It's a Mysterious Process

Rehearsal can be a rocky, rocky road. Especially when half the rehearsal is spent working on improv and not all of the actors are fully comfortable with improv. And even more especially when the script is being built from the ground up around the actors. There are moments when all the pain of writing, improv, acting and tech seem to collide and create atomic explosions of artistic angst. Those moments when everyone in the rehearsal room is thinking "Why the bleep do I put myself through this?"

Last night's rehearsal had a few moments like that. Everyone was tired and cranky (Friday night rehearsal are tough). The script is a mostly ugly and awkward adolescent of a rough draft. We worked through a difficult improv that left the actors visibly frustrated. All in all, a diffcult night.

But...

But, in the middle of that difficult improv, there was a beautiful, crystal clear moment. In a through the looking glass moment from the second act, when their lives are turned upside down, Mark Pracht (playing Henry) grabs Amy Harmon (playing Zita), and says: "This is important. Who do you think I am?" It was just a moment, but it unlocked the whole second act for me, opened up the theme of the play and allowed me to reconcile all the disparate parts of the work.

Of course, now I have to go right back to the nasty, slogging work of getting it all down on paper (it's soooo much better in my head), but I'm guided by that one clear moment. Thank God for actors who are willing to work through the ugly and trust to the mysterious process.

Internet research is a wicked, wicked rabbit hole

Research is a strange thing, especially research for a play. And especially research for this particular play. Today alone, I watched video of Spock's death scene and funeral, and did fact searches on the price of cat cloning ($50,000), Klingon weaponry, quantum resurrection, and how much of our DNA we share with chimpanzees (98.5%) and with lettuce (40%). And, for a while, I was led down the wicked, wicked rabbit hole that is Internet research, following a story that involved dog clones, double identities and Mormon sex slaves. But I recovered, eventually.

When I find a tantalizing tidbit, I write it on a sticky note. The notes go on my kitchen wall, which quickly starts to look like it has a skin condition. A friend once asked, "But what do you write on the sticky notes?" I had no very good answer, but here are a couple of them.

"Intergalactic Ass Hound"

A pithy description of Captain Kirk

"Orion Slave Girl" Need I say more?

Finally, this sticky note reads, "Every time you look in the sky, you know there's something else out there, and that means you're not alone. That means there's hope." Not sure yet, but those might be the last words of the play.

New Post, coming soon

Tomorrow, I promise, I will write a new blog entry. Or perhaps bully someone else into writing one.

Meanwhile, know that today's workshop was great fun.

Information Overload?

The first meeting of the workshop was fantastic. It's amazing how much knowledge and insight this group shares. I was a little overwhelmed, to be frank. And, apparently, so were some of the actors. The following is a message from The Infamous SJ (our fearless leader) which was posted to our discussion board:

Hello All!

I was talking earlier with one of our non-Trek-fan cast members and they addressed an interesting concern worth noting.

During our first workshop we had spent an extensive time discussing the ideas surrounding sci-fi, fan-dom, and of course, to a large extent Trek and Trekkies. There was a lot of astute information and wonderful observations shared by the cast in many different capacities.

However, it seems there was something that I should have made clearer to the everyone earlier on. It seems that there might be some concerns about whether or not the non-Trek fans have enough to contribute to the dialogue and in the work. What's interesting (or lacking in sufficient attention, depending on the way one views it) is that the thing we thought most needed addressing to the Trek-fans is that we were in NO WAY looking to make fun of Trekkies/Trekkers.

First of all, let me say that it would be ridiculous for us to expect anybody to catch up to 15 YEARS OF SERIOUS FAN-DOM in a matter of a few days or even weeks. The last thing we want happening is for the non-Trek-fans to be killing themselves trying to catch up to the Trek-fans and feeling hindered due to the stress during the workshops. We want everyone to feel free to play and create. Even after the very first rehearsal, we were able to generate so many great ideas that we are planning to continue building upon!

While some of you might have possibly felt that you were not able to contribute as much as you would have liked in the discussions, it was especially during the improv portion of the evening that the balance of Trek and non-Trek clearly showed and was exactly what we were aiming for.
The world is not made up strictly of Trek-fans and to create a play where there is no sense of Trekkies' negotiating their ideals or way of life in a world of non-Trek-fans would be remiss.

And most importantly, the reason we have called everyone in is because Margaret and I are in many different ways familiar with your work and understand that each cast member has a talent and intellect that Margaret and I were both extremely excited to work with.

Any information that the hard-core Trek fans share is there to inform your creative choices within the realm of the play being created.

It's a testament to your devotion as brilliant actors to worry about being able to contribute more and want to research so much! However, there is no need to kill yourself trying to watch every single episode ever made.

Watch what you can.

Watch whatever piques your interest. Make note of whatever it was that led you to find it interesting or things that struck you as inspired, fun or even funny.

Come in armed with some questions that you may have for the Trek-fans or come in ready to ask whatever questions that might pop into your heads as we go along.

And again, there's no need for worry. If you have any concerns, please feel free to contact me or Margaret at any time. Or you know, even if you just want to chat. You guys are awesome!

The Joys of Research

I've realized that, in many ways, this play isn't that different from others I've written. It's about understanding a culture, this time a subset of American culture rather than a foreign culture. And I always do a lot of research, but this time my research is largely through the very talented group we've assembled.

But there's always room for more research. Today, some of the very enjoyable research I've done included reading about Klingon mating rituals and weapons used on Star Trek.

Here's a clip from Star Trek: Next Generation to help you understand the subtle intricacies of Klingon courtship.

About Marketability

A response from the notorious SJ:

I guess the way I view it is that marketing and marketability can be utilized as a tool and a way of understanding how people think and are moved to do things.

So you write or create a brilliant piece of work that you desire to share with the world but the way our society is structured, it is becoming increasingly difficult to share this work in the traditional sense due to the fact that the traditional model of community has been shifted.

It is also in some ways becoming easier to share your work because of the internet and the fact that the new communities are connecting through the sharing of information online. The new community has also been conditioned to respond to the use of words and images to determine what it is they will choose to do in their lives. They are extremely savvy and their intuitive sense is in many ways very sharp. If something even seems a little off or off-putting, they do not respond.

I guess ultimately what anyone or even any artist decide to do depends on what the ultimate goal is, and each goal comes with its outcomes and its pros and cons. You weigh them and make choices expecting certain results.

It’s a tricky balance and hard to do well. And also it is exciting when pulled off correctly.

But I do love purists in many ways because there is honesty and integrity in what a purist will think and do. And using marketing to connect a creator with such pure intentions to a larger group of people can be, for lack of better words, fulfilling in its own ways.

a marketable title

So, more about about the play's title, which SJ still hates. Neil Genzlinger, in his NY Times Arts Beat Blog, writes "the best way to get people into your show is to put the word 'Naked' in your title, whether or not anyone is naked, or at least strongly imply in your show description that nakedness is available." He goes on to say that "pop culture references... are always good" and "people love animals."

Now, I generally loathe theatre that's clearly designed with marketing in mind, because it usually sucks. However, I've realized that the play I'm writing has all of the easily marketable elements. The pop culture reference, obviously, is Star Trek and the Trekkies. A cat plays a pivotal role in the plot (but more about that later). And I've even just written a sex scene (of sorts).

Hmm.

Maybe I should retitle the play after all. Maybe I should call it "Naked Trekkies. With Kittens."

Music of the Worlds

It seemed like a good idea...
I'm writing a new play. It isn't my first. It isn't even my first time to workshop a play. But it is my first time to workshop a play like this. "Like this" means that, even though the first rehearsal is tomorrow, I don't have anything written. Not a single scene, not an outline, not even a character description. All I have is a basic idea, the tiniest glimmer of a story. And yet, tomorrow, fifteen people (fifteen!), actors, directors and designers, will show up to help me build this play. Through discussion and exploration and theatre games, I will build a play from the ground up, constructing around and through the players, rather than in the isolation of my own grey matter. Hey, Mary Zimmerman won a Genius Grant for this sort of thing, so it seems like a good idea. Or at least it did months ago when I pitched the idea. Now, frankly, I'm terrified.

About the play

The play is about a group of devout science fiction fans, Trekkies (or Trekkers, and that debate is a whole different issue) who create fan films, their very own Star Trek spin-off. The fan film forms a story within the story, which eventually breaks loose of the main narrative and takes over. The play is also about string theory, quantum resurrection, and a dead cat.

About the title
The working title of the play is Musica Mundana. SJ, the director, doesn't like the title, but the idea is sticky and I just can't shake it, so I'm going with it, at least for now. The ancient Greeks believed that each planet sang its own song, the entire cosmos spinning in perfect eternal harmony. And now that we can record radio waves from space, we've learned that, in fact, each planet does produce its own sound. The entire Milky Way vibrates like an immense drum head. Saturn sounds like a B-movie sci fi soundtrack. Jupiter sounds like waves crashing on a beach. A black hole makes the deepest sound ever recorded, one too deep for human ears to detect. Even our own Earth constantly hums, a sound some animals can hear but we cannot. Musica Mundana. Music of the worlds, every living creature, all the planets, spinning together in endless song, all of us part of the symphony, each of us adding our note to the song, no matter how big or small.