Summer Play Festival
Playwrights Blog

So, the first performance has happened, I’m still in one piece (sort of), but our leading lady’s finger is not.  Well, it is, but she has a big gash in it from the heretofore unbreakable plate that broke last night, and she’s been in the emergency room all day.  Ever the trooper though, Marin Hinkle will perform tonight!  They are all troopers, my cast, they and our designers have done me and my play proud and I couldn’t feel luckier to have them.  I am also pleased to report that the two ladies who inspired the characters of Elaine and Rema saw the show last night and loved it.  The real Elaine talked up such a storm to anyone in sight that she gave me enough material for a whole other play.

Stafford has a catchphrase:  “death.” Definition unnecessary.  I have to confess, I suffered many deaths last night.  I witnessed the death of lines, of “business,” of sound cues gone haywire and ideas I thought were so good but just weren’t.  But I also witnessed the birth of my play, a play I thought I knew very well, but one that is actually a little bit different than I imagined.  I also witnessed the death of Billy, the loser unproduced playwright, and while he hasn’t been replaced by Billy, the overnight sensation (and I’m not sure what exactly he’s been replaced by come to think of it), he is still standing, and his play is very much the better for this whole crazy process.  And now I’m talking about m yself in the third person and I’m going to stop before I throw up all over my keyboard.