Invitation to comment

first of all I intensely dislike the term blog.  bloggedy blog blog. hippedy hog dog. soggy foggy wrong wrong ding dong ning nong. SO…..let’s think of another name. Send me your ideas.   Secondly, I need to hear from you.  What do you need from the exercise department to get you going - keep you going?   A THOUSAND WORDS opened last weekend.  We’re running two more weekends.  Here’s the flyer: I like the finishing theme.  More on that.   Spend the week taking inventory on what you have started and stopped.  Herd it all into a file saved to your desktop.  These are your baseline ingredients - cover and let cool - we’ll start cooking next week.

Summer is in session

The screenwriting professor (me) is in a show that opens Friday – the LA Times did a piece on us yesterday. We, being PADUA PLAYWRIGHTS L.A. Times article Click on that then scroll down.  Nine playwrights were each paired with a downtown artist and given two weeks to write a ten minute play based on the artist’s work.  A company of actors formed and every Saturday, as the drafts evolved, the actors would read the latest versions and the ensemble of plays started to create the voice of an evening. I hope you’ll come downtown to see it.  We run for three weekends. Padua Playwrights proudly presents A THOUSAND WORDS. I’m still focused on finishing projects this summer.  During tech week I brought a variety of notebooks to the theatre and consolidated the exercises I’d used in my classes into a brand new COMPOSITION notebook (my favorite kind).  I was so excited to see them all in the same place. Often, after rehearsal, I want to eat and before I know it I’m ordering from the HUNGRY MAN section, leaving with most of it to go.  The next morning, I see it and usually throw it out after one little farewell bite.  But, this morning I spied something left over and it inspired me to blend in some fresh ingredients.  You probably already always do this so use it as a leap to analogy land and find that script you put down after Christmas – the one you tucked at the bottom of your regifting drawer. Re-read it lovingly – what’s worth saving?  (Your doggie bag)  Throw the rest away.  Now mix with new material (fresh ingredients/new notebook) and you are off and running again. 

These might inspire some fresh character stuff: Put one of your characters in therapy – what would he/she be saying the last five minutes of the session. Write a scene between two characters.  A needs money and B is distracted by historical facts. Make a short list of cruel remarks either directed at you or someone you love.  Give this as a first line of a monologue to one of your least likely characters.