Riot Support

“I support Black Lives Matter.”

“Well, do you support the riots?”

Would you be surprised to learn that’s a racist question? Yeah, I was too, when someone finally helped me understand it during a season of protests a number of years ago. I don’t remember exactly when, and it doesn’t matter. This isn’t my story.

Here’s the issue. Continue reading

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Walking in Memphis…

I’m sitting here at Memphis International Airport waiting for my lunch. I’m still trying to process the reading last night.

There are many playwrights for whom this would be just another day. They have readings of their work, they’re regularly produced, and so on.

Well, I hope that’s me someday. But it’s not… yet.

My earlier play (in another round of rewrites) “It’s Not Love on My Part,” got a reading from my local theatre group, my kind friends giving up their afternoon to help me out. They won’t mind me saying that this is different.

Continue reading

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Stacked and Scheduled

So it’s officially scheduled.

My play “Stacks” will get a staged reading on Monday, December 2nd, at the NewWorks@TheWorks festival put on by Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, TN.

I’ve made arrangements to be there. For the reading series, they can’t provide travel expenses. Fortunately, my day job has me traveling quite a bit, so I’m platinum/diamond with two different hotel chains, so I’ve points to spare. Then my dear mother offered some air miles just sitting in her account, so I’m off.

I’ll actually arrive the afternoon before so will have an opportunity to see the Monday night play too, it looks like. It’s a play called “The Goodbye Levee,” by Mike Solomonson. It sounds like it may be more interactive than your typical stage play that keeps the fourth wall up, so I’m looking forward to seeing it quite a bit.

Truly, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to see and hear my play read. Hopefully it is just the first of many. My next post will hopefully have a few pictures to boot.

Cheers.

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Stacked, Redux…

Way back in January, I blogged about my recently completed play, “Stacks,” that I was just sending out to a couple of play competitions. It felt like, well, it was a win to just complete it, to get it to the point where I was ready to have strange eyes with more knowledge and experience than mine view my work. Continue reading

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Endgame

No, not that Endgame.

This one…

jonsnowridesintothenorth

Game of Thrones is over, and I, like so many others, have a zillion thoughts about it rolling around.

A word of warning – this post is ALL SPOILERS – ALL THE TIME. Do NOT read on if you’re not done watching, because I won’t be coy about anything. Continue reading

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Stacked, Baby…

My most recently completed play, Stacks, is sitting in a couple inboxes for New Play competitions – the prize is usually a reading and a shot at production, depending on the venue. Another copy is going out today to another competition.

Here’s hoping.

It’s tough to get a play or screenplay to the point of being ready to submit, mostly because I have a day job. Continue reading

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Bored of the Things

TributeToEpicFantasyI grew up reading Fantasy. In fact, I learned to read novels in large part by reading Fantasy.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Elric of Melniboné, The Sword of Shannara, among others.

I loved magic, maps, and made-up history. I loved the epic scope. I loved the supernatural mystery. Adventure, romance, heroism, battle, and feats of daring. Unlikely heroes and unexpected allies. It was all so enchanting to my young self. Continue reading

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Brandy Reminds Me

Sometimes a song is so deeply tied to a place or a time that it almost transports you to another time and place. You see the sights, smell the fragrance, hear the other sounds around the song from that time.

You might feel who you were, a you that couldn’t imagine who you would be today, who couldn’t imagine that the memory of that time would be seared into your heart somewhere, tied to those notes, those lyrics, inextricably and unexplainably.

Brandy is that song for me.

Continue reading

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Hunker Down

When last we chatted about writing, I was trying to finish the play “Stacks.” It’s now been finished, rewritten, and sent to a very good trusted reader. I got some fantastic notes from him and the next rewrite is imminent.

In the meantime, another idea that had wormed into my consciousness (months before Fake Preznit Drumpfuck was barfed onto our nation by droves of drooling right-wing morons) took hold. I imagined that a right-wing doomsday prepper nutcase is proven right, and just before the bombs fall, gets his family and the neighbor couple tucked safely into the underground bunker he built into his backyard.

It’s all downhill from there.  Continue reading

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You Should See a Doctor

The wife and I are latecomers to the Good Doctor. Various mentions from friends like Zen, Davida, and Cat, had left me for years intrigued about the series. Knowing, however, that it has been going on since sometime in the 18th century (no, not really, but for a *really* long time) made ever getting into it seem daunting. Continue reading

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