The Young Playwrights Festival

I feel lucky to have been asked again this year to be a mentor for the Blank Theater Company's Young Playwrights Festival. On Friday night, I schlepped over to the Stella Adler Theater in Hollywood to meet my playwright, Gabe Neustadt, and see the show. Despite the whole area being surreal (located one block over from Michael Jackson's star on the day after he died -- a madhouse!), I was so glad to be there!

Gabe is a 19-year old playwright from Florida who just graduated from high school, and is on his way to Harvard. A smart young man! And a good writer. His play is called "Who Is Morrie Rothline?" -- and it's an intriguing exploration of both madness and guilt. One of my favorite actors, Jeremy Gabriel, was in it. I worked with him in the original workshop production of "Infinite Black Suitcase" at Moving Arts, and in the Blank's production of "Heads." He's outstanding! So was Tom Lenk, who played the more than moderately unhinged titular character...

A great night of theater, and a great cause. Check it out next year! Support young playwrights!


Playwright Gabriel Neustadt (Who Is Morrie Rothline?) with actors Tom Lenk and Jeremy Gabriel at the Young Playwrights Festival 2009!

Theater, theater...

I've been catching up with my theatergoing at a tremendous rate lately. Last weekend, I caught "The Jazz Age" at the Blank, which featured the fabulous Jeremy Gabriel as Ernest Hemingway, and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Rubicon, featuring the also fabulous Joe Spano.

"The Jazz Age" was great. I really enjoyed it. More than expected! I knew it would be well-produced, as the Blank does a great job putting up plays in its small theater. (They did an excellent job with my play "Heads," I thought.) I wasn't sure that there was more to say about F. Scott Fitzgerald's relationship with Ernest Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald, though. The play is really a series of scenes that chart the oddly charged friendship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway, as Zelda tries to get in the way. A three-piece jazz combo accompanies the action on the stage and fills the places in between. The play has a firm point of view, but leaves a lot of room for the audience (not to mention the actors) to fill in -- which I like. The fellow who plays Fitzgerald is on the TV show Brothers & Sisters -- I'm not familiar with him, but he was good. Jeremy is a great young Hemingway -- masculine, self-assured, and then oddly vulnerable. A great foil for Fitzgerald, who is emotional, uncertain and ultimately unwilling to put his friendship with EH over his fraught relationship with his frustrated and mentally unstable wife. If you like "A Moveable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway (it's one of my favs), you'll like this, I wager...

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is a tremendous play by Mr. Edward Albee. And the Rubicon, which is way the heck out in Ventura, did a tremendous job staging it. Julie Briggs and I did a Sunday road trip to see their final matinee performance, and I was so glad we did! We'd previously visited the Rubicon to see Joe Spano in a one-man show about Buckminster Fuller. It was fabulous, too! Joe Spano was in "Hill Street Blues" a long time ago, and occasionally guest-stars nowadays on NCIS. But on stage you can really see him shine. Playing George, an actor has to be just right -- smashed down by life and wife, but ultimately as strong and brutal as she is. Their Martha was amazing -- a whiskey-soaked voice and earthy sexuality and brutality was matched only by her vulnerability at just the right moments. The young couple were perfect. But it's always hard to remember to mention them when you see a good George and Martha -- everything else pales in comparison to their relationship. All four were smart actors, the language was sublime (oh, Mr. Albee!), the set was beautifully details and functional. I stood up to cheer the play and performance afterward, and I'm not one drawn to my feet at the drop of a hat.

A stellar theater weekend!

Pictures, violas, rehearsals -- oh, my!

Oh, what a busy week it is, when you're making theater! Here's an update on recent events.

Rehearsals are well underway, now, for Song of Extinction. Relationships are being explored, characters are being investigated, and I'm sitting in when I can, watching my little play come to life. What a delight!

My cast consists of the following outstanding souls:

Darrell Kunitomi as Khim Phan, the biology teacher
Will Faught as Max Forrestal, the boy composer
Michael Shutt as Ellery Forrestal, a biologist and Max's father
Lori Yeghiayan as Lily Forrestal, a writer of science text books and Max's mother
Tristan Wright as Joshua Dorsey, a young doctor
Trey Nichols as Gill Morris, a land developer

The first set of publicity photos was taken this last week. Some were of Khim and Max in the classroom where most of their battles take place. The rest were of the Forrestal family, taken out in Griffith Park (standing in for Bolivia!).

I had my own publicity photos taken on Tuesday evening, after work. Tom Sanders was hired by LA Stage Magazine to take my picture, so it can go along with a little upcoming article about me and the play and such. He was very nice. I was very nervous. I felt the need to get new clothes, lipstick and unmentionables the night before, and to wear boots, for courage. I always feel more courageous in boots. Perhaps I should become a biker... Whether or not he was able to do anything with ME remains to be seen. But I like the photos on his website -- particularly the series on WWII vets.

Hmm... what else? I had lunch this week with Darin Anthony, who directed HEADS last year at the Blank. Another night, I had dinner with Jeremy Gabriel, who starred in HEADS last year at the Blank, and was also in INFINITE BLACK SUITCASE at Moving Arts. Great to see both of them, and catch up. Darin has been directing in Santa Cruz, and now is working on US DRAG for Furious Theater Company in Pasadena, and is about to have his first kid. Jeremy got married! I'm very happy for them both. They are good guys.

Tomorrow, I am meeting with Jack the violist (as opposed to Jack the Ripper, Geoffrey the composer told me on the phone, laughing). I'm very excited about this, because Geoffrey has written an entirely new draft of "Disembarking," the piece of music he wrote for Song of Extinction. Now I get to hear it! If I have notes, Jack will interpret them back to Geoffrey in musician-speak and rewrite. Then we plan to record the piece, so it can be used in the production. There's been all the requisite back and forth, trying to coordinate schedules and details and needs. It will be lovely to spend time listening to the music and thinking of it in terms of my character, young Max, who "composes" this piece through the course of the play.

Two more random bits:

Go check out my talented friend Johnna Adams' myspace blog, and read Herb Gardner's "On Playwriting" missive. I really, really liked it. It felt appallingly true.

I got one of Those Letters yesterday in the mail. One of Those Letters, that's from a theater. I did my usual mojo -- "It's a rejection, it's a rejection, everybody hates me" so it wouldn't bother me so much when I open it and it IS a rejection. But it wasn't! Well, it wasn't an acceptance either. But Stage Left in Chicago wants to hold HEADS for consideration for their upcoming season. So I e-mailed them back today, and told them by all means to consider it, and sent them all our nice reviews from the LA production. They look like they'd be a good fit for the play, from their website. Fingers crossed! I think somebody should put Heads up again, and soon. It's going to have a reading in Detroit in November, too, which could lead to something. We shall see.