cannot cancel unless it's for a legitimate emergency.
Above and beyond all of the hoopla surrounding the recording dates is the fact that the Musical Director who was going to write the orchestrations disappears off the face of the earth before she even starts. So now I have to find someone to write music and teach music and get the music ready to record.
Prior to Shotz having their pre-rehearsal table read of all of the six minute pieces and the one "apprentice" piece, each of the writers sent out their first draft of their piece. The dramaturg/literary person then sends feedback. Shotz has their very own way of speaking to their creative people. In fact when I was brought on to direct, Justin sent our an email to all involved detailing what was to happen, including how to collaborate and address issues within a script. It was all very politically correct, non-confrontational, cyclical jargon.
When it came time for the table read I sat in a big circle with the other directors and writers and actors and administrators. We listened to each piece being read aloud. Afterward the "dramaturg" critiqued each piece, being very careful to use her "Shotz speak".
On the whole many of the pieces were okay. One was really good with amazing potential. But the piece that stood out the most was the apprentice piece. It was obviously written by someone with a high level of skill and command of ideas and language. The piece I was to direct still had the same issues it had in the first draft. The writer admitted to not knowing what he was writing about both in terms of story and in terms of objective. He even admitted to the piece "not being his best work".
Meanwhile I have to deal with my niece's impending wedding on July 16. My first thought was I would have to find something to wear. Then I realized I had to get there! So I added finding flights, hotel and rental cars on my already huge to do list. Also new to the list was the fact that the solo music for the guy on tour had to be finished in time to record on our new date May 5, a full three plus months earlier than planned.
Oh yeah, and I still need to write my new piece for PGE.
Just keep your head down and keep working and keep waving that wand...
With the help of Jeneen, we set out to find a composer to write accompaniment, not only for May 5 but for the entire piece. Our budget, while we are thankful to have it, is meager. A colleague of mine was having accompaniment written for his new musical. The writer was charging $100 per hour. I heard some of the stuff and it was amazing. I understand this is a high skill level, but that price was definitely not in our budget. We had to have music for 16 songs.
At this point catering is chugging along. I actually had to schedule one day off a week. Otherwise there was no rest or recuperation time. Or time to write. Yep still hadn't written a word for PGE yet.
Time was ticking and May 23 was coming. I needed to have fifteen minutes of new writing ready for The Playground Experiment. It sounds like it would be simple, but believe me it's not. I had to figure out where the story was going and then figure out how to get it there, only using the nine characters that had been set up. Did I happen to mention the show takes place in two huge scenes, Act I and Act II, where once a character is on stage he doesn't leave?
What was I thinking?
I kept my head down and kept working and kept waving.
The price of a flight to Minnesota dropped by almost $30. Who knew it was so expensive to fly there and why? Still no luck on hotel rooms. And I find out that my niece is marrying a Park Ranger. They're having the wedding in a national park. What the hell does one wear to a wedding in a forest?
Time to shop.
Speaking of which, Jeneen and I shopped for and found a composer to write arrangements...on line. He could have the pieces for May 5 done in plenty of time to get them to the singer before he comes into the city for one day to record. He can also do all the other pieces as well. He's fast, efficient and lovely to work with. Best of all he fits in our budget.
Shotz rehearsal starts. Time to put my director cap on and do director stuff.
And in the middle of this is my birthday. Happy birthday to me! YAY!!!
Then it all starts to really go to hell...
We can't find a studio with availability to record at on May 5. The only one we can find will charge what amounts to half of our budget set aside for studio rental. We're only looking to record 2 full songs and parts of three others in 3 hours. We would basically still have the entire album to record and no money to pay for it.
The female lead of the CD gets cast in a show coming to Broadway. She starts rehearsal before our set recording date in late August. She's not sure of her rehearsal schedule or whether she'll be available for us. This is awesome news for her and I can't be upset about it. First of all I have no time to be upset. I have too much to do. And secondly it's an amazing opportunity that cannot be turned down to record a concept CD for a show that has just started its long journey toward a Broadway production.
Jeneen realizes she double booked herself with the recording date in August and a family vacation.
The arranger needs time off to work on his own personal stuff.
The Shotz "writer" gives us three new drafts in 3 days. Half our rehearsal schedule is already done and we don't have a final script yet.
The price of a flight to Minnesota jumps back up to where it was when I started searching. And the hotels are not getting good reviews from prior guests, unless you think hookers, bugs and mold are good reviews.
I go shopping at a couple of stores for an outfit for the wedding. I find a huge sale but nothing that befits a forest wedding in July. Or nothing that fits me. My niece says it will be very humid cause it's by a lake. Oy vey.
Both day jobs want to use me for a myriad of days, but they're all the same days.
Oh my god, I need to find time to write my PGE script.
Adjustments have to be made. The head goes down and the wand comes out yet again.
Jeneen and I choose a new recording date for the female lead. We set it for July 11, a week before she starts rehearsal for Broadway. It's on a Monday so even if she books a short run contract of something she should be clear. Now we have to find a recording studio that has free time this late in the game.
Keep your head down and your wand out. Keep working.
We also change the date of the main recording session. We move it by a week. We lose the entire male ensemble.
Head down, wand out. Work.
At this point I've been all but consumed by my commitments. I need to schedule time to go shopping. The date for my play to be read at PGE is quickly approaching. Yet I've written nothing new. I need time to write. But my magic is not powerful enough to make more hours in the day. I resort to losing sleep and searching on line late at night for an outfit. In lieu of new writing I just edit the old pages of my script. At least I'm being productive and creative.
The Shotz "writer" has written a piece about on line dating. Meanwhile he's only dated two women, the second one he married. He has never done any kind of online dating...or even seen the apps. We spend valuable rehearsal time showing him what he's written about. He also continues to interrupt rehearsals with notes and thoughts and general musings. I ask him to please write down anything he wants to discuss and we'll talk about it after rehearsal has finished, privately (as in not in front of the actors).
Then one night he sends another new draft at 10pm. We have rehearsal the next day at 10am. I put everything else aside and stay up late to do my director homework. I have to be prepared for rehearsal. Then at the start of rehearsal he hands me ANOTHER NEW DRAFT. With this draft it's apparent that the writer is trying to direct the show through his stage directions.
I feel my power waning. My magical skills are not strong enough to combat all of this. So I summon reinforcements.
I call the artistic director of Shotz, my catering colleague Justin, and tell him the situation: the writer's lack of knowledge and expertise on the subject he's writing about and the fact that with every new draft the story gets more vague and obtuse. Justin agrees to stop by rehearsal. Let me just mention that Justin stops by one rehearsal for every piece in Shotz, so this is not something out of the ordinary.
At rehearsal I start blocking the show. I like to set down a quick skeleton of blocking first. Then I work on refining and tailoring it with the actors so that it feels organic. With Justin there, the "writer" starts to chime in with don't do this and don't do that. Meanwhile these are things that he has expressly written into the script or that we collectively have talked about. I tell him to take notes to discuss it later. Without missing a beat I go back to blocking the show.
Throughout the rest of rehearsal the "writer" and the "artistic director" sat two feet away from the actors whispering, about what I can only guess. Afterwards all three of us rode the subway back to Manhattan.
And all hell broke loose.
The person who dragged his pen across paper, as I will no longer refer to him as a "writer", went on a tirade. He had to put his foot down. His name would not be on this piece. He would not allow things in the show that he disapproved.
I tried to defend my position and give reasoning why those things were in the show, besides the fact that he wrote them in (because apparently that didn't justify it enough for him). Then he tells me "I don't care what path you go down [meaning line of thinking], you're wrong".
Meanwhile Justin is standing there. Listening. Not saying a word, not defending the company's principals or policies, not doing anything. So much for the "politically correct, non-confrontational, cyclical jargon" of Shotz.
I finally gave up trying to defend my position. I acquiesced and agreed to remove everything he found offensive from the show.
That night I get a message from one of the cast members who remembers that he can't attend one of the last rehearsals because he changed his work schedule. I had to contact everyone, get their availability, rearrange the rehearsal schedule and then contact them again with the new time line.
Down and out...
The next day the "artistic director", Justin, calls and we have a lengthy unpleasant discussion. He says there was tension during the rehearsal and that I wasn't collaborating. He watched the initial blocking rehearsal. Was I to ask the actors where they'd like to enter from? I just didn't understand.
In talking to him I finally realized what the problem was. We differ in what we believe a director does. I go for the traditional definition, while this company tends to think of their directors as glorified stage managers who do everything from scheduling rehearsals to finding space to rehearse but allow the actors and the writer to do whatever they want on stage.
What I found particularly telling about the company and the way they conduct themselves is how the "artistic director" handled things. He called me to "talk", when in reality he only called to release me from the project. And when did he do it? AFTER I had reconfigured the rehearsal schedule and contacted everyone about it.
I looked up for the first time in months. I looked around. I put my wand down. I took a deep breath.
Suddenly everything fell into place.
The arranger for the CD of McGurk's Suicide Hall, a fictional account of actual events decided he could do both his projects and our project. All of our deadlines would be honored, including having stuff done in time for July 11. In fact I just received music from him today.
There are singers who are willing to step in and help out on the recording should we need replacements.
The studio that Jeneen recorded one of her first CDs at, agreed to work with us on a short notice. The recording on May 5 went off without a hitch. Okay one hitch. I forgot to send one of the artists a copy of the music. He went in never having heard it before. Thank god for singers who are true musicians!
We are now confirmed for both of our new recording dates. Deposits are paid.
The price of a flight to Minnesota dropped by $50. I was given the tip to wait until a month before hand and book late night Tuesday/early morning Wednesday for the best prices. We shall see.
While shopping on line I came across some jackets I liked that were on sale. On top of the sale the company was offering an additional percentage off. I narrowed it down to two, one of which is so me and the other is so outside of my comfort zone. I had no idea which to get or what size to get so I got both in a size smaller than I had worn last year. They both fit and they both look great. Together they cost less than the price of one jacket so I kept them both.
At my day jobs I was working 50 hours a week, sometimes a little more sometimes a little less. I was doing so much that one colleague commented "I had no idea you were so industrious". But working so much does have its perks. As I've said in other blog posts, you never know who or what will be at a catering gig. This go 'round I had the pleasure of seeing Ariana Grande perform live. And yes she is just as sweet and pretty in person and she does indeed sing that high. Live.
In my quest to elevate the dreaded feeling of inadequacy because of not having a performing gig, I threw myself at every creative endeavor. I kept my head down. I kept working. I kept trying to recreate the magic of being on stage. What I didn't realize was that by doing this I was not paying attention to the warning signs that I was not in the company of professionals. In fact I ended up being with people I shouldn't be associated with at all, artistically speaking.
I was busy and that's all that mattered.
In dealing with AMIOS Theatre Company, "Shotz" and Justin Yurio, I realized they have a need to control Art. But you can't control it or force it. The Performing Arts is a living and breathing thing. The magic comes from it being alive and free.
The company sits in judgment of all that passes in front of them, from the unnecessary full company table read of every piece to be presented, to visiting rehearsal to their idea of how new theatrical works get put on their feet. Regardless of talent or accomplishment, if they deem a piece or person worthy by being edgy or creative or provocative then it's worthy of being part of their world. Otherwise it's a no go. And edgy for them is people miming being a tree and a bird during a picnic for no reason except they want it.
In reality their world is on par with graduate school and the work that's done there. There is nothing wrong with this work, but it belongs to a specific time in an actor's career. It has a specific purpose.
I was not furthering my career working with Shotz. I was not being paid. I was not having fun. At least one of those three things needs to occur to make it worth my time. In fact the only thing that was happening was me being judged by standards I no longer hold in regard. And none of the people associated with "Shotz" have the credentials or resumes to be doing so.
You know what? I'm wrong. What "Shotz" does isn't like grad school work. It's like the work I did when I was in Mrs. Clark's third grade elementary school play.
I apologize to all the hard working people in reputable grad programs.
Creating for the sake of creating is akin to masturbation. It's done for nobody but yourself. An artist has to seek out people, places and things that inspire creation not force it. And there is no limit to where that can come from. But it definitely doesn't come from being judged by posers working in a black box theatre on the lower East side.
Pay attention to what feeds your soul instead of what feeds your ego.
Finally free of undue stress, my creative writing juices started flowing. I was able to finish a new section of my play. It was performed on May 23 by a talented cast at the 26th Playground Experiment. It was well received.
With this I realized PGE provided me with exactly what I needed both artistically and spiritually.
The Playground Experiment provides a supportive, loving environment. It's fun. All are welcome. All are allowed to present their work. All are professional. All are free from judgement. Constructive criticism is given if asked for. This is somewhere artists should want to be. It lifts you up, not to put you on a pedestal, but to allow you to feel empowered and valued.
This is what Artists should aspire to be like.
So now, instead of keeping my nose to the grind stone, buckling under the pressure of trying to make magic, I'm free.
I've got my...
"...Head in the clouds...no weight on my shoulders."
