The Winepress (stretching)…

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I don’t know about you but with me, every time I hit another level/dimension in my writing, I feel like I’ve been put through a winepress then stretched out like taffy and thrown back into my mold.  It’s as if all the pieces and parts of me get re-blended back into themselves in different proportions.  I am momentarily left somewhat disoriented and completely vulnerable to self-doubt.  Then, the last of me gets pressed through and suddenly the execution of a story that seemed to be a fleeting vapor in my mind materializes and I am able to embrace the change in myself.

Recently, I have been on a mission to stretch – to consciously grow in my craft – to be more uncompromising when I write.  I can’t think commercial; I have to think timely.  I have to continue to write to my rhythm and submit from what I have rather than write to submit.  Although, it is very good exercise to push oneself to write a play specifically for a certain conference or contest; it can get in the way when one needs to revisit a story but writers learn by writing so the time is never wasted.  When stretching, I like to read/see other playwrights’ plays which help me dissect my own work (written, in progress, even in the idea stage).  I have been telling myself to stretch for about seven months now…  I wasn’t quite sure how to do it so I figured that if I spoke it to myself long enough, it would materialize somehow.  By speaking it, I would be able to reach from where I was to where I wanted to go.  Seven months ago, I thought it was possible.  Today, I know it is possible because I am seeing a change in myself and my writing.  I know now that I am ready to revisit pieces from my back burner and work through them.  I’m not the same person I was when I put the pieces on the back burner; I’m more open to bending form to tell the story.  I’m more confident that I can create something new out of vapors –  the same way I become new each time I go through the winepress…

Write It Scared…

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I’m pretty fearless when writing but there are still instances when I am not (two to be exact).  I was writing a one woman show for a friend some years ago.  It started pretty crazy with the voices coming out of my mouth while I was driving – always as I neared or left the Post Office.  This happened for a few days before I realized the voices were characters in a play and not me losing my mind out loud.  There is a poem in that first scene called “Before the Red”; I felt and still feel that the piece should have explored that specific subject matter but I ended it when the voices quieted enough for me to go on to write the other monologues in the piece – maybe because I was tired of those strange characters blurting things out of my mouth – maybe because deep down I knew I was not ready to go THERE…  Individually, the monologues work but the collective piece is not a conclusion to the matter.  And, though I did not censor myself in writing the monologues, for whatever reason, I did fail to push into that first world I found – the THERE space…  I know the exact point I decided not to write the whole ugly truth…when those darn girls stopped blurting out sentences.  It’s at that point where I decided to write a variation of that truth – a modified portion of it which merely scraped the surface – the almost whole story.  The meat of it was left in the quarantined sector in my story bank – in the scary dark – THERE…  Though I am not easily jarred, with this piece, I was scared.  Scared that to really tell it, I would have to go deep enough to hit oil.  Would I be able to survive the gushing out of it?  I was scared to find out and I was scared that if I could survive the gushing part, I would put it out there before its time…  I am a firm believer that “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…Ecclesiastes 3”  Baring “uglies” for no purpose other than to bare them is not part of my makeup as a writer.  Perhaps it’s all those Aesop’s Fable cartoons I watched as a kid or the Twilight Zone episodes…  I sort of let myself down by writing an alternate piece and it’s stuck in my head (annoying me with thoughts of – “You know you still have to tell that story ‘cause you didn’t really go THERE… and you know you didn’t.  When are you going to write that story?  Soon, I say, right after the submission period is over and I have more time.”). 

I had been able to push the first instance to the back of my subconscious for a few years until I met playwright Will Eno who wrote “Thom Pain: based on nothing”.   I met him at a conference and he knew at once when I read the girls’ scene that I had failed to let that play go where no play (of mine) had gone before…all the way to the scary dark THERE…  The conversation went a little like this (because this is how I remember it):

Me:  “I think I failed.  I think I edited myself in some way.  I think the play wanted to say something else.”

Will Eno:  “You’re right.  You failed.  You have to throw it out and start over.”

Me:  “But, what I ended up with – the monologues are good.  I can’t throw them out.”

Will Eno:  “Then keep them but you still have to start over.  Trust that the thing that originally motivated you will motivate you again.”

He’s right.  I started over.  Since I never actually kill my darlings, I have them on standby to recycle/rework into other pieces.  When I sit quietly enough, the girls start to chatter again, taking me back to those moments when the sparks of their voices made me shake…

More recently, the second instance came about when I decided that I did not want to write a piece too close to the occurrence of the current event that inspired it.  My preference…  Again, I was scared that the timing was not quite right to go THERE … so I wrote something else.  A good piece but not the project I should have tackled.  Then I went to see “Stoop Stories” by Dael Orlandersmith.  After the talk back, I mentioned to her how her play “Yellowman” affected me.  Profoundly.  It made me shake…made me remember the girls who have been stepping aside for all the other plays I’ve written (funny both plays involve just girls/women).  Dael’s work makes me think about those two pieces on my back burners; it makes me want to revisit them now;  it makes me want to tackle the scary dark…just get right in there and look around.  I asked her how she was able to keep from editing herself.  I asked if she cared about what people may think or how they would respond when she’s writing.  I asked her if it scared her to be so open and honest.  She said – (and this is what struck me the most and this is how I remember it) – she said, “I care but I can’t do that to myself.  Do you understand?  I just can’t do that to myself.  Of course I’m scared; it scares me but I have to do it.” 

She’s right.  I just have to resolve it in myself that I will always write everything as open and honest as I can.  Otherwise, and I’ve learned this over time, I won’t give myself a pass because I can’t do that to myself either… 

As a writer one owes it to oneself to go to the THERE space… to the scary dark place and write it…just write it scared…

The Pursuit of Happiness

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There’s a writing exercise that my mentor uses to get the fire started when imagining the world of the story.  The exercise is to do stream of consciousness writing on a topic that the writer feels strongly about.  What this is does is raise the counter argument to the opinion.  Then the writer takes this debate onto the story in a parallel vein. 

The argument is the catalyst to a dialogue between the hero and the antagonist.  Both sides have a need to be fulfilled, and they’re going to try their damndest to get what they want.

Today, I’ll indulge in something I feel strongly about.  An email sent in good will, but ending with words that made me think if what each of us were pursuing was in the best of our own interest.  The email trailed of as “just wanted to say hello..let’s try and get together sometime, when you’re not so busy…”  My knee-jerk reaction was detecting an undercurrent of complaint – “when you’re not so busy…”

What I feel strongly about is when people make demands of another person’s time to fit well into their plan.  I feel there has to be a strong mutual motivation between two people to spend time together, before the other person can begin to insinuate any demands on the other.  I think the friendship/relationship is already on a bad footing when one feels neglected and the other feels obliged to be less selfish with time, money or emotional commitment.

In this situation, I’m prepared to step away and move on because I know I can’t fulfill the expectations of the other person without trying to change, and I’m not prepared for that right now.   At the moment I’m still grounding myself to my decision to be a writer, a writer who works at a full-time job, and the regular paycheck supports the habit.  But this job does take its toll on my energy, and that’s the price I pay.

I had spent the past four years supporting the artistic pursuits of another artist, a musician, and I put my artistic aspirations on the backburner hoping that when his music career takes off then I can be the playwright. 

(In hindsight, if there is a calling to do creative work then pay heed to that voice right away, because it is a calling that leads to your fulfillment as a human being.  When you quiet down that voice then you also kill that living spirit, and your life becomes a dull routine of working to consume without fulfillment.  Empty consumerism like popcorn and high-fructose syrup.)

Career aspirations and expectations did not match reality on many levels, and this tumbled into the relationship which fell apart.  Statistically, my situation wasn’t unique, but on a personal level – it sucked.  The breakup, though anguishing and nearly breaking me, also awakened me. I found strength, and I woke up: To make my dream come true, I had to be true to my dream.

Being true to my dream means that I am conscientious of how I spend my time and energy.  So when someone takes offense to me being busy then I can’t apologize.  I won’t do it, because that would negate my affirmation to organize my life around the art I am purposefully making.  My belief system has evolved that I am consciously aware that my creation of writing is the center of my universe.  The imagery includes nourishing my wellbeing by surrounding myself with supportive individuals who feels empathy with my purpose. 

It’s not selfish to do what you want to do.  If you examine at a deep level the most kind and giving acts of the “Mother Teresa’s” of the world then it’s possible to see that they are doing what they need to do in pursuit of their own happiness.  

~ There exists only one aloneness, and it is great, and it is not easy to bear.  To nearly everyone come those hours that would gladly exchange for any cheap or even the most banal camaraderie, for even the slightest inclination to choose the second best or the most unworthy thing.  But perhaps it is exactly in those hours when aloneness can flourish.  Its growth is painful as the growing up of a young boy and sad as the emergence of springtime~ 

~But that should not confuse you.  What you really need is simply this – aloneness, great inner solitude.  To go within and for hours not to meet anyone – that is what one needs to attain~ 

~Your innermost happening is worth all your love.  You must work on that.  Do not expend too much courage or time to clarify your position to others ~

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet”, translated by Joan M. Burnham

Alchemy

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While making an Indian style pulau for breakfast I savored the fragrance of the spices toasting together on the hot pan.  In the mix were: cardamom seeds, cinnamon bark, clove, coriander and cumin.  It struck me then that the bouquet from the heating spices was a form of alchemy.  The catalyst was the flame.  It allowed for the spices to release their unique essences and blend with the others.  I like to call it:  Greet and Meet. 

How can I apply this magic to my writing?  What is the magic that good writing needs to be fulfilling?  I think it’s simple, but so hard to get at.  And this simple magic is truth. 

 Have you ever gone to a comedy show and the material and delivery just isn’t funny?  What makes a joke funny I wondered?  Analysing it, I came up with – it’s the exposure of the subtexts beyond the words.  It’s identifying the moment that resonates in each one of us, and transforming this moment to words and action.  To the writer it is the transformation in the story and also what change happens to the story teller in going through it.

 Last night I was reworking a situation, one which I’ve been laboring on for quite sometime.  It’s an important situation in which the key players are together.  In rewriting this situation I felt there was not any flavor and substance to the dialogue.  It was flat.  What’s the matter? I asked.  What am I hiding?  And what should I do to get unstuck?  I stepped back and got busy with nervous habits – eating and drinking lots of caffeine.  Well this is not going to help me get unstuck.  Get back in there and face the situation.  What do these people really want to say?

 Now, the mystery in the process started to unravel.  I, as the writer, needed to check-in my ego at the door and leave it behind with its agenda and my idea of the story.  Though I have the omniscient point of view, I am not the god creating this situation.  I am the channel for these people trying to tell each other something important to them.  Trust Analyn.  Learn to trust the players in the game.  Know that they know what they want to say.

 So the magic was ignited when I learned to express some compassion towards my players.  I stopped dictating what I think he should say, and how she should respond.  I just let them express, and I got further along in the story.  The alchemy of the story was happening at many levels:  in the story, in my players, and in me.  It was liberating.

 “The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” 
– Anais Nin 

 

Evolution of Change

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Imagine the seed of change, perhaps, carelessly dropped into the earth of your consciousness by a casual comment, or a persistent voice that calls you to ‘look into this”.  But you carry on with your days:  working to maintain life. 

 One day, you’re in a place surrounded by people and situations that are beyond the normal realms of your day-to-day activities.  There are moments when you pause and consider the purpose of it all, all this running around and keeping the fire burning till you feel burnt out.

You start to inquire what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  How did I get here?

 ~*~

 Saturday morning, I did my 3 pages of Morning Page (Artist’s Way) at 6 o’clock which is very early for a weekend.  However, I am determined to develop the habit of getting out of bed and staying up rather than allowing for the temptation of “lingering a little longer” in bed which often ends up to be another one to two hours of combined half-sleep and strange dream states.  It’s my 6th day of my new practice.  I am so sleepy, almost “stupid tired” that words are trailing up or down on the pages.  Incoherently drunk from lack of sleep I forge forward to the last 3rd page.

 I do everything within my power to hang in there in my awakened state: coffee, shower, sweep the floors – just mindless activities to keep me moving.  Eventually I maintain an awareness of being “awake”.  I quote “awake” because I begin to experience the state of change beginning.  The tough shell of the spore holding the golden fluid of life, begins to soften, and allowing for stretch of tiny tendrils reaching towards light.

 By 9 am, I am eating toast and coffee for breakfast as I stare at the oleander bush beyond the iron bars keeping them out and locking me in.  I feel restless in my confinement, because I’m at a halt in play, feeling stuck in the mud because I can’t get to the gold I’m digging for. 

 “Why am I writing this?”  “Why would anyone read this?”  “What if I’m wrong?”.  The self-sabotaging question formulate my worst fear about the journey I’ve embarked upon.  My worst fear is I have nothing to say. 

 I swallow and gulp down the rest of my breakfast to run away from myself.  The reflection in the mirror is distorted, and I don’t like what I see.  Picking up the dog leash I coax my dog, “Walkies?”. She and I wander towards the thrift store near my apartment.  When I’m at loose ends I go there to play.  In this store of possibilities I can play pretend without denting my wallet.  I browse through the books and found –  “Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen” and “The Theatre of Revolt” in the heap of other peoples’ refuse.  

 I sink into “The Theatre of Revolt”, and found a blade of thought to maim and banish the sword of doubts my mind had raised. 

 “The revolt of the dramatist, it is important to add, is more imaginative than practical – imaginative, absolute, and pure.  In the earlier phases of the theatre of revolt – in some of the works of Ibsen, for example, and of Shaw – the drama sometimes begins to look like an act of utility; and in the plays of Brecht, it is designed to lead to political revolution… Dramatic art is not identical with reality for any practical application, but rather proceeds along a parallel plane; and dramatic revolt therefore, is always much more total than the program of political agitators or social reformers.  The modern dramatist is essentially a metaphysical rebel, not a practical revolutionary; whatever his personal convictions, his art is the expression of a spiritual condition.”

 –  by Robert Brustein from “The Theatre of Revolt”

 I got to this place because I asked for it – I wanted to take the journey into the unstable and unknown.  As a self-declared playwright in a family of “practical” jobs and careers, I’m alone.  This journey asks my fingers and toes to stretch beyond my comfort zone, and be prepared to be surprised and astonished.  It’s no longer the product that I’m obsessed with, but the process of change and expanding my consciousness through my writing.  The byproduct is inconsequential to what I’ve learned along the way.

Discipline as Art (or) Where I panic for a bit

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I’ve been trying to decide if I want to go back to grad school.

There are several factors involved: I haven’t been able to land a job (other than the part time, odd and ends, type jobs – Census, PA work, etc.) I recently interviewed for an English Faculty position but was told that my lack of coursework in the English field (countless playwriting classes & MFA not-withstanding) was under-impressive, and, well, let’s face it – School is Cool and I’d like to spend some more time in that soft scholarly nest.

But then the inevitable question arises: What would I study?

It seems that the degrees I am most drawn to are the ones with the least stability: Film studies, directing, screenwriting, photography.  In these fields I have great diligence and passion.  Pursuing an English degree, even just a Masters, seems like… welll, a lot of work.

But don’t I work hard already?  Aren’t I used to “difficult”?  Don’t I eat, sleep, and breathe “challenge” by the very nature of my chosen path; playwriting?

I will spend countless hours at my desk, for days on end, tapping out a play or outline or treatment, I can work tirelessly on my photography/art without giving bathroom breaks and tea-time a second though.  But the moment I start to think “maybe I should go get a practical degree with all this free time currently on my hands”, my hearts starts to skip a beat and I get sweaty all over.

Am I that stubborn and artistically crazed that I truly can only bear to do that which I love?  Or is it the fear that all this time spent in pursuit of my dreams will be jeopardized or minimized by “realistic” time-lines?  If I were to get an MA in English, would I really then go crazy trying to get a teaching position in that field, or would I just graduate with the paperwork, another loan in the hole, and get back to my playwriting – get back to chasing after theater faculty positions?

(sigh)

It’s enough to make a girl go a little, well, crazy.

But you know where a girl can really lose her mind and not worry too much about it?  Film school…

Hmmm… perhaps this bird just knows her feathers.

~Tiffany

Size Matters

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It really does.

I mean, there’s no need to get pink in the cheeks, I am talking about theater here, after all – and really, the play is the thing.  But, unlike the world’s grotesque obsession with mammoth manly pieces, it seems the theatre world is dead set against that which looms huge… So what does one do when one writes “large” plays?

My first grad-school play, In the Company of Jane Doe, called for a cast of 12 (or 8, if you got creative) but the first time we produced it, we cast 14.  And the script (not I, oh no) asked for some pretty interesting effects like  “A row of Clones spill out and around” the main character.  And it called for a large voluminous womb.

Fun for designers… better yet for designers with a nice little glorious budget… budget… budget  (from the echoes of an empty purse)

So the next play I wrote, I limited myself to four characters and wrapped them around a kitchen sink… but wouldn’t you know it if one more showed up, and those characters insisted on clamoring about the place… the living room, the garden, and the attic.   Still, at the end of the day, I felt I had done a lot to curb my “big thinking”  So much so in fact that I set out to write a THREE person play… It would be minimal. it would be clean… it would be: The most expensive play I’ve imagined to date. There are multi-media projections, a fire-breathing closet, five characters, and some of them fly in and off stage or hover “Above their own bodies.”

And I wonder sometimes if I am just hell-bent on making the most of this struggling artist thing by writing these monstrously theatrical shows that make dreamers giggle and realists cringe: “How can we produce this when you’re still just a pipsqueek in the theater world?”  I guess the economic crisis hasn’t done much to endorse the gambling spirit.

That, and the fact that in addition to my affinity for theatricality, I also write primarily about (wait for it….) WOMEN.

And if there’s one thing that seems to scare the Powers that Be more than big casts or fire-breathing budgets… it’s a “feminine” story.

But why?

I can’t figure it’s got any firmer basis in anything other the fact that many, many plays hover around or originate with men, and if there’s one thing people dread in any sort of business it’s untested change… Change brings uncertainty, and uncertainty breeds nervous pocket-books, and we all know that when the pocket-books get nervous, not a whole heck of a lot happens by way of taking chances.  Soooo, if the standard is “Male playwrights and male-centered plays sell tickets” then we are quite literally going up against “The Man” when we send in our materials.

And it’s crazy frustrating!  Especially when there are some kick-ass female playwrights out there creating all kinds of exciting theater.

So a playwright is faced with questions – Does she write smaller shows?  Does she try her hand at commiserating with a Manly public and changed “Sallie” to “Doug”?

Just what is a playwright’s responsibility to the yawning public (or frightened Producers) to give them what seems to be selling… or try to sell them what should?

Possibly, the solution is to set yourself some guidelines and then test them- my “Three person, one-set, super-clean” play ballooned into one of the biggest (And I think most beautiful) plays I’ve ever written.  It’s received oodles of praise, and I believe it WILL get produced (eventually) it’s just too exciting not to.  But I wouldn’t have written the thing if I hadn’t started out with that mindful, business-like plan of writing something “Small”…

What budgetary/production-ary/mind-set-ary do you take into consideration when inspiration strikes?

~Tiffany

Breaking Dawn…

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I don’t know what it is about the morning, I generally sleep right through and past it into that mysterious “brunch” hour of 10:30 – when it’s no longer morning, not really – and even then I groan at the sunlight teasing my eyes open.  I LOVE to sleep.

But the other day, for reasons unexplained, I woke up early.  Like, really early. I woke up at 8 a.m.

And I realized (though far from a normal person’s “early”)  this 8 a.m. business was no joke.

The sun wasn’t yet high enough to have laid it’s grip upon the scenery, the air still carried a whif of midnight on it’s coat… I was reminded of some of my most favorite mornings in LA, when I would get up early for some other totally bizarre reason, and actually embark on a journey to the beach or somesuch… I really love the soft quiet of a city still waking up.  I love the breath of night on the air.

In any regard, there I was, sitting at the breakfast table, totally stymied, when I realized what it was that had woken me: I was excited – genuinely and totally excited – to get to work on my play.

At 8 a.m.

Crazy.

And although I spent yesterday working on less exciting re-writes, re-writes that will continue today, I woke up this morning with a similar thirst to sit down before the keys.  It wasn’t 8 a.m. excited – more like 9:30 – but it reminded me how easily one can sleep the dawn away when one has little in front of her that gets her revved up.

It’s been a long trip down unemployment lane these past – oh – 14 months (!)  And easy to get a little depressed, a little wary at the idea of facing the world… I think mornings like these are what’s keeping me sane – mornings where I can experience some vicarious living through the pages of my imagination.

~Tiffany

Banging my Head Against the Wall

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Sometimes a girl gets frustrated; with her messy desk, with her lack of internal thesaurus, with the stack of plays next to her and lack of productions behind/before her, with email, with the BP oil spill, with having to work for the Census because she’s STILL unemployed…  Sometimes a girl gets so frustrated, so overcome by her own seeming inertness, that she dreams of action, even if it’s the bang-her-head-against-the-wall kind.  So what does the girl actually do in these situations?

I suppose she writes a play about it.

I used to rub my eyes in confusion when other writers would lament the difficulties of writing from their own experiences – since all of my plays are pretty much beyond the realm of The Real, it had never been a problem for me.  In fact, I quite enjoyed the fact that I wrote so fantastically…  Sure, all my leads are women, and sure, they share some of my nutty neaurosis… but surely that’s where all the “Me” ended.  So imagine my surprise when just this last month I sat down with all my frustrations, all my rage at the BP oil spill and my lack of solid employment, and wrote a play.

In two weeks.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable because I’ve never written a play in two weeks!  (Not unless it was a little nugget of a script.)  I was flabbergasted – and super excited – and also intensely uncertain as to its value or merit.  You see, this play was definitely about me this time – a hyper-charged “me” in disguise to be certain – but there was the unemployment, there was the Census, and there, center stage, was my heartbreak over the BP oil spill.

You see, I may not be able to do much about my current state, or the current state of the world, but I could create a character who could. I could endow this character with the supernatural pull that I myself lack…

So I did.

I was no longer just pulling my hair out, banging my frustrated head against a wall!  I was engaging in some urgent spiritual catharsis, and making a play in the process.

And I did so because I’m a writer.

I wrestle with the notion of striving for a career in “entertainment” when the world is as crazy as it is… sometimes it feels selfish, others like a coward’s ploy… but I think all this observational anxiety just comes with the territory – the sit-on-the-perimeter-to-observe-and-report territory, that a writer occupies.

Even as I sit in fear of this rocky economy, listening to theaters who are afraid to take a chance on new work, accepting pats on the back from my peers who also sit in dread, I’m able to recognize this – I’m able to sit with the muse and get to work – because that’s what I do.  It has never been as obvious to me, this commitment and actuality of the writer’s life, as it is right now amidst my own personal panic; I can’t plug the hole in the Gulf, I can’t MAKE someone hire me, but I can write a play about a woman so affected by the world’s current state of crisis that she becomes more than herself in a bid to help it.

And I think that has value.  The job of the playwright is, after all, to reflect his/her time through story, isn’t it?  So now I task myself with revisions, and I cheer myself forward along this path, my path, the dramatist’s path… it’s a strange sense of comfort to have found in this summer’s storm, but I cling to it.

I have to.  The world is too crazy at the moment for me to find a foothold anywhere else.

~Tiffany Antone

DIGRESSION

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DIGRESSON

Playwriting has changed so much because of the Web.

As writers, we are far less isolated than we were before we went online. As a result of these blogs alone, we have a support system.

It was encouraging for me to read about Erica Bennett’s production difficulties because I had a similar devastating time with a play of mine. It felt good to know that I was not alone and might not have failed as completely as I thought I had.

We’re part of a community. We might not meet each other in person but can connect with other playwrights in a flash. Through different lists, we can meet playwrights all over the world. We may not be able to see their productions, but we can probably see clips on youtube and stills on their webpages.

Researching is different, too. We can go online and worlds open up in a morning. Today, I was looking up 1908 bathing suits and came across an article about Annette Kellerman, a swimmer who was arrested in 1909 for wearing a one piece form fitting bathing suit that exposed her arms and legs. Her story held me and I thought….”Well, I wonder if there’s a play in that?”

The Web changed how I felt about my writing. I remember working on a play years ago about women’s suffrage, researching in a reference library, reading big volumes of history and peering cross-eyed at miles of microfilm. I felt rather special, not of the common run, a feeling that sitting at the computer doesn’t encourage. That’s probably a damned good thing. (The library is still a great draw, and nothing beats sitting at a big tables with the light coming in through big windows.)

It’s not just research. Making music and working with a composer has completely changed. The piano is an accessory and the composer sets up his keyboard on a table, puts on his earphones and taps away. He or she sends out the finished song or piece to the playwright by email, ready for downloading to a CD. The actors and singers can learn the piece at home and come in to rehearsal off book and off song.

The high tech is terrific, but means nothing if we don’t sit down and say what we have to say, of course. And while I’m procrastinating, I’m going to read Sara Israel’s recommendation, No Tricks In My Pocket: Paul Newman Directs, and look at Krapp’s Last Tape, just to find out about that banana business.