Oh yeah, THAT'S why I keep doing this!
Apr. 27th, 2009 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dejadrewApparently, my writing does not suck! This is a source of intense relief. I was beginning to worry. Well, continuing to worry. And also starting to make jokes about changing my name and moving to Switzerland and never writing anything again. At least, I think I was joking. Maybe. But we'll never know whether or not I would have followed through on that joke/plan, because I have it on good authority and from multiple sources that my writing does not suck! HOORAY!
I wrote and directed a fifteen-minute comedy that I took to the regional One-Act Play Festival this past Saturday. From day one this play has been plagued with difficulties. Literally plagued. My lead actress caught some kind of Killer Martian Death Cold the week before opening night.
(The actress, AKA my kid sister, caught it from my Dad, who caught it from the receptionist at the doctor's office. I'm sure the irony will be hilarious someday, and I will make many jokes about the receptionist earning extra cash for drumming up repeat business, but I'm not... quite... there... yet.)
I spent the last few days frantically working through worst case scenarios.
"If Sis is too sick to go on, I take her place and perform the part."
"If the male lead catches her cold and becomes too sick to go on, I KILL HIM and then draft Sis's boyfriend and make him read the part."
"If lead actor, Sis, and Sister-boyfriend all get hit by a car five minutes before opening, I refuse to go to their funerals and meanwhile draft two random people out of the audience to perform a public reading of the script."
"If I get hit in the same car accident and die then.... well, then this play is no longer my problem and somebody ELSE can figure out what to do with the fifteen minute hole in the program."
But none of the worst case scenarios came to pass! Sis pounded down Buckley's and Fisherman's Friends and medicinal herbal teas and nasal sprays and crap and got through the whole fifteen minutes without coughing or sneezing once! (During. After final curtain she stepped offstage and doubled up on the floor hacking like mad. ) And both of them turned in such great performances! They were so good!
And the audience LAUGHED! I was so afraid they wouldn't. None of our test audiences did, the one or two people at a time who we were able to fit into the lead actor's apartment where we were rehearsing. They just sat there in silence and then said it was "nice." I was so afraid they were being nice, that they were lying to spare my feelings. But this audience, our first, real, more than two people sitting all together in a darkened theatre audience... They laughed. They laughed a lot. They laughed at lines I had long since forgotten were funny.
And the adjudicator asked for permission to use my script in her acting class as a classroom exercise for her students. And this guy who won the award for best actor kept coming up to me afterward to gush about how awesome he thought my script was, in great detail and with great enthusiasm.
And we didn't win anything, and I didn't expect to, but it doesn't matter. They liked it. They laughed.
And I don't have to go into hiding in Switzerland.
Until I finish writing the next one.
I wrote and directed a fifteen-minute comedy that I took to the regional One-Act Play Festival this past Saturday. From day one this play has been plagued with difficulties. Literally plagued. My lead actress caught some kind of Killer Martian Death Cold the week before opening night.
(The actress, AKA my kid sister, caught it from my Dad, who caught it from the receptionist at the doctor's office. I'm sure the irony will be hilarious someday, and I will make many jokes about the receptionist earning extra cash for drumming up repeat business, but I'm not... quite... there... yet.)
I spent the last few days frantically working through worst case scenarios.
"If Sis is too sick to go on, I take her place and perform the part."
"If the male lead catches her cold and becomes too sick to go on, I KILL HIM and then draft Sis's boyfriend and make him read the part."
"If lead actor, Sis, and Sister-boyfriend all get hit by a car five minutes before opening, I refuse to go to their funerals and meanwhile draft two random people out of the audience to perform a public reading of the script."
"If I get hit in the same car accident and die then.... well, then this play is no longer my problem and somebody ELSE can figure out what to do with the fifteen minute hole in the program."
But none of the worst case scenarios came to pass! Sis pounded down Buckley's and Fisherman's Friends and medicinal herbal teas and nasal sprays and crap and got through the whole fifteen minutes without coughing or sneezing once! (During. After final curtain she stepped offstage and doubled up on the floor hacking like mad. ) And both of them turned in such great performances! They were so good!
And the audience LAUGHED! I was so afraid they wouldn't. None of our test audiences did, the one or two people at a time who we were able to fit into the lead actor's apartment where we were rehearsing. They just sat there in silence and then said it was "nice." I was so afraid they were being nice, that they were lying to spare my feelings. But this audience, our first, real, more than two people sitting all together in a darkened theatre audience... They laughed. They laughed a lot. They laughed at lines I had long since forgotten were funny.
And the adjudicator asked for permission to use my script in her acting class as a classroom exercise for her students. And this guy who won the award for best actor kept coming up to me afterward to gush about how awesome he thought my script was, in great detail and with great enthusiasm.
And we didn't win anything, and I didn't expect to, but it doesn't matter. They liked it. They laughed.
And I don't have to go into hiding in Switzerland.
Until I finish writing the next one.
