Monday, April 13, 2009

don't worry, be happy

I've been working on 'All Shook Up'. It's been a couple months since I worked on it, and I was kind of afraid of it. The last couple things I went back through to revise just were in such bad shape that I got kind of stuck. But I picked up 'All Shook Up' after I started working on a new play, 'Almost', and 'All Shook Up' is in much better shape than I remember it being. There's still a few places that need to be tightened (I have a tendency to repeat things and us a lot of 'well's and 'yeah's that are just fat that need to be shaved off), but there are only two major problems I have with the play now. One of them us just a character related thing that needs to be sorted out, but the other was an issue with the time span covered in the play.

Without going into too many details, I talked to one of my favorite dramaturgs ever, Robert, and explained the time frame. I knew that I was really putting myself on a ledge for no good reason, because he gave me some suggestions that will make things work better and also, some fun things to think about for the play that adds to the 'magic' of the play. So this was good. I was just getting all tied up in knots about it, and was so worried I wasn't serving the play in the right way. Robert told me to not worry about that part. But I think worrying about how I am serving the play and the characters is a good thing to worry about. I only marginally (read none) worry about what theatres might think--and that's what really led to me talking to Robert about the time frame issue. I didn't want a theatre to get a finished draft of 'All Shook Up' and read it and be like, WTF is this playwright doing? She has no concept of time in this play.

So that's been solved. Now I just need to find some time to write. I'm glad the block is over for now. And 'Almost' is on the horizon too.

November can't get here fast enough.

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