.....

Oh-h-h-h ...

I am sick. So-o-o-o sick. I have a sore throat to the point where I can't talk.

(Although I've discovered that if you consume an entire box of throat lozenges at one time, not only can you babble incoherently with no effort, but you can also fly for short distances.)

Problem is, I'm directing a show, right? I'm being PAID to direct a show. And I've learned that directing and conducting are not the same thing at all.

Directing is when you instruct people to move here or there, by example and by verbal instruction.

Conducting, I've discovered, is when you wave at an actor on stage, resulting in one of two reactions.

(1) The actor gets the standard "deer in the headlights" look, points to him or herself, and mouths the words "Who? Me?"

(2) The actor drops out of character, smiles because you've singled him or her out ... and waves back.

Ya see why I like writing plays better than directing 'em? I only fight with myself!

(But that's another story altogether.)


jb

And how was your day?

Closure

I like stories that are finished.

HARVEY closed this past Saturday. It was a good show, and had a good run. Directing the production was a pleasure.

When I left the theatre (at a little after 2:00 AM) - literally as I was walking out the door, on impulse I turned and took one final picture of what had been my set.



All this is entirely appropriate. One of the people on the stage is Tina Gleason. Tina is a friend, and the director of the next play this theatre will produce, ON GOLDEN POND. Following her will be the musical version of the Dr. Jekyll story, and we will all end up as bound photo albums gathering dust and fingerprints in the lobby.

I'm now a week into rehearsal for INHERIT THE WIND at another theatre. Their present play, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, has another week to run.

When they close, I'll be there to help tear down the set.

For everything there is a season.


jb

And how was your day?

For Samantha ...

Since you persist ...

The one on the right is Don. He's an actual firefighter now. He's about
two years older than you.

If you want to know more,

send cookies.

jb

Intermission.

It’s Tuesday, a few minutes before eleven. The night is quiet. Once in awhile I can hear a car go by on the main road, a block from my front door. I’m looking forward to writing for the next four hours or so …

HARVEY opened this past weekend. Smallish audiences. I expected nothing more. Note to potential theatrical producers – don’t open a play on Labor Day weekend and expect large crowds. Next week they will come …

Held one private audition yesterday for INHERIT THE WIND. Officially, auditions for this play aren’t scheduled until next weekend, but a possible lead player will be out of time then, so …

I miss my writer friends. I do. Directing HARVEY and INHERIT THE WIND is grand fun, but it’s not the same as creating a work, and sharing that creation with others, and hearing – for the very first time – the works other people have created.

I really enjoy the company of writers. There’s a mixture of arrogance and vulnerability. They long to be accepted, and at the same time rush to solitude. They don’t see the world the way others do. I love science fiction/fantasy writers, because they believe there WILL BE a future.

Odd. For the past few days I’ve been writing like crazy. Odd how, when I am overly busy, overly tired … that’s when the time I do have is precious …

I met an interesting man about a month ago. From the way he stood and moved, I could tell he was military – and he was, having retired from the Navy after thirty years. His final tour of duty was aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise … (Did you know a ship can have more than one Captain? I didn’t know that.) Since first meeting him, he has told me about at least a dozen adventures, each more fascinating than the one before.

“Why don’t you write these down,” I ask, with all the sincerity that’s in me.

Almost shyly he looks at me. “I couldn’t do that,” he replies. “I’m not a writer, I’m just a story teller.”

Uh-huh …

The first of October four other writers and I are renting a house on Lake Erie for a few days and just write – no television, no internet, just writing. And eating. And walking on the beach. Heaven. Heaven heaven heaven heaven heaven! (One of our writers is a potential chef who wants to write cookbooks. Now I ask you – can it get any better than that?)

The weekend after the retreat I’m conducting an acting seminar at a local theatre. The group in charge of the event is charging $40.00 a head for people to listen to me talk for three hours. (Are you kidding me?!) One of my HARVEY cast looked sadly at me and asked if I was including a dog and pony show.

Could be …


jb

Footnote

I enjoy watching a set for a play being constructed. If it simulates a room in a home, I like to think of it as a place I'd live in, if it was in a real house. (As a matter of fact, I DO live in it for a number of weeks.

Here, then, is my set for HARVEY, as it went from this,

to this,

to this.

I like it. I consider it Art. What do you think?

jb

Gypsy life

HARVEY opens Friday.

After being in rehearsal since late July, the opening night for this play is now just a few days away.

I suppose I should be glad. I mean, in the past – by this point – I would be more than ready to move on. As a director I would have by now proven my point (to myself), and, like many of the cast, I would already be anticipating my next project.

Still …

I’m working with an awesome group of performers. As an ensemble, they are a finely tuned instrument, and with every rehearsal we uncover and explore more shadings, more nuances.

Selfishly, it’s gonna be hard to give that up.

Still …

I’m directing INHERIT THE WIND next. Auditions are in two weeks. Already people have started calling, requesting information that, surprisingly, I’m reluctant to give. INHERIT THE WIND is a large cast show. I’m grateful for interest. I know I’m gonna need people willing to throw themselves into the work. I know this.

I’m also aware that HARVEY cast members have other work waiting for them. Two in our show already have been cast in other plays. They start into rehearsal right after our show opens. Several are planning to audition for INHERIT THE WIND. One cast member is starting his own drama school. Two others have film roles in their futures. All this I expected. These people are the best of the best. They are in demand. It’s unusual (and a draw) that they all happen to be together in any show.

This is good stuff. Good stuff! But it all reminds me that true theatre moments and performances are fleeting, illusionary. That is not only their very nature, but also their appeal.

Slowly I become aware of purpose. If we have presented the work properly, then you, our audience, our equal partner, will recognize these as moments as they are presented to you, and hold them close in memory for the rest of your life. Not too much to ask. We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

We freely admit that we are gypsies, melancholy and fatalistic. Ourselves are the only gift we have to give. Ah, but when the gift is accepted, the awareness and experience shared …

in those rare moments …

we are justified.


jb


And how was your day?

I'm free! (Well, maybe not free exactly. Cheap. Yeah, maybe that's a better word. I'm cheap!)

Whew.

I have a couple of days off.

I may take the afternoons and go to the theatre and work. The set construction is not progressing fast enough for me, and sometimes you can accomplish a lot when there are no distractions.



Or …

I may not do that at all.

I may take a day to mow the lawn and trim around flower beds and trees and other stuff that will not, with a sense of self preservation, jump out of my way.

Or I may take a day or two and sort (read mostly throw away) the dozen or so large cardboard boxes someone mysteriously placed in my den, effectively blocking the storage units this stuff is supposed to be in.

I could do that. I could. I really could.

But I won’t. I mean, just look at this stuff. Is this how you want to spend your free time? It’s depressing.

(You’re starting to detect a pattern here, aren’t you?)

I could work on the play I entered in a competition. I should do that – finish it. It would serve me right if somebody actually wanted to read it. Oh. I forgot. The manager of a local theatre DOES want to read it. Pressure. Hey! It’s my day off! Don’t give me pressure on my day off! (Besides. The dog won’t let me.)

There’s a charming restaurant on the Ohio river that serves the best pasta in the world. I’ve been thinking about that lately. Across the street is a paddle wheel boat with a tiny bar on the top deck. After a good meal you can sit comfortable in top deck lounge chairs and watch large ships waft up and down the river.

Only … both places require shoes. Not on my day off, Skippy!

Or … I suppose I could just post something. Yeah, that would be nice. I could write a paragraph or two. I've done it before. I can do it again.

Or not.

Ya see, the real problem here is

HARVEY - the set

Here's the set for the play. Walls are as yet unpainted.

I like spending time on a set under construction. It's like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting while the artist is working on it. There is unreleased energy here.

Shadows also abound here - future shadows. I can feel them, waiting. waiting for the actors to play their parts, to justify the shadows very existence. "Stand here," the shadows demand, "and here and here and here."

And the actors, eager to please, do as the future shadows instruct.

And there is peace, harmony, contentment, a sense of completion.

I like that.

Our play hasn't opened yet, and the theatre has already announced the audition dates for the play that will follow us.

In its own way, that also is comforting.

jb

Dreams

I’ve reached the point when I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t tired …

I hear bells. Seriously. I wake up at night hearing them – bells attached to the collars of horses.

Going. Moving.

I’m in a caravan of wagons. Going … out there. Somewhere. It’s so real. I’m not sure we have a direction, that is, we – I – have no defined goal. It’s more like a drawing … yes. I’m being drawn in a direction.

Funny. I’m in no hurry to get there – no hurry at all. I think I’m with a traveling company of gypsies. Don’t laugh. They are kind to me and pleasant – Hungarian or Russian, I think. And that’s fine. I like Hungarians and Russians. As people groups they are fatalistic, melancholy, and maybe as a result they are giving and warmly funny.

Julie tells me I’m dreaming a movie. Could be. The wagon I’m in is certainly something out of a 1930’s movie. But it feels so real. And the time feels like the 1930’s as well – somewhen between the world wars.

Last night was cool and blanket dark. After the horses were tethered and fed, someone built a roaring campfire. From a distance I could hear a mournful violin, and see the shadowy form of someone dancing around the fire. The scene became more and more surreal until I could no longer define what I was looking at.

Today I was cleaning out a cabinet in my den, and in one drawer I found a bell.

I waited.

Anticipating.

:Possibilities

The play is now a week into rehearsals. For the record, I'm working with a "dream team" cast - the best this city has to offer, likely the best with whom I've ever been associated.

We have possibilities here. In a world where being mediocre is considered the ultimate goal for just about everything, I'll have to think about what to do with possibilities.

jb


And how was...?

No.

I'm not quite done yet.

I'm involved in one play after another (including two of my own) now through the first of the year. Since I'm doing my best to be open with you, I wanted you to know these things. Am I over committed? Could be, but opportunities arise. Shouldn't they be taken? When might they come around again? How soon again might I come across a work with possibilities?

TELL 'EM WILLIE BOY IS HERE

... and it took him all of ten minutes to make himself at home.

jb

And how was your day?

HARVEY post auditions

Since I told you I'd keep you informed as I go along ...

The second night of auditions for HARVEY was last night. I have a good cast - a GOOD cast. The only problem I had was in selecting the most fitting from a number of talented people. It's a problem I don't have very often.

The first actual rehearsal is tomorrow night. I can hardly wait to toss 'em in the mix and let 'em have at each other.

Life is warm puppies.

jb

WINDING UP

Sunday and Monday I’m holding auditions for the play HARVEY.





Remember that one? (Maybe not) Perhaps you’ve seen the 1950 movie, starring James Stewart, who is befriended by a six-and-a-half-foot-tall invisible rabbit. (Oh. Yeah. THAT one.)

Okay … I’ve seen stranger plays … I’ve WRITTEN stranger plays.

With HARVEY, in any case, playwright Mary Chase uses an invisible rabbit as a springboard for gently dated social commentary wrapped into a still cute and clever show. I liked it the first time I read it. The plot moves along nicely, and the characters offer a nice range of interpretation.

So I’m journaling this for you – a few of the things a director experiences in putting a show together. Maybe it’s interesting stuff.

The theatre in which HARVEY will be performed is interesting. Actually … it’s not a “theatre” at all. A little over twenty miles from home is a quite large and abandoned shopping mall. I love just wandering around the place, looking in sad and empty windows at the ghosts of commercial enterprises. The theatre took over several side-by-side stores. One entire building is the lobby. Opening beside it is the theatre auditorium. With a proscenium perhaps twenty feet high, the stage width and depth are at least fifty feet across. Down the street are two other buildings occupied by the theatre – one is rehearsal space, and the other is storage. I’ve never in my life seen a theatre with so much space. They could be in performance for one show and have TWO in rehearsal at the same time.

It’s a great place – once you find it. As I mentioned, it’s in the middle of an empty shopping mall the size of a small town … or so it appears. It’s a place you drive TO, not anything you would simply be driving PAST … unless you are as prone to getting lost as I am.

So. Auditions are Sunday and Monday. I have no crew for the play as yet – no stage manager, no set construction people, no lighting or sound people – nobody. (This year I’m doing two plays back-to-back, and my “regulars” opted for the second play – “Inherit The Wind.”) The other problem is that this is my first directing assignment at this particular theatre, so I don’t know their pool of people from whom to draw. Strangely, I’m more inconvenienced than worried. Crews appear when you need them. They always do.

Casting. In the end, it doesn’t matter how well a show is written, produced, or directed. If it’s well cast, the play will be a success. With this in mind, for months I’ve been recruiting performers to come and audition. No promises, but … On the other hand, there are other people who WANT to be in the play, and it’s not escaped my attention how pleasant and thoughtful THEY have been over the past few months.

It’s a a game, isn’t it? It’s fun if everyone plays fair.

First of the week I’ll let you know how it went.

Jb


And how was your day?

A Void Is Being Filled

His name is Willie, and he will join us on July 22.






He will already be a month old, snuggle trained, and fluent in three dog languages.



Happy happy ...



jb





And how was your day?