Friday, April 25, 2008

Six Views is on its feet

We (Rhombus) got the Six Views, Same Shape new play festival off and running last night, with Joe Byers' play, Noori and the Imperialists (a play about the end of the world). He had a terrific cast and a good turnout (attendance of 27, not counting the six of us writers--our target was 25, so that was good news). The audience was pretty warm and gave lots of good response, which is really what the whole thing is for.

Tonight we had Carl Danielson's play, Everloving God. I baked brownies and helped with front of the house and lights. Despite a nice mention in the Globe this morning and a mass e-mailing yesterday afternoon, turnout was very light. We had six people attend, which was too bad, because it's really hard to judge laughs with less than a dozen, really less than 20. Still, Carl got a good reading from the actors, and I'd think it'd be helpful in figuring out where to rewrite the script.

Tomorrow, we've got the roundtable on methods and models of new play development. I'm moderating and have been trying to get ready. I've got a full page of notes and questions ready to go. The time will go by fast, I think.

Then it's on to my workshop/reading/open rehearsal of Constant State of Panic. I was still making changes to the script this morning. I think I've got a decent plan worked out for what I want to workshop, though my list is long and time will be short. I'm curious to see what value this way of working (workshopping in front of an audience) will bring. Part of it will depend on how engaged the audience is in taking an inside look at the process or working on this play. I doubt this would be a way to work very often, but I can see it adding an interesting spark. We'll see. (it's at 2pm tomorrow--if you're in Boston, come by).

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