50 Plays in 2012--the beginning

I started this blog in January 2011 because I wanted to develop a writing practice.  The experience of keeping the blog has been gratifying for me, and I almost met my goal of writing at least once a week.  At the end of 2011, while I lost a bit of momentum, I still had a sense that I understood my writing process a bit more because of the blogging, and I also appreciated the ability to share my thoughts and ideas with an audience and get feedback from people on the ideas that I was working out through the writing process.

As I thought about new goals for 2012, I got a little stuck.  I knew that I wanted to keep writing, but I also knew that I wanted to expand the practice that I had already developed over the last year.  Then I had a cockroach incident at Whole Foods just ahead of New Years, and I wrote a Facebook post about it.  I wrote about what happened as a few lines of dialogue, and people totally responded to the story.  I’m sure that the response was largely because a roach crawled up my pant leg, but I think that the dialogue presentation also heightened the experience to some extent.  It gave me the idea to try writing a play a week for the duration of the year.  A short play mind you, but still a play a week.

This idea is not new.  Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Topdog/Underdog, wrote 365 Days/365 Plays, essentially a collection of short plays where she wrote one play a day back in 2005, and those plays premiered throughout the United States in 2006 and 2007.  I am no Suzan-Lori Parks, so there’s no way that I can write a play a day.  However, a short play a week seems manageable, at least as I approach the top of the coaster hill.  And what I like about the idea is that it will force me to practice.  Right now, I only write plays when I need to.  By engaging in this challenge, I kind of have to follow through.  I hate not finishing projects, particularly when other people are paying attention.  So this is my very public way of holding myself accountable.

I will post one play a week on this blog for the remainder of 2012.  We have just entered the third week of the year, so that means 50 plays in 50 weeks.  The blog entries will fall under a new category, “50 Plays.”   The plays will be short;  I’m thinking 5-10 pages in WORD.  This week’s is just over 6 pages.  I have no idea what the subject matter might be, as I think I should just go with moves me.  If there’s a special thank you or inspiration for one, I’ll make sure to let you know.

If you have thoughts about what you read, make a comment.  If you want certain characters to show up again, tell me.  I’ll see what I can do.  I don’t intend this to be a serial, but who knows.  We’re at the beginning.  If you like what you read, share it out with your friends.  Facebook it, Tweet it, Woof it.  Whatever helps spread the word.

In the trenches

Working on a new play for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  Working title is Project | Hope, although I’m “hoping” (ha ha) that changes by the time the play is presented in April.  It might not, which will be fine, but the working title describes a concept, and I’m hoping that soon it will be more of an actual story, rather than simply a concept.

Hope is not an easy topic to write on, talk about, or think about.  That’s the biggest piece of learning for me so far.  And it’s also a topic that doesn’t inspire the happiest of thoughts or memories for people.  The first draft of the play consisted of 60+ pages of interview transcriptions culled from interviews conducted by the students that I worked with at UNC-Charlotte, as well as three interviews that I conducted.  The students selected the pieces from their interviews that they felt were compelling and needed to be heard by an audience, and then I further vetted those selections, along with my own, piecing together a script.  The first reading of that script revealed a number of things, the most important being that the entire piece was too heavy.  However, the search for ways to lighten the load of the topic has not been easy, and I continue to struggle.

I’m also now writing a frame for the play and using the interview transcriptions in a way that I’ve never done before.  It’s truly painful.  I feel like I’m betraying all of the work I’ve done before.  My past work with interviews has been rigorously faithful to what was uttered by the interview subject.  This project is forcing me to push against my own boundaries and beliefs about form and content.  I get angry.  My chest tightens.  I feel sick.  I stall.  I have lots of ideas in my head, lots of images, lines of spoken or typed text.  It’s just not coming out so easily.  Start the Pitocin drip, people.

Here’s what I do know.  Hope is slippery.  Hard to pin down.  Hope is also not as happy a concept as I thought.  Now what that means for this play, I don’t know.

For the play, I know that book shelves have stories and secrets that lie deep behind the books sitting on the shelves.  Knowledge goes deeper than anything trapped in a book.  It’s just about finding it.  What lies behind the traditional knowledge, knowledge that we sanctify and hold up as truth, is often more important than tradition.

Follow along here.  I may post more.  But thanks for reading all the same.

On turning 4-0 and welcoming the New Year

I realize that it’s been entirely too long since I posted to this blog.  I had every intention of making at least one entry in the month of December, but I was unsucessful.  The month of December used to be filled with excitement and anticipation for the holidays, but now the month flies by with obligations, final classes, and an avalanche of papers and projects to mark.  I refuse to carry my grading process into the holidays (or past my birthday if possible), and this causes a packed 7-10 days of high volume work.  The weeks following Thanksgiving feel like a whirlwind sprint to the finish.

As I mentioned, my birthday falls within that sprint, on December 22, and 2011 marked my 40th birthday.  We celebrated a bit early with a great party with family and friends here in NYC on December 10, and then the day itself was mostly quiet reflection with another gathering that evening where friends celebrated three of us born on December 22.

I anticipated that turning 40 might be traumatic.  There’s so much mythology about that age and getting old and being over the hill and whatever else people believe.  But I have to say that so far, 4-0 feels pretty great.  I don’t feel old at all, and I feel like I’m actually in better physical, mental, and emotional shape than I’ve ever been before.  It’s a nice feeling.  When I was younger, people used to comment that I read more mature than my age, and in some ways I feel like I’ve finally caught up to myself.  I feel less inclined to apologize for what I think or know to be true.  I’m less self-conscious about many things, and that in itself has far-reaching effects for the way I live my life overall.

On this first day of 2012, I find myself excited for the next phase of my life.  I’ve got lots on my plate this year, which is not new, but I’m truly excited about the possibilities spreading out before me at the start of this new personal decade.  One of my main goals for the year is stop catastrophizing so much, assuming that the worst possible outcome will occur in whatever situation happens to be at hand.  I’ve worked on this for awhile, but I hope to make even more headway in 2012.  Honestly, with the Iowa caucuses looming, it’s difficult not to catastrophize, but let’s see what happens.  If nothing else, we’re in for an entertaining political year!

Here’s to 4-0, a great 2012, and health and prosperity for all!

Please watch this video clip. Please.

For those of you who have followed my blog, you know that I’m not running around waving the “Gay Marriage” flag.  I’ve struggled with the issue, wondering how I relate to it, how my past, present, and future relate to it, and whether it’s something that I really completely understand.

Jay Jackson, a great dancer/choreographer that I worked with in LA this month, posted this video on his Facebook page, and I stumbled upon it in the top right hand corner stream.  I read his comment and clicked on the link.  I watched the video, and in the last few moments, I gasped.

I knew what was coming, and I still gasped and got really choked up about it.

Take a look.  It’s full of truth.  Deep truth about what it means to be committed to someone.  And why people deserve the right to be recognized as living in a committed relationship, if that’s what they want.

I don’t mean to insinuate that all committed relationships have to be named the same way or look the same way.  Absolutely not.  I’d prefer that we maintain the freedom to be different and to define our relationships on a case by case basis, but this video clip is the most effective statement I’ve seen about marriage equality.  And there’s no protesting or flag waving.

Simply put, lives are on display.  Nothing more or less.  Make sure you watch to the end.

Please take a look.  And share with your friends and families.

I’m scratching my head about this one, y’all.

I’m supposed to be writing a lecture on Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, and I’m struggling.  I logged on to my Twitter account, and I see some tweets about Occupy Wall Street.  I start poking around and getting confused, as I’ve been for two months.  Confused because I feel like I should be completely behind this movement, yet I feel completely disconnected from it.  I’m trying to listen to voices coming out of the movement and also to colleagues and friends who I know are supporting the movement, but I’m still struggling to find the connection.  I’m not willing to give up trying, but I’m still not quite ready to drink the juice either.

So I check out The New York Times to see if there’s anything that will help me understand.  That’s after watching a video online that someone posted of a series of clips of police doing violence to occupiers as they cleared Zuccotti Park.  Pushing, shoving, milk in the eyes to deal with the Mace or something.  I don’t know.  Again, I felt disconnected.

On the Times site, I happen upon this video story that I’ve embedded below.  It’s about a guy from Connecticut, 35 years old, out of work for two years, gets a job, and then after six months he quits the job to join the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Then the park gets cleared, and he has nowhere to live.  Lots of education, working towards a PhD at some point.

As I watched the video, I couldn’t help but wonder why this guy quit his job.  After being out of work for two years, why would he quit a job after finally finding one?

I can imagine that maybe his job isn’t fulfilling.  He so much as said so in the video.  But given the moment that we’re living in, is it wise to quit a job?  I’m sitting here feeling confused.  Scratching my head.  Wanting to feel sympathy for this guy, but finding it very hard to understand the choices he’s made.

I think that some people might try to tell me that the Times (a loathed “mainstream media outlet”) somehow manipulated his story.  Made it into what they wanted it to be.  Fair enough argument.  I would just respond by saying that this guy chose to allow the cameras to follow him around for the past month.  If he’s 35 and has advanced education, he should have some understanding of media representation and its ramifications.

It’s moments like these, when I question a choice like the one that this guy has made, that I know that I’m my father’s son.

My dad and I don’t always agree politically or socially.  I know he’s scratched his head about some of the choices that I’ve made in my life, but my father has worked for about 40 years for 50-60 hours a week selling auto parts.  He has worked in the same store for all of those years.  I worked with him as a part time parts boy and delivery boy off and on from the summer before 8th grade until I was 22 years old.  I watched how hard he worked, and I experienced firsthand his expectations for his co-workers and employees.  I don’t know many other people who have the work ethic that my dad has.  Except maybe my Uncle Bill, who my dad worked for many years.

My dad used to tell me that I better learn some common sense.  I had a lot of academic gifts, but the common sense took awhile to kick in.  The first time he said it to me, I got really mad.  But it’s some of the best advice he ever gave me.

My dad never had time to quit his job and occupy a park.  He had the huge responsibility, along with my mom, of raising five kids.  My dad never sat down at work, unless it was to work with an adding machine or a computer terminal at a desk.  If I leaned against a shelf or sat on a ledge, he told me to stand up.  Replenish the Valvoline Oil.  Stock the air filters on the shelves.  Dust the products that haven’t moved in awhile.  Sweep the floors.  Don’t stand around.

My dad did not model quitting for me.  Nor did he model standing around.  And he also didn’t model idle chatter.

Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble connecting to Occupy Wall Street.  I know stuff is happening there.  People are marching, people are teaching, people are voicing their concerns, people are occupying things.  People are quitting their jobs.  People are getting arrested.  People are planning next steps now that they can’t sleep in the park.

But what’s really happening?  What’s actually changing?  What’s getting done?

This son of a hard working Baby Boomer would like to know.

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