...though I like to think of it as the Right Bank of the East River; it's been my home for more than a decade and I am happy that I finally have a reading going up in a venue that's walking distance from my house (and that's really the important thing).
Off-off is alive and well across the Queensborough Bridge, and I've enjoyed performances at the various venues of the Astoria Performing Arts Center (which have been nominated for, and won a few IT Awards). Fellow Astorian (and awesome director) Tom Wojtunik was recently appointed Artistic Director, and has put together a lineup of staged readings of new plays, including one of mine.
End of Land is the continuing saga of a play that started out as a 24-hour play, with names and words picked out of a hat at Wings Theater in late 2005. As part of Gay Play Insanity, I was lucky enough to get Mark Finley as director, and Karen Stanion as my leading lady. My setting was a parking lot, and my words were "sand," "blasphemy" and "minx." From those clues, I wrote "Off Season," a play about a beautiful stranger leaving behind a couple of broken hearts at the end of tourist season in Provincetown.
I got the feeling the play wasn't finished, but wasn't sure where it was going; I sent it down to marinate in the subconscious, and trusted something would come up. One evening, as I was on my way to Zuni with Karen, I asked her what part, in the ancient or modern canon she'd most like to play. Her answer was instantaneous: Medea. Okay. One night before I fell asleep, I got a thread of a monologue, and surprisingly enough, remembered it the next day.
That winter, my partner fell and seriously injured herself...enough to require surgery. Neither of us got much sleep the next several months. She was in constant pain, and I couldn't do anything about it. One night (I think it was New Year's Eve) as she dozed (for awhile), I lay next to her in bed with my laptop burning my knees and got a first draft of a one-act, now called Some Are People, which told what happened before "Off Season."
We read it in playwrights' circle at EAT, and my rare experiment in a non-linear style (telling it backwards) was shelved, and I fleshed out the piece in chronological order. Paul Adams, EAT's artistic director, brought the piece into EATful day, which is when the company meets to decide on the selections for its semi-annual one-act festivals. Some Are People got in, and I had a LOT of writing to do. It was pretty darn spare, and there were too many holes as yet.
Mark Finley stayed on board as director, and Karen auditioned for the part of Lydia. We added Brett Douglas and Janice Mann as Tommy/Miss Fitt (a drag queen karaoke hostess) and Anna (a massage therapist/tattoo artist). I've been lucky enough to see some pretty good productions of my work, and I consider the EAT version of Some Are People to be the most fully realized I've witnessed. That's the production we took to Ireland in May to the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and which held its own with productions from all around the world.
But, you know, it wasn't FINISHED.
I'd realized there were holes in it; questions left unanswered. Of course, you can leave some questions hanging in the air, but there were too many for my liking. One of my teachers commented: we don't see how Lydia is changed at the end. She's like a drop of oil sliding through the machinery, and we don't see what this time has done to her.
So I went back into it, letting out the seams, wondering if they'd hold, if they could take the weight of a full-length. (My initial comment on pretty much everything I read or see is: it could use some cutting).
So now it's End of Land, and in the latest stop on the journey. Tom asked me if I'd like to hear it read at APAC, and I said you betcha (which I said LONG before a certain V.P. candidate).
The EAT cast is all on board, and I found myself shaping the scenes to the things they'd shown me about their characters. There are six more scenes; we're still not a particularly LONG play, but we know more about everyone, and (hopefully) at the end, we see what Lydia is running to, and what she is leaving behind.
Info about time/place/directions is below...it's free, and you can make a reservation, which isn't required, but suggested.
So if you show up on Wednesday, I'll be the one pretending to be calm.
