The Mill 6 T Plays: Behind the Scenes Video

Barlow Adamson who, by the way, read brilliantly for the part of JP in the Boston Playwright Theater's Ground Floor New Plays Series reading of Highland Center, Indiana, put together this video about the process that goes behind making The T Plays. This is really it. For those of you who somehow have the notion that theater is all glamor and Hollywood, this might change your mind. Although you still don't get the sense of the butterflies the size of wombats in your stomach, the mind-numbing fatigue that you usually have to push through due to sleep deprivation, or the bad food that usually accompanies putting together a show.

Mill 6 Collaborative's The T Plays run for two more nights. I'm heading in this evening, meeting my daughter, Allison, at New York Pizza first (no one works at The Factory Theater without making a stop there; I forgot who said that) and then off to the show.

Break a leg Derek Fraser and Matt Chapuran. Here are those two talented actors, courtesy of Meg Taintor Photography, playing in Striking Out the Peanut Man, a play that takes place on the D line of the T.

The Mill 6 T Plays: Like a Song Stuck in My Head

I can't seem to turn it off. It's like when a song gets stuck in your head. I get on the T and instead of just sitting back and enjoying the ride, I immediately look around and try to match people up with stories. Or try to figure things out. Like tonight, why the guy across from me with the religious medallions kept periodically sucking his teeth. Or what was up with the kid a few seats down from him, dressed in what I'm sure he thought was business attire--electric blue shirt too big for him and a tie the size of a lobster bib. Put them together and...

Wait. I don't have to do that anymore. As a matter of fact, that's not the way Striking Out the Peanut Man came about anyway, even though for a couple of weeks before I had to write a play for Mill 6's T Plays I would play that game on the T. For anyone who's going to it next year, in the end I didn't find that helpful. It was more helpful for me to know my actors and write for them, imagining them in the situation, than it was to imagine them as real people on the T. And now I know all that worrying was for nothing. It's like anything: You just have to trust your talent that it will come through.

I did a bit of rewriting, just tweaks to lines. Meg Taintor, the director, tonight said it wasn't working for her, and frankly, with Meg, she didn't have to make much of a case. It wasn't working for her, and that was enough for me, and we took them back out.

I'm not even sure when I'm going to see the show now. It opens Wednesday--really a preview, I think--and it's really all up to the actors and the tech people--all of those talented people. Break legs, everyone.

Day 3 of Mill 6's T Plays

More on Mill 6's The T Plays.

Yesterday was the killer for me. Friday night we all were matched up: playwrights, directors, actors, and oh yes, the T line we'd be dramatizing. Just to get everyone up to speed, Meg Taintor, the artistic director at Whistler in the Dark and who I'm finding out to be a very crazy, very dear, very wonderful human being is the director. The actors are Derek Fraser and Matt Chapuran, who I still haven't met but did see a video of him at work with ImprovBoston. Kind of like Wallace Shawn, wouldn't you say? Oh, and we're working the Green Line.

Friday night Meg, Derek, and I talked for awhile. I particularly was interested in the actors, and I kept asking Derek everything I could think of: What would be his plum role? Where was he born? Just listening to the cadence of his voice. One little gem I gleaned from him was he someday wants to play the part of Cliff in the The Woolgatherer. I kind of knew the play because a few years back I used a monologue from that play for a StageSource audition.

Anyway, Friday night I was a wreck. It seemed everyone at Doyle's knew each other, had worked together, was so accomplished, and man was I feeling the pressure.

As I said, yesterday was the killer. Get on the T, get some inspiration, find a story, and write it by 6:00. Here's how it played out. I got up and got caffeinated. Read the news. One thing that didn't necessarily stick but is important is that there is a Red Sox-Yankees series in Boston this weekend. It sounds crazy and it all happened so fast but the series of events went: D train, hey wait, there's a Fenway stop, empty train, why would two Red Sox fans be on an empty train going outbound during one of the biggest series of the season, oh wait, one of them got them kicked out of Fenway, one is like Cliff the other is like Wallace Shawn, turn around and write it.

That's really it.

I tried to make it easy on the actors (no three-page monologues), I tried to give Meg a lot of action to work with, and I tried to make it funny. In the end, writers write what they know and they write about that bone they like to pick. For me, comedy is a lot of cuss words. I think the words fuck, fucking, and Jesus fucking Christ, spoken just right by the right character can be so funny. And for me, comedy is based in class. Someone in the "lower class" poking fun at someone in the "upper class." (It's easy to think "upper class" on the D line what with all those Newton stops.)

And so, that's how Striking Out the Peanut Man was written.

Derek asked me last night how I was doing, and I replied, A lot better than I was doing twenty-four hours ago. Yeah, he said, you definitely had that deer caught in the headlights look about you. 

Last night all the teams sat together and read. I am so impressed by all the work that was presented. Today, we start the part that I love. Meg, Derek, and Matt will start rehearsing at noon. I'll swing by around 1:30. It's the collaboration. All the people working together to make something bigger than the whole.

That's where we stand today.

Oh, and you can learn more about this project and get tix here.

Mill 6 T Plays. Holy Crap! What Did I Get Myself Into?

I don't think there hasn't been a single theatrical endeavor I've been involved in that at some point I didn't ask myself, What the hell did I get myself into and how is all this going to work out? I've come to resign myself that that is one reason I love the theater so much. It is live. It is real. And there are no guarantees when the lights go down and the curtain goes up what the heck is going to happen.

So I agreed to write a ten-minute play for The Mill 6 Collaborative's T Plays. The assignment: Tomorrow ride one of the lines on Boston's subway system, then write a ten-minute play by 6:00 tomorrow evening that will be performed in front of a paying audience next week. This is a whole 'nother kind of weird. A whole 'nother kind of pressure than even the kind you get in grad school where you're given a week to write a ten-minute play about three characters standing on the edge of a cliff.

I mean, I was honored John O'Brien, Mill 6's artistic director asked me to do it. (I didn't even know he knew me.) And I love the T. Yes, yes I do. I live three minutes from the Red Line and its sound is part of my world (it rumbled past just now) and I think the $59 monthly pass is the best deal in Boston. I used to love to drive, but now the thought of dealing with the parking lot we call the Southeast Expressway or negotiating Boston's maze of streets clogged with tourists and their Freedom Trail maps leaves me with a sense of doom, like knowing you have to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon with that aunt of yours who smells like a laundry hamper. I love sitting on the T with a book, or just watching, as I did just the other day, keeping my eye on two junkies on the Red Line, a young man and woman, wondering about their lives, how pretty and sad they looked.

But to write a freakin' play, from scratch, in a day??  Holy Crap! What did I get myself into? Talk about the blank page staring back at you? Rick Park, who I've never met but whose name I know for all his involvement in Boston's theater world has blogged about his experience with the T Plays. (Holy shit, Rick Park?? I have to write a play that's going to be in a show with Rick Park? Doesn't he work with the Gold Dust Orphans? Isn't he a Very Funny Guy? Oh shit, is it too early to start drinking? Should I fake something?--a nosebleed? a rare illness? the birth of a child?) He wrote about his first experience writing for the T Plays and how nervous he was. Ok, that's good. Rick Park was nervous. Rick Park puts his pants on every morning the same way I do. (Wait, how do I really know how he puts on his pants? Does he even wear pants? Oh, I'm doomed.)

Tonight everyone--playwrights, directors, actors--will be meeting and John will match us all up. Tonight I'll meet the director and actors I'll be writing for. Deep breath.

Life is too short...

Yesterday at exactly 2:00 p.m. (according to the clock on my MacBook, at least) the spring semester ended for me. Just a few minutes before that the notice on the printer came on saying the toner was low. After all those months, I quite suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. A curious feeling; we've all felt that where you're crazy at work and suddenly it's Friday at 5:00 before your vacation.

BU has ruled every second of my life for about five months. Every waking second, and a lot of my sleeping ones, were concentrated on what I had to do, where I had to be (sometimes two places at once.) I knew this was going to be a challenging semester, even more challenging than the fall when I was acclimating myself to grad school then suddenly in the second week my back went out and my leg became paralyzed and I couldn't walk. I got through that and I knew I was going to get through the spring, too. I kept telling myself (and I'm bragging but I feel I have bragging rights), You are one of three people picked for the program. BU and Kate and I'm sure there were others on the selection committee who felt you could do the work, felt strong enough that you were given a scholarship and a teaching fellowship. So do the work.

I look back on the semester and think I finished one full-length play (of which I am so happy with and proud of) and started and finished a second full-length script. I've read I don't know how many plays and books, self-educated myself on the life and work of Sam Shepard, participated in amazing discussions in class about plays and playwriting and playwrights, something I am passionate about, taught a class of sophomores, again about something that I am greatly passionate about, and basically fulfilled the requirements for a pretty rigorous curriculum. I've grown immensely as a playwright and as a student and as a thinker and a theater creative artist. And what's funny is that, while I can see how far I've traveled, I can see how far the road continues on. And that discouraging and enticing all at once. There's so much more to learn, so much more to do. Life holds an incredible amount of opportunity and challenge. As they say, life is too short.

To live is to fly

A Sunday. Hot. Humid. Just the way I like it. I think I'm cashing in on my alleged father's Italian genes. I love hot weather. It doesn't bother me the way it seems to bother others. I hate the cold and the wet and the dark. When it gets this hot, all I have to do is think about snow, and I just settle down. I always joke and say I'm solar-powered.

So, sitting on the porch this morning reading the New York Times and trying to figure out what to do with this beautiful day, I finally decided not to go to a play and spend money even though I should--(should!--that awful word rife with guilt)--even though I should stay on top of the local theater scene since I'm going to school and spending so much money and time (did I mention so much money?) to be a part of local theater scene. I always say that an artist has to live life, and then bring what he or she finds in life to the stage or the canvas or to music, so today I decided to to stay at home and live a life and write and read for my class and play guitar. And not spend a dime. I'm reading everywhere about the Great Recession. (I don't know why we keep dancing around this and wonder when we're just going to realize it's probably even worse that the 1930s.) I learned a while back how to enjoy simple and cheap and free. Sue and I have so much in this apartment, and people don't really understand what we do all the time since we don't have a television. (So, what do you do?)

A mockingbird moved into our neighborhood, and is the last bird heard as night falls.

Today in the Times I read how important Facebook and Twitter is to our diplomatic effort. Please, people falling into the trap (again) that technology will save the day. With people, you have to continue to do the human thing.

Yesterday I spent a glorious day on the beach with my oldest, who has seemed to have adopted Rhode Island for her home. It's a beautiful place, all that coastline with such a deep sailing history. We get along, after all these years of being apart. In my counterculture class we read how so many people want to turn back the clock, revisit a time when things were "better." That's a natural human response but it's impossible. And it's a response that I think is ruining this country right now. We have to embark on new paths; learn from the past but the times call for a new way of life.

With my daughter I know I can't turn back the clock, I can only go forward from here, and that's probably the right and true thing to do anyway. I know, if she could, she'd turn back the clock to when she was happier, when there was a regular family with a mom and a dad and a sister and a dog living in a house in the suburbs. She needs me right now, needs my advice to help her move toward the future. I think there are some people in her life who'd she'd be a lot better off without. Not bad people; just nothing great about them--they're the hoi polloi, though I'm sure they think otherwise about themselves; I'm sure they've been told all their lives how great they are, how smart, funny, intelligent, witty, good-looking (on the outside, maybe) by doting parents and superficial friends. And I know I'm prejudiced, but Allison is a catch. She's a terrific person who has a fragile side thanks to her father and there are those who are too damn clumsy, stupid, or just plain uncaring to deserve her company. And I feel it's my responsibility to protect her. I told her yesterday that she deserves to have the kind of friend that she makes for others.

I've turned into a crusty old SOB; someone who doesn't suffer fools. I've wasted too much time (Livin's mostly wastin' time/I waste my share of mine/But it never feels too good/So let's don't take too long). I've always heard the clock tickin' and always tried to live my life knowing that it all could end tomorrow. It's too precious. And I hate wasting anything much less time.

Historic walking tour of Boston theater; something new and different from New Exhibition Room

I love it when creative minds really click.

If you're looking for something interesting and new and a little different and kinda high-brow (hey, this is Boston, after all) New Exhibition Room is hosting an historic walking tour exploring more than 200 years of theatre in Boston.

Called Theatre in Everything but Name: An historic walking tour of Boston's theatre sites and spaces, all proceeds benefit NXR's summer production of Shh! at the New York International Fringe Festival.

The NXR tour, led by Artistic Director A. Nora Long and a few special guests, will explore Boston's rocky relationship with theatre, from its clandestine beginnings to its explosive present.

Beginning at the Theatre History marker behind the Boylston T-stop, the tour will wind its way through Boston's Theatre District as it was and as it stands now. The tour will conclude at the site where it all began the original New Exhibition Room.

Tours are scheduled for Saturday, June 26th at 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM. The 1:00 PM tour will be followed by a picnic reception in Boston Common. The tours will commence rain or shine. In the case of inclement weather the picnic reception will take place at 88 Tremont St.

Get your tickets here, and more info about NXR here.

Dreams can come true: I'm going to grad school

I got some great news yesterday. I was accepted at Boston University in its graduate program in creative writing, with an emphasis on playwrighting. Starting this summer, I'll start taking literature classes and come September I'll be taking a full load at the Boston campus.

I was standing on the Park Street T platform when I got the message on voice mail, and I think for a moment I was overwhelmed. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time, something I thought perhaps had gone by the wayside, like the sailboat I had once dreamed about owning and living aboard, and then suddenly, it seemed, it was handed to me that simply. I'll guarantee I'll be the oldest grad student in the English department. My daughter said I need a new backpack for school. The idea seemed slightly silly to me. Can't I just use my leather satchel?

I was quiet about it. I didn't tell a whole lot of people that I was applying. I tend to do things quietly anyway. I've learned the less attention you draw to yourself the less hassle you have in your life. People--certain people, certain kinds of people--like to cause ruckuses--and the less they know, the less bother you have in your life.

When I was about 17, I decided that I was going to travel. I was enrolled to attend Ohio State, but dropped out before I sat one day in a class, got a job, unloading trucks of all things, working my ass off on a loading dock throughout the winter, saved all my money, and my parents never knew a thing about it until about a week before I took off alone for Europe. I knew they wouldn't understand why anyone would want to travel the world like a hobo, so I just hid everything from them.

I had my first meeting at BU last summer, talking over the program and the possibilities with the program's head, Kate Snodgrass. This fall term was the first I could apply for, and I had to fill out forms, take the GRE, write and edit samples, write a personal statement, and find three references. It gave me time to think about what I really wanted to do.

I want to write, of course.

And I want to teach, hopefully at the university level.

And I want to continue working with the small theaters I've been working with in the Boston area for the past few years. I feel there's a movement afloat right now, akin to the energy one felt in the early eighties when Boston's comedy scene was just starting and Jay Leno, Steven Wright, Bob Goldwaithe and a host of other young comics were just gaining a voice. And just like students come from all over the world to study at schools like MIT and Harvard then stay and start high tech and bio tech companies, people are also coming to Boston to study theater at BU, Brandeis, and Emerson, falling in love with city, and staying and starting new theater companies. That's what's happening on Boston now, and I want to be a part of it.

It's something that I've always wanted to do, and with the economy the way it is, it seemed the right thing to do. Start something new. Work hard for something you've always wanted.

Another Country Productions produces March Meisner SLAMBoston, Diverse Voices in Theatre in Boston

Tonight is the first of three nights of BostonSLAMs. These SLAMs are special, because all participants--the directors and the actors--have received some level of Meisner training. And what's so special about that, you might ask? It makes a big difference when all the directors and actors are working from the same page, and it's becoming more of a difference as the number of Meisner actors grows in the Boston fringe theater.

First, imagine working in any kind of group where the participants have all been trained differently, who have been taught different processes, and methodologies. It happens all the time. In business, it's rare to find people who are all working on the same page. We've all experienced this, where people are constantly sniping at each other and no one gets along. It's not that they're bad people. It's just that their values aren't aligned.

But then you come across a business where there is a specific, strong culture, where people all do everything the same way, and suddenly you get a very vibrant organization made up of people all pulling in the same direction toward the same goal.

The same is true in acting. I've been on casts where there were every combination of actor, plus some who weren't trained in anything at all--the remember your lines and don't bump into the furniture types. And sure, you get a production, but it's spotty at best. We've all seen them. One or two of the actors really shines, and then there's another doing something that is just completely out of sync with the rest of the cast. And then the rest are all doing their best to keep up with the others.

But with Meisner, and particularly the Meisner students in Boston, you have one of those groups where everyone is doing the same methodology and pulling toward the same goal. That goal is the connection, and right now I've heard every non-Meisner trained actor groan, and then bellow that's what we all do. Well, yes and no. Everyone goes for the connection, but they all don't go at it the same way, and Meisner actually gives you the tools to go for it.

Most casts are script-based. They memorize their lines, and when the actors work together one of the basic exercises they do is simply run their lines back and forth. That's what you do on stage, right?--you run your lines back and forth in a believable way. And when there are problems on stage, the director will reconvene the cast in the middle of the week for a "pick up", which usually means a speed-through of the script, or simply going over the lines.

With Meisner, of course you still have to know your lines, and yes you do speed throughs and recite your lines back and forth with each other, but you also do extra work establishing the connections, the relationship with the other characters. The exercises you do are meant to break down the social barriers we all have to protect our pure, raw emotions. And the delivery of the lines comes out of that connection. Big difference.

The next three nights of SLAMs are produced by Another Country Productions, headed up by Lyralen Kaye, ACP's artistic director. Full disclosure here: Lyralen is my Meisner teacher, and has been for a few years. I started taking Meisner classes from Lyralen when I felt my own acting was growing stale. I would find myself falling back on all my tried and true "tricks" to grow a character, and I was finding it difficult to prepare for characters in more modern plays.

Another thing I saw--or rather didn't see--was so many of my fellow actors not growing. I'd sit in an audience and say to myself, I saw you do that very same thing five years ago on a different stage. And I didn't want to do that. Meisner has made me a more organic actor, one who lives in that moment on stage.