Got into to work at 10:12. OH MY GOD. Those martinis took my shit down, man. But they are so yummy – you can’t taste the alcohol at all (still trying to perfect their recipe at home: I think because they chill every ingredient so cold that you don’t taste the al-kee-hall). I look like hell. Or at least I feel like I look like hell. I’m so tempestuous – mercurial? First he’s horny, then he’s angry then he’s drunk then he’s pop-psych… I guess it is just all apart of the magic that is me.
Erik wanted me to come over last night but I didn’t want to go all the way downtown and I really wasn’t sure the purpose of going over there was. I mean I can guess the purpose. I have to give him his birthday present – a shirt that says ‘I [heart] GHETTO’ – he’s always describing himself as ghetto-fabulous. He grew up in my neighborhood when it really was bad. He’s coming with us to see Ghosts on Saturday at DePaul.
Nick and Popcorn Jeff (aka Tall Jeff aka BeemerBoy) are going to Texas this weekend. Popcorn’s from TX and wants to go see some frenz.
My Eat Babies post last night re-reminded me of I need to finish my play called Roadkill – about a small town that wakes up to find a dead infant in a McDonald’s bag on the side of the road – this event causes the home-spun sheen to erode and the townspeople descend into a darkness that destroys and alientates… sigh… why can’t I write sparkling comedies?
I need to write some more lists for the sidebars – I’ve got a few tumbling in my noggin. So we’ll see.
I have to get into the theatre space before Sunday by myself to walk the plays through on the stage – just for my own timing. Very excited I get to start directing again on Sunday. Directing gives me such a dumb grin on my face. I love it so much. My whole being is involved. The amount of intuition in my directing always surprises me – I don’t know why I can tell a line or cadence or movement is working – I just know. These plays are going to require some exact vocal scoring – the language is very rhythmic and I need to make sure the actors understand the need to preserve the tempo of the plays. It’s like volleyball with words. Bump-set-spike. Line-setup-punchline. And I get to work with some of my favorite actors on the earth – my friends. I could not make it big and work with this group of people and be happy for the rest of my life. I know going in that they’ve already done X amount of text work and most of them are coming in with their lines already memorized. They know that rehearsal is a laboratory to try out every possible scenario of saying a line or doing a scene. They know that if they aren’t ‘failing’ in rehearsal that they aren’t pushing hard enough. It’s like when I was directing Karen’s play this fall and it was with such a fun cast that we spent half the time laughing at ourselves because we were having so much fun. Such joy. And I love that I get to grow with these artists – that as we age we’ll come back to the same plays – as the older characters – or attacking Lear with them or Chekhov or Ibsen. I write my plays for them. They understand how to live in the worlds I create and I trust them to take my stories and blow them apart and sew them up. I am blessed.
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