The Short Play Project: Elven Council (2020, 2026)

2020

Starting in 2019, I began writing one short play, pretty much every day. I mean, I did wrote a short play every day, some of them weren't any good so I never typed them up. But I did create a tremendous number of three or four page plays in a very brief time.

The day the quarantine began, in March 2020, I put out a call for anyone who wanted to participate in a "social distance art experiment" to make a video from one of (at this point) hundred of my short plays, which I would then edit and post. This became The Short Play Project.

Two of my friends recorded their precocious four year old twins to perform the script Elven Council. I forget the prompt, it may have been "fantasy" or "power" or anything, really. I was inspired by some of the poorly thought out plot points of certain works of fiction -- take the Horcrux (please.) I will break up my soul and place it into other things. Nothing dumb about that.

2026

Douglas Adams mocked this in one of the Hitchhiker books; Why have a dozen or so different forms of identification (bank card, passport, work permit) when you can have all of them -- and your DNA and fingerprints -- all packaged in one handy card!

Then someone steals it. Anyway, that’s the joke.

So, back in 2020, the twins put on their Elsa and Anna costumes, created a masterpiece, and the rest is history.

This week, the girls (now ten) recalled that time they made a video about an elven council and were trying to remember the details. Their mom suggested they all watch it, and so they were inspired to try it again.

The coda is entirely their own.

You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.

The Short Play Project (revisited)

Shelter in place.

The Covid-19 pandemic was real. Many of us were fortunate not to contract this potentially fatal disease until after we had received the vaccine. My own bout of Covid was brief and uncomplicated, and for that I am grateful. People died, in their millions, across the globe.

What I am about the recount is something we did during the lockdown, and is no way meant to diminish the seriousness of that time, which psychological after-effects we will have to cope with the rest of our lives.

The day the shutdown was announced in the United States, three years ago this week, those of us who were not “essential workers” were left with a great deal of time on our hands. And creators of live performance were quick to devise all manner of “virtual” entertainments.

On March 14, 2020 I put out a call for people who would be interested to record themselves performing one of my short play scripts. I’d written over one hundred since the previous fall, I’d write another hundred before that summer.

The earliest submissions really bring back the shocking sensation of the start of quarantine. Outside of a circle of friends, we didn’t know what the insides of other people’s domiciles looked like. Soon we would know the interior of everyone’s home, even Stanley Tucci’s.

Ellen chose the two-person play Packing about preparing for a flight, written just days before all flights were grounded in the United States. They has all their stuff laid out on the floor to pack, and the other voice in the scene is provided by someone over their phone. It’s eerie, to me a chilling reminder of that specific time.

Other early entries were playful, as adults treated that first week like an old fashioned snow day. It reminded me of the Blizzard of 1978 – we didn’t have school, but we couldn’t go anywhere, either. Laura and her partner knocked up a fort out of sheets and blankets in their living room for Worlds. Carrie, Hannah and Sam put on their PJ’s to present a sleepover for Butthole.

Then there were those who, through necessity, playfully used what they had on hand to perform two-person scenes. Amiee created Verses with the assistance of their dog, Buckley. Luke partnered with a pretzel for Advertisement, a now sorely-dated piece inspired by the Peloton/Aviation Gin ads. Do we remember those?

As the weeks and months of 2020 went on, creators got more sophisticated with their short play submissions, including animation, original music, and some truly professional cinematography. But these swiftly created videos from the first few days really put me back in that time, for better or for worse.

You can watch all seventy-five plays in the Short Play Project here.

"Peace" performed by Richard Stimac

On Understudies & Swings

Roger Allam & Susan Fleetwood
"Much Ado About Nothing"
(Royal Shakespeare Company, 1990)
Ms. Fleetwood does not appear.

One of my favorite theater experiences was when our school group was in Stratford-Upon-Avon in late 1990. A blizzard socked the area, and the roads were impassable.

The plan for the morning was a matinee of Much Ado About Nothing starring Roger Allam and Susan Fleetwood. We were staying at an inn right in town, but anyone who was driving in from anywhere to see the show were out of luck. So few were in attendance they announced it would be general seating, so instead of the balcony some of us chose the third row.

The stage manager came on stage to address the audience, looking bemused. She explained it may be an RSC record, with no fewer than six actors assuming roles for those performers stranded in the outskirts, and several members of crew. But the show was going on!

And it was marvelous. We saw actors whispering dance choreography to each other during the party scene, and I noted one time someone said a line twice. Other than that, they nailed it, including the comparatively young woman who stood in for Ms. Fleetwood as Beatrice.

This was when I learned a very important lesson: Without the understudy, there is no show.

Once upon a time we said, “The show must go on!” And actors with fevers and vertigo would pump themselves up with antihistamines and pain relievers would muscle through. It was expected. COVID has changed all that, and rightly so.

This does mean that, unfortunately, smaller theaters may need to close a show due to illness, and this has happened many times. Last year, as the Omicron variant was rising, theaters right here in Cleveland closed their holiday shows early, one after another.

Today, our professional theaters make more time to prepare understudies and also budget for swings.

“While an understudy is usually a smaller or ensemble role within the main cast of a production, a swing is an offstage performer who only goes on if someone in the ensemble is unable to do so. A swing most often does not cover principal roles in a show.”
- Dramatics Magazine

Desmond Sean Ellington crushed it.

Attending a show and discovering that an understudy is going on has become more and more common. I myself have made pre-show announcements this season, more than once, that someone other than listed in the program will be going on.

Last Tuesday, the family went to see the touring production of Hamilton at the KeyBank State Theatre. That night Burr was played by Desmond Sean Ellington who usually plays Mulligan/Madison (that role assumed by John Devereaux) and this was exciting to know; that something different was happening that night, just for us. He delivered a beautiful rendition of “Wait For It” and ferociously stuck the landing in “The Room Where It Happens” which are absolutely my two favorite songs in the show.

Opening weekend of the world premiere of The Land of Oz at Dobama Theatre, my good friend Sarah Blubaugh went on as Mombi the Witch. It’s exciting when a friend goes on, and others show to support them. In the past, I have made understudy announcements at the Hanna and there are cheers from supporters who attended just to see them.

I myself decided to attend opening night of Oz, which I did not have on my calendar, when Sarah gave me the word that afternoon that she was going on. Unfortunately, the power went out ten minutes into the performance. If you live in Cleveland Heights, you know. I did, however, get to see the entire show, with her in it, that Sunday night.

It’s a delightful show, Sarah was delightful in it, and if they didn’t have her as a swing, the entire first weekend may not have been possible.

Next time you hear there is an understudy, give a cheer! Because otherwise, you just wasted all that money on the babysitter.  

Source: “Swing Time, Nailing the role of the offstage performer” by Skye Pagon, Dramatics Magazine, July 21, 2020

Process LXIX

“I still had all the afternoons in the world.” 

― Joan Didion, Goodbye to All That (1967)

This week I was introduced to the quote above, from Didion's legendary farewell to New York, or perhaps really to her twenties, and I have never imagined a more accurate turn of phrase to describe how one feels to be in their twenties.

After an unexpected interruption both of my classes are in progress and I no longer have any spare time, which is fine. I can just go back to saying no to everything.

Of course, it also helps if you have contracted Covid, which I have. Lucky me, it’s not as bad as I feared it might be. I cough, nights are difficult, I am achy and I wake a lot.

Monday night I was able to attend my first playwright’s workshop via speakerphone. The professor is really cool, he said he could run it all by me when I felt better, but like I said, there’s an awful lot to do and I’d rather not get behind on anything.

Without going into much detail, I am going to be able to use techniques from my creative nonfiction class on my first project in workshop. The man said I have to write a play that saves the world ― and go. I have a lot of people to talk to now to figure out how to do that.

Meanwhile, I am having a serious crisis of faith. This is compounded by my illness, and by the antihistamine I have been ingesting daily to quell my symptoms, and also the cavalcade of minor tragedies and disappointments which have befallen as a result of said illness.

I have had eye surgery, now Covid. I have been made despondent by weakness and dis-ability. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

This morning the wife and I watched Griffin Dunne's tribute to his aunt, the Joan Didion documentary The Center Will Not Hold. Last week I only knew her by reputation, now I have read a little of her work, seen her life, and fallen in love. I also have no excuse not to move forward, still.

“I don't know what I think until I write it down.” 

― Joan Didion

State of Siege (2003)

Drew Narten, Mindy Childress
(Bad Epitaph Theater Co., 2003)
Photo: Anthony Gray

Sunday night, I noticed I had a tickle in my throat. By bedtime, I was coughing. I decided to wait until morning to self-test, and all night I was achy and woke countless times. I obsessed about taking the test, and what the result would be. At six I took the test, which turned immediately positive. I have Covid.

By the middle of Monday morning I was weak and achy. I tried to sleep in, but was obsessing about my job, about the residency, the lesson plans I needed to teach – and how many actor-teachers may also have Covid. As the morning progressed, the news was largely positive, in that they were not positive.

I never imagined I was invulnerable, I never thought I was immune, I thought I might be immune, because who knows? In those apocalyptic plague stories there’s always a small percentage that never contracts the disease.

In 2003, Bad Epitaph emerged from hiatus with a production of Albert Camus’ State of Siege (1948) which he had adapted from his own novel, The Plague.

The play is a fable about a bad omen in the form of a comet over Cadiz, Spain, and how the people’s collective fear paves the way for a man named The Plague to assume the reins of power. It is the apocryphal quote from Ben Franklin, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” made manifest.

Drew Narten, Nick Koesters, Christine Castro
(Bad Epitaph Theater Co., 2003)
Photo: Tim Safranek

Bad Epitaph Producing Director Tom Cullinan chose to produce this piece because (1) he had long wanted to and (2) it was a response to the Patriot Act, when Americans openly encouraged the government to strip away at our civil liberties in the “war against terrorism.”

“Cullinan imbues the production with sinewy style and imaginative staging,” said Cleveland Scene theater critic Christine Howey. “All the actors wear half-masks, in commedia dell’arte style, which gives this parable a heightened sense of symbolism.”

Traditionally, anti-fascist plays such as this one are resolved when the people come together as one, eschew their fear, and cast out the authoritarian. Unfortunately, if this was ever something that happened in the United States, it does no longer.

For twenty-one years we have lived in a perpetual state of crisis, and the authoritarians are still winning, through division and fear, which has never been so evident as during the current pandemic.

Because we are still in a  pandemic. If you have any doubt, come on over and I will breathe on you. 

Source:
"Mask of Tyranny: Totalitarian governance is explored with style in Bad Epitaph’s State of Siege" by Christine Howey, Cleveland Scene, May 14 - 20, 2003

Process LIV

During the shutdown, I would greet every Friday morning with the same thought:

“Just another fucking Friday.”

No plans, nothing to do. No shows, no concerts, no parties, nothing to plan for, nothing happening.

This week I attended two music concerts at the high school. Those still fill me with melancholy. I am grateful to see our son onstage, he’s turning into a truly fine musician. But I remember the last concert I attended before the shutdown, when mother was losing her mind.

But she was so happy to be there. I was terrified; that she would fall, or something worse.

Our eldest was cast as Celia in the spring production of As You Like It, which never happened. Their high school extracurricular life effectively ended. They looked forward to things that never happened. This is the curse of being human. We anticipate. We create fantasies of what might be.

Now I visit schools again, and rehearsals, and classes. On one day this week I visited actor-teachers at a school, picked up rehearsal cubes for The Witches rehearsal, attended an in-person class as a TA, and a virtual class for my studies, and drove my son to his School of Rock lesson.

A lot of driving, the kind of city driving which drives me demented. And yet, it was a full and active day, out in the world. And that was just one day.

A year ago this would have taken place entirely online, now I have to drive. I hate city driving. Almost getting into an accident has become a daily occurance.

And yet. At least it’s not just another fucking Friday.

The Witches: Second First Reading

Melissa T. Crum, Director

Nearly two years ago, we gathered in a private room at Parnell’s downtown for the first read-through of my new script The Witches, in preparation for a workshop production at Cleveland Public Theatre that spring.

Wednesday night, we gathered on Zoom for the second first read-through of my new script The Witches, in preparation for a workshop production at Cleveland Public Theatre this spring.

During the intervening time, things have changed. And it would be impossible to move forward with the draft we had started with in early 2020. There were questions asked which I found easier to ignore back then.

Adrionna Powell Lawrence,
Actor

Then there is the reality of the pandemic. The play takes place in spring 2022. It’s not something that can be easily explained away. How are we going to deal with this moving forward?

The story of “witches” in colonial America is bound up in religion and gender. The story of America is bound up in race. I started by writing a comedy about roadside attractions, which became a story about the world of non-profit, and then about so many other things.

But at its heart, it is still a comedy about roadside attractions. And what makes one venue a tourist trap and another a museum? And why do we take the most horrific moments in human history and choose to make something entertaining or "fun" out of them?

Jaime Bouvier, Actor

I started writing this several years ago now (everything was several years ago now) and what is most exciting to me is the idea that the very first few scenes I wrote, the catalyst for everything that followed, are becoming less and less relevant. Those scenes may not even appear.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents a workshop production of "The Witches" as part of Test Flight, March 3, 4 & 5, 2022

Process LI

New specs.

A holiday and snow abridged my week, no Monday class and no Tuesday class. I was wondering how our recent advances in online education would affect the decision to have a “snow day” or weather emergency. We now have systems in place where teachers and students can easily meet from home, this was not the case only two years ago.

My Tuesday class is even supposed to be online, but as in person classes were suspended, they were all suspended, including the virtual classes. 

Also, I am a TA this semester, which is very interesting as I get to sit with absolutely no expectation of speaking. I have actually felt a great deal of stress in class because I always have something to say.

The weekend will be spent reading* because there is an awful lot of reading to be done. Reading and writing. Also, attending another rehearsal for the playwrights festival.

*Reading includes The Plague Year, Lawrence Wright's December 2020 New Yorker article covering of the first year of the Covid-19 Pandemic. This should be required reading for every American, but of course not.

Secret New Year’s Getaway (part two)

Cast of a frieze from the Susan Lawrence Dana
House, Springfield, IL
(Frank Lloyd Wright, 1902-04)
*with wedding rings from the Wireless Catalog
inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1999

Secret New Year's Getaway (part one)

Saturday, January 1, 2022

More than the Met, the MoMA (yes, I will call it The MoMA) felt foolishly overcrowded. They check for vaccination, and they have timed entrances – but they don’t check the timed entrances. People just kept flowing into the MoMA on New Year’s Day. We headed straight up to the fifth floor, assuming the first would be most packed, thinning out as the floors went up. This was not the case.

The fifth floor holds the oldest collection, all those pieces that were most modern when the museum opened in the late 1920s, those works you probably saw featured on the cover of your high school fiction textbook. Manet, Monet, Matisse, Modigliani, Mondrian, and lots and lots of Picasso.

One of my favorite pieces (this time around, anyway) was a video installation titled MINUCODE by Marta Minujín (1968). A social experiment, she filmed different social groups over several evenings in the same cocktail party setting. Edited segments are projected onto four walls, larger than life.

As my wife observed, it is one thing to see still images of people from the past, styled and dressed for a casual evening out. It is another to see them in motion, as real, animated citizens.

I was alarmed by their extremely close proximity, breathing freely onto each other, onto each other’s drinks. One man takes off his glasses and vigorously rubs his eyes. One woman pinches something from her nostrils. And all the shaking of hands.

MINUCODE
(Marta Minujín, 1968)

We had supper in the museum restaurant, and I made up for the previous night’s veganrepast by having a dish of raw beef. 

Then we headed to the theater!

Why, when it seems all other Broadway theaters have closed, once, twice, a few times, due to Covid, did I hear nothing about The Lehman Trilogy? One possible answer, as my spouse pointed out, was that there are only three actors. I did not know this. Because I knew very little. Having decided to see the show I also decided to learn nothing about it, to be entirely surprised. Sometimes I do that.

I knew it was about the history of Lehman Brothers, one of the major financial centers that went bust during the Housing Market Collapse of 2008. And I knew it featured Simon Russell Beale. As a younger man, Beale was a member of the RSC in Stratford. In 1990, when our school attended a week of workshops and master classes there, he was one of those actors who led the workshops. We also saw him play the King of Navarre in Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Konstantin in The Seagull.

I did not know The Lehman Trilogy was directed by Sam Mendes, and that the other two actors were Adam Godley, who has been a supporting actor in countless TV shows and films (he plays Walter White's successful college friend in Breaking Bad) and Adrian Lester, an outstanding classiclal performer, a legend in the UK and who by rights should be headlining Hollywood films. Checking my program to see if there were any understudies, and finding there weren’t, I settled in for something fantastic.

But oh! The difference in the air, in the theater, just since October, when the boy and I saw Hadestown. Yes, we all had to show proof of vaccination then, too, and wear our masks throughout. But the concessionaire at the Nederlander Theatre was closed. And when the wife lowered her mask and took a sip from her water bottle, it was just as an usher was coming through to make a general announcement to the crowd, taking a moment to to first admonish Toni that there is to be no food or drink consumed in the theater.

Godley, Beale & Lester

We were all told that if we were to lower our masks, at all, it must be outside. Her announcement garnered applause, and it was good to know the crowd approved.

But my goodness. Think about all those people you know who are always making a stink about folks eating or drinking in the theater. Well, here we are and you got what you fucking wanted.

Presented in three acts with two intermissions, The Lehman Trilogy absolutely sails by. The performances were transportative. The design elements, from the rotating glass-walled office set, the gentlemen’s long, black frock coats, the video projections, live musical accompaniment and recorded sound, were perfection. And Mendes, above all, masterfully directed the circus.

And yet. As my mentor Bill Condee said, we go to the theater today for the same reason that the ancient Greeks did: we go to see the gods.

To see the gods. Not to see the assholes.

While I enjoyed the performance from beginning to end, and especially the first two acts, I was disappointed by how the story resolves itself, which leads one to question the entire endeavor.

Before the pandemic, the last great economic upheaval was the financial crisis of 2008, caused in large part by and resulting in the demise of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., and corproations like it. This play is the story of that company, who the actual Lehman Brothers were, and how their company evolved from a single textile store in Montgomery, Alabama to a mammoth financial institution whose grotesque acquisition of capital led to a near-cratering of the world economy.

Perhaps we are to marvel at how such destruction can be generated from mild and modest beginnings. Henry, Mayer and Emmanuel Lehman were, after all, simply pursuing the American Dream. That they were active participants in the slave trade is depicted as something that happened to them, rather than something they in which they were complicit. The fact that Mayer Lehman himself held no fewer than seven people enslaved is not even mentioned in this play.

There may be some poignancy in viewing their saga, and that of their children and grandchildren (grandchild, really, Bobby Lehman, the last family member to sit on the board until his death in 1969) if the final third were not a confusing rush to explain what happened during the final forty years of management. Knowing what came before should illuminate how it ultimately concluded. I do not believe that it does.

The final image is that of three 19th century immigrant brothers preparing to recite the Kaddish for the collapse of a financial empire they had begun. Mourning the demise of something that was born in corruption does not seem appropriate.

It’s 2022. Must we continue to use the stage to consecrate the acts of venal men?

Secret New Year's Getaway (part one)

It all started early this November when my wife read something somewhere about the play The Lehman Trilogy, written by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power. She has been researching the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial collapse of the late aughts, and thought this was a play we should see. I spotted an ad in the Times that said it closes January 2 and we both decided that’s that. There were no weekends we could pop off to New York to see a play between then and when we were planning to visit London in mid-December. 

“What if we went for New Year’s Eve?” she suggested. Now that was an idea. New Year’s is our special night, we met on a New Year's Eve and have spent every NYE together since. Even if we have nothing special planned, it is special for us. We’d never spent one in New York City, though, and why not? After all of this not going anywhere. We’d come home from England after seeing my brother and his family, and a few days later jet off to New York, all on our own.

We got tickets; to a show, on a plane, she found a hotel. And then Omicron arrived.

Library Walk in the rain.

England was a non-starter, and most of those arrangements we were not penalized for. That was before our son contracted a pre-Christmas Covid. But what about New York? Would it be foolish to go? Maybe our fate would be decided for us, but our flight was not canceled, and this show, which used only three actors, had not yet been suspended due to an outbreak.

Surely we had a responsibility to go to the city and spend ridiculous amounts of money. Not because we “deserved it” or anything as immature as that. Just because … well … I have no idea. Because we’d made plans. Because we wanted to. Because no one stopped us. Still, we decided not to tell anyone until it was over, and we were home safe and well. And so we are.

Friday, December 31, 2021

Though we have visited New York several times with the children, and other times on our own, my wife and I had not visited the city together alone for almost twenty years. In May 2002 we visited, specifically to see Urinetown, but also just to go. Since she moved to Cleveland in 1995 we’d always made a trip more or less once a year. We drove that year, and it was the first time she had taken in the skyline without the Twin Towers. She's the one of us who lived in NYC, in the late 80s and early 90s, but hadn't been back now for over five years.

This weekend, she’d booked us a room at the Library Hotel, up the street from the main public library, and it is a hoot. Our room, 500.001, was of course the Mathematics room (look it up, as they say) and there were shelves stacked with a variety of books on the subject.

For your information, room 800.001 is the Erotic Fiction room but I imagine that is a suite.

Having several hours to kill before an 8 PM dinner reservation on the LES, we walked forty blocks up to the Met. This is where things began to feel weird. We would go maskless when space permitted, but Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, these streets are crowded with tourists (of whom, yes, we were two) probably biding their time before heading to Times Square by midnight. When we were among the throng, we would put the masks back on.

So strange, people queuing along the avenue to enter the Lego Store, the Nike NYC, two at a time. They were waiting in line to shop. For Legos.

Before Yesterday We Could Fly

Desiring a light lunch before we reached the Met, we dunked into Viand, an old school New York diner. At first the wife did not wish to enter, thinking it would be too close, but there were few occupied tables and we were very pleased with the uncomplicated surroundings. We knew we would get fancy later.

It reminded me of my several visits before she moved to Cleveland, this cozy, claustrophobic basic joint. In those days everyone would be smoking. We’d be smoking, too.

At the Met we got our bearings as we usually do, at the Temple of Dendur, before seeking new sights. The heart of the museum includes a new Afrofuturist exhibit, and I wanted to see that.

In the mid 19th century, the African American community Seneca Village was seized by the city to make way for the proposed Central Park, it’s citizens forced to relocate. The Met acknowledges those who previously occupied land (these people, and the Lenape before them) where the museum now rests in the exhibit Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. It is a collection of wild and colorful beaded items, photographs, prints, ceramics, a video installation.

A narrow walkway surrounds the collection, another opportunity to be a little too close to others. I found it jarringly symbolic when a gang of young, white dopes entered the space, spreading out to occupy as much of the available room as possible. One of them, either their leader or that guy who thinks he is, mocking announced, “This is not art.”

Where do these people come from, and why are they in an art museum on New Year’s Eve?

Back at the hotel we dressed all fancy, and headed to the Lower East Side for dinner at Ladybird. So queer as in strange, a block or so from where our son and I spent an extended weekend only a couple months before. Like, we spent most of our time downtown for four days and it was odd to just pop back in for a few hours. Because this was such an LES joint, tiny and close, appointed with mirrors and murals to provide the illusion of space.

The wife is vegetarian, and this place is a highly esteemed vegan restaurant, serving a five-course, prix fixe meal for the holiday. I chose an odd cocktail to begin, they offered something called a Smoking Lady Bishop. A traditional Smoking Bishop is referenced in A Christmas Carol, and for several years I concocted the Victorian era beverage for the staff holiday party. I’ve never had anyone serve one to me before.

My beautiful date.

The regular is basically a wine mulled with citrus, cloves and sugar. In this case, spices included cardamom, peppercorn, cinnamon and allspice. It was rich and warm and I took my time with it. We took our time with everything.

One of the standouts of the meal were the vegan “escargot” which were morels that had been steeped in seaweed brine, providing the rich, musky flavor you would expect from snails.

Our dinner reservation included an invitation to a masquerade ball, somewhere close by, but having spent several hours maskless in an intimate setting with dozens of other diners, we decided not to press our luck, and headed instead to the rooftop bar at our hotel.

We arrived shortly before midnight, had a glass of Veuve Clicquot, and toasted the new year the same way we had met seconds before January 1, 1990 – out of doors, in the cold, with a light rain.

To be continued.

"Hadestown" at the Walter Kerr Theatre

Friday, October 22

“You almost got hit by a bike.” That became our running gag in New York City last weekend.

Maybe two years ago, my son asked to see Hadestown which was something of a surprise. He’s been attending the theater since he was three, but had never asked to see a specific show.

Apparently, he’d been following the process for many years, though he can’t remember why. It’s a well-reported story, the journey from song cycle to concept album, from Off-Broadway to the Walter Kerr Theater.

The tour was scheduled to be in Cleveland last spring, canceled due to COVID. For his sixteenth birthday, as I had for his older sibling, I offered him a weekend in New York, and one that hopefully included the show. When tickets went on sale, I got the very best seats; mezzanine, front row center. He likes being seated above the floor.

My wife finds the best places to stay, in this case a former “cold water flat” in the East Village, with a clawfoot tub in the living room and literally no closet space. I had to go outside to change my mind! Perfect for our needs, however.

When asked what else he’d like to do, he said he’d like to hear live jazz. Not a concert, a set at a club or something. Our first night, we stepped into a place in the West Village. The bouncer asked if he was over 21, and I said no.

The man shook his head. “It’s 21 and over.”

I told him the truth. I gestured at my son and said, “He’s just here for the music.”

He looked at us both for a moment and then waved us in. “He can’t drink,” he warned us, which I guess was obvious, but I decided it would be best if I also didn’t drink.

As I’m counting out the cover, the guy leaned in and rubbed me on the shoulder. “You having a good night?” he said. It was a sweet gesture, sympathetic. Dad taking his son to hear some music, you good? I love this city. 

There was a quartet, the leader was the keyboard player, a purveyor of bop. He was a well-experienced sideman, one who had even played with Benny Goodman in the early 1980s. We sat and listened to the first set, keys, drums and bass, the sax player arrived late. The boy was highly satisfied by the drummer.

We played pool and enjoyed the second set when they really began to rip. It was energetic and high. The clientele surprised me, a diverse though obviously well-funded selection of young Millennials drank and hooted and played pool and ping-pong while to one side a more intense and appreciative set sat in remaindered church pews and leaned into the jazz. I was not the only person of my age in attendance. 

The boy would have liked to see them take it further, but after the second break we agreed it was best to call it a night. I touched the bouncer’s elbow on the way out. "Thanks, man."

The extent to which restaurants and cafés have moved onto the sidewalks and into the streets is remarkable. This is the case everywhere, but the street we were starting on is lined with restaurants, and their exterior dining areas took up the majority of available parking spaces.

At night they are lit up and magical. Most have been constructed, but there were also prefab plastic sheds like you’d get at a hardware store which also looked quite cozy.

Eva Noblezada as Eurydice
"Hadestown"
(Walter Kerr Theatre, 2021)

Saturday, October 23

We made a plan to run in Central Park. It was cool and overcast and threatened to rain, and we took the train to save all our steps for the park. Together we ran ten miles, and I was overwhelmed but grateful. We spent the afternoon eating, resting and eating.

And then we departed for Hadestown.

I knew little about this show. I knew there were people who thought it was weird, and also that it had won many awards. I knew about André De Shields, and Reeve “Spider-Man” Carney. I knew it was based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

I heard it was weird, that people were surprised it made it to Broadway. And I found it more beautiful and engaging than I expected. It’s one of the few musicals that has truly touched me in a long time.

And it was the first musical I have seen since the pandemic. Yes, we had our vaccination cards at the ready. Yes, we all kept our masks on, the entire audience. This very weekend Peter Marks (Washington Post) tweeted that London audiences are outright ignoring requests to wear masks.

There is a lot of silence in the play. Shockingly, not one cell phone went off all night. Can you imagine? During the song “Livin' It Up on Top,” a roaring ensemble number, Orpheus is asked to give a toast, and he and the company lift their tin cups to each other. The music breaks and he says:

“To the world we dream about, and …”

Then, cups raised, they turn to the audience, and look at us, wearing our masks.

“... the one we live in now.”

Hold. Silence. It was startling.

There were folks sitting behind us, at least one of them was familiar with the music, and had their opinions about the understudies, but my son and I agreed the woman playing Persephone was just wonderful.

The guy who originated the role of Hades Off-Broadway is engaged For another couple weeks, but they got Tom Hewitt who is a storied performer and it seemed like he was doing a spot on impersonation of the originator. It was intense.

The other three leads were played by the people who were brought on for the Broadway production. I was unfamiliar with Eva Noblezada (Eurydice) but she was heartbreaking.

Reeve Carney is far more fascinating to watch and listen to than I thought he would be. You ask yourself, how does someone perform Orpheus? How do you sell that his singing would make the devil cry? And yet, he does.

And André De Shields was the André De Shields. I have seen performances headlined by a brilliant star (Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes at the Belasco comes to mind) where I am ultimately disappointed by the production as a whole. And this is an ensemble work that is greater than the sum of its parts. Having said all this, that the storyteller is such a magisterial and accomplished performer, and that I had the blessed opportunity to see him … I do not seek out these moments. I am only so grateful when I experience them.

I was awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night, early Monday morning. So I decided to read the reviews, to learn a little more about the process. Apparently, somewhere along the line, someone told composer Anaïs Mitchell that beautiful music is beautiful, but you can’t assume the audience knows what you’re thinking. Let them in.

Sunday, October 24

Oh it is truly strange how magical the street looked at night, and how mundane it appeared in the morning. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere about a one-night stand but I’ll leave that to someone younger.

Sunday was casual, we rose late and attended a “jazz brunch” at a nearby hotel. One thing I have always loved about NYC are all the close, cozy spaces. This is not necessarily a good thing during a global pandemic, but we showed our vaccination cards and ducked into our table, right next to the drummer.

It was cool, early afternoon of standards and originals, a trio with keys, bass and drums, led by a female vocalist.While this type of jazz is not our son’s favorite thing, he respected their skill, and it stood in contrast to Friday night’s musical frenzy. It was a lovely set, and a sweet close to a very special weekend.

School Residency Program: Twenty Years On

This fall marks twenty years since I began my work with the Great Lakes Theater School Residency Program. This work has become my life, and as with any endeavor you engage in for an extended period of time might ask yourself, why do I continue? Do I continue to execute my responsibilities to the best of my ability? Would the program benefit from a new instructor? Do I still enjoy this work, is my accumulated knowledge and understanding of value? Or am I merely repeating myself? 

Murder Arc with Alicia Kahn (2003)

Every September, we rise early to attend rehearsal. Long days of instruction and review, culminating in a week of classes, all eight actor teachers together at one school, a tryout in which the actor-teachers get to succeed or fail gloriously with the support of their peers and supervisors before they are sent out as partnerships of two to schools across the region.

This month can be very exhausting for me, especially as I have aged, from my early thirties to my early forties. The actor-teachers I have worked with have gone from people not much younger than myself to Millennials and now, Gen Z. Some of these folks are not even five years older than my eldest living child.

The same lesson plans, the same scene work, the same discussion questions. The actors bring something new, to be sure. But it is a well-established machine, this program. It works. And it doesn’t change.

Until March 2020, when this program, like everything else, was put in stasis. Schools were closed. Education went online. We had to let our actor-teachers go, and go they did, to graduate schools and other work, sometimes relocating as necessary.

This time last year our team was in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, creating performance videos for schools to provide to Cleveland city schools, and any other schools who thought they would be useful. A skeleton crew of staff conducted online residencies for schools who just couldn’t do without the program.

With the creation and production of successful vaccines, which resulted in a significant drop in infection and death, this past spring we began to discuss the possibility of returning to in-person instruction. Even then, there were a host of considerations, not only in creation of safety protocols in the classroom, but how we could even rehearse new teams of actor-teachers in a responsible and safe manner.

Avery & Noelle in rehearsal (2021)

Wipes were purchased in bulk to keep the rehearsal rooms disinfected, we knew we would be rehearsing with masks. Windows were open as often as possible, fans kept the air circulating. Four actors contracted, instead of eight. We would only be working in high schools, as children have not yet been vaccinated.

Even so, there was no guarantee the teenage students we would be working with were vaccinated, because freedom. We instituted our own protocols. If you want the program, students must be masked. All props handled by students must be wiped down after every class.

And how would that go? Without actors' mouths covered, how would scene work be received? We weren’t even providing costumes for the students. Would that be a bummer?

Two teams conducted classes in Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and The Crucible at Berea-Midpark High School. It has been two years since we have done so, and like some kind of unusual anniversary gift we were presented with their brand new school building, which comes complete with a vast auditorium space where we were able to conduct our work with a great deal of space. Students who were not masked were provided one (GLT has purchased a metric ton of masks for this purpose) no one complained about having to wear one, perhaps because they were grateful to be receiving special instruction.

And it all went very well. Our folks were able to perform their scenes wearing masks, and having adjusted to them in so many arenas of contemporary life they did not seem strange at all. In rehearsal one of our performers took a sip from a chalice (which was empty) during a scene, absentmindedly “drinking” through their mask. I suggested we accept that our characters not ignore the reality of their wearing a mask, that a mask should be lowered to drink and that was agreed upon.

Our final day I recommended the final day for Macbeth be conducted outside. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, the temperature in the mid-sixties. From time to time we conduct class outside but usually not until spring, as new actor-teachers are processing a great deal of material, and outside instruction can be taxing on the voice.

Berea-Midpark High School

But as a society we have been doing so much more outdoors, dining and performing and celebrating. It’s just safer. If nice weather continues, I wanted them to feel comfortable suggesting a class or two outdoors — because it meant they could remove their masks. For a brief moment, our people could be seen. And it was a glorious battle.

There were moments this week, when I was about to cry. If I thought too hard about it, I would have. Remembering what it was like to see my own children, attending school from home. The deadening effect it had on them. They were more stoic than I. 

I fear how this generation will be affected by this experience. Reality is a joke to them, a vicious moron can become president, our forests are burning, every rainstorm brings catastrophe, and when struck with a global pandemic, legions of citizens would rather deny, harrass and argue than band together and literally take their medicine.

But for now, we are back, working with students, one our feet, performing scenes, playing games, and having lively, engaged discussions. It was a horrific and unnecessary kick in the pants, but I am grateful to have been reminded of exactly why this is the path I have chosen.

Process XXXVI

NIAMH: Another thing I’m frightened of is jumping under tube trains.
JIMMY: Stand well back.
NIAMH: I stand right back by the wall.
- Carly Churchill, Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. (2019)

PAFNUTIUS: Everything according to number, measure and weight.
- Hroswitha, The Conversion of Thaïs the Whore (10th Century?)

Research for the new work.

As summer fades, I encounter a crisis of faith. There exists more uncertainty now than during the depths of the shutdown. We were told to stay home, and allowance was made for our condition, for we were all in the same situation. 

Now we try to return to a kind of normalcy, even as the pandemic continues. And it is left to the individual to fend for themselves. Some abide by practices of safety, while others not only flout these practices but are combative about them.

We train to go into schools. Are schools safe? Every day a new student or teacher is reported to have contracted Covid. That’s just at the school my son attends, one school. And ours is a district that takes the virus seriously. 

How do I in good conscience send the actors I am training in a potentially hostile and dangerous environment?

Playhouse Square had established a vaccination mandate, our theater operates out of Playhouse Square. People are furious. Do they know we are in the middle of a pandemic?

My uncertainty also relates to my writing. This is a fallow period. I have ideas, yes. A story and characters, yes. I have no faith in my own originality. You know, at a young age I was ridiculed by my brother’s friends because my writing was derivative. They were in college, I was thirteen. It was a criticism that has hounded me ever since.

We spend the weekend in Athens, visiting the elder child for "Parents Weekend." In our spare time, around the in-laws place, my goal is to breathe and focus. Breathe and focus. Focus. 

Can I remember how to focus?

Assessment

I’ve been high and I’ve been low,
And I don’t know where to go.
- The Godfathers, “Birth, School, Work, Death”

This used to be my plaground.

Late August is a time of stasis. It’s all about to happen, but nothing’s happening. We’re still in a pandemic, but we’re behaving as though we aren’t. Sure, we’re vaccinated. Went a few weeks not masked, the change for us came during our trip to Maine this year. Drove up not wearing them, came back wearing them.

That was almost a month ago.

Drove the eldest to school last weekend, a transition made all the more surreal by a two days blackout just prior to our departure. Fortunately, they are always well-prepared and had had most of their packing done before the power went out. Imagine last minute preparation in the hot and dark.

But where am I? Where are we now? As they are attending Ohio University, my alma mater, I have had nostalgic memories rattling around my head, not all good ones. Mostly not good ones. Also, shocked to discover they’re tearing down all the dorms on (old) New South Green. Just as well, I guess. It’s like a graveyard to me.

Anyway, I was thinking of the aforequoted song by the Godfathers, their only single, really. It slaps (as the kids say) but the lyrics are terrible.

Less writing. More reading.

BIRTH

I have not been writing. Like, not at all. For six hundred days I wrote every single morning, and then I stopped. It’s like it never happened. I am not down on myself about this, but it is a lesson, for anyone about anything. You can maintain a process. And the process continues as long as you maintain it. You can resume when you are ready, you are also welcome to stop. No one judges you, and it is best not to judge yourself.

It has been a summer for other things.

SCHOOL

I have found it necessary to adjust my status as a student, which is disappointing. I won’t be taking a full course load this semester, only two classes, both in playwriting. This is good, in so much as that is my major, but I was hoping to continue expanding my literary knowledge and experience.

The workshop starts tomorrow night. An in-person class! It has all been on Zoom since I began last fall. We are expected to create entirely new work. I was planning to take this as an opportunity to develop a previous manuscript, but I am going to meet the challenge with positivity because that is why I am here. To do something new.

Last week's joke.

The fact that I have no idea where to start is daunting, but that’s hardly unusual.

WORK

March 2020 broke with all that was normal as all in-person events, of any kind, were abruptly canceled and after a brief respite we tried to figure out what we were going to do in the interregnum. This time last year we were in the planning stages to create interactive, asynchronous videos to market to schools in place of the residency program.

Next week a new slate of actor-teachers will come together as we last did two years ago, as I first did twenty years ago, to learn lesson plans to bring into schools across northeast Ohio. But we will take precautions. Masks and sanitizer. Open windows. And figure out how to stage scene work without contact.

We know things aren’t normal. We aren’t pretending that they are. We are trying to move forward and do our work without getting sick.

Please don't kill me.

DEATH

I have developed what I find an unhealthy preoccupation with death. I started when mother started ailing, it passed for a while after she passed but it hasn’t entirely gone away. I have become much more attentive to every aspect of my health, getting regular physicals, and trying to eat better and to exercise. It’s all you can possibly do, what is in your control.

I choose to run, while I can still run. I still keep a running blog, I have logged every single run I have taken for fifteen years. The wife says I need more upper body work, and she’s right. But just stepping out into the world is a blessing, that I can still do this. Who knows how much longer I can run. Twenty years? Ten? Five?

On Friday I was feeling low, and motivated myself to take a late afternoon run. And it was a good decision. It was hot, yes, and humid. But that doesn’t bother me, I like it. I ran through the city, stopping at every intersection, giving berth to the pedestrians walking to and from the Greek Festival on Mayfield

A block from my house I spotted a car coming slowly to a stop at an intersection and I waved as I began to run into the street. But they hadn’t seen me, they just rolled to a soft stop and sped up again, missing me by a couple feet.

I wonder how I will die. It may be a long time from now. It might be tonight.

How I Spent My Summer (2021)

Progressive Field

How is the summer over? I mean, I know how. I was aware its speed while it was happening. And I wasn’t even doing much … only I was doing a lot, as compared to last year.

The summer began, for me, with an outdoor orchestra performance in front of the high school. The only live musical performance of the school year, and the last for our eldest. It was a perfect evening, and the conclusion to a terrible year, as we sat out on blankets and chairs and enjoyed their work. After there was a lot of cautious meeting and greeting between friends and family who hadn’t spent any time in each other’s company for over a year.

The boy had a gig at the Beachland Ballroom with the School of Rock, the “Relativity” show featuring acts that included siblings and other family members. All were asked to arrive masked, and we were escorted to tables and asked not to mingle. Plexiglass separated the tables. But it was a live, indoor performance and I was reminded of the Mike Doughty gig my son and I had attended in late 2019. That was the last time I had been in that room.

He was the drummer as they played Champagne Supernova by Oasis and if I say I hated myself for crying, it’s only because Noel Gallagher is such a dick. 

The kids have been very busy all summer, our eldest, they, have a job serving at a local restaurant, while our youngest, he, has been assisting a landscaper. Speaking of landscaping, we finally had the patio put in in the backyard, something we had hoped to do last summer. There have been a few gatherings and firebowls and it’s so nice to have people over.

"In the Heights"

While live, outdoor theater has resumed I haven’t been able to attend too much of it. I took the boy to see Panther Women under a huge tent at Cleveland Public Theatre. Every seat was taken. Our first live theatrical performance, for so many of us, it was a powerful evening in more ways than one. 

But David, what about your professional life? How is the writing going? Good questions, all, and not much to report. Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street has been published by Pioneer Drama, and I have already started to hear from interested schools! Vivid Stage in Summit, NJ (formerly Dreamcatcher Rep) presented an outdoor, staged reading of I Hate This, interpreted by Jason Szamreta. And the writing ... happened. It's cool. We'll get there.

A friend wanted to unload some of the Cleveland baseball tickets, so we bought them. Four dates at Progressive Field. They hadn’t announced the new name when we attended in July, at our first game everyone was handed a free, commemorative Bob Feller jersey. It doesn’t say Feller, but it has a number “19” on the back and CLEVELAND on the front. And I like it that way. 

I love this woman.

There were also summer movies -- at a movie theater! I took one of the kids to see In the Heights, then a few days later I took the other one. And the wife and I saw Summer of Soul, which you can see on Hulu but it's so much better on the big screen.

July was very busy with work, for everyone, concluding with our annual journey to Flood’s Cove, Maine. The four of us made the journey, in one car. The first night of our drive there we stayed in a hotel and took advantage of the pool. The only people in there that night, the family played Marco Polo. It was like they were small again.

As our eldest makes their way to college this coming weekend, I wonder how many more journeys we all have together. As the Delta variant does its damage, I also wonder whether this summer has only been a brief reprieve and if the worst is yet to come.

On Virtual Performance

Last Spring, KrisP. Production, a professional company and actors studio based in Hong Kong, put out a call for original plays written specifically for digital performance, never intended to be produced on a stage, for a short series they call LIMITATIONS.

As it happened, I had just completed a short work as a class assignment that had the same stipulation, and so I submitted that. And it has been selected for production!

The Runner was written to be performed as a continuous live stream; cinéma vérité executed on a platform like Facebook Live. Inspired by the John Cheever short story The Swimmer it is about ageing, regret, masculine toxicity and includes certain supernatural elements.

I am very excited and intrigued to discover how they realize the material. I had played with the idea of producing the script myself this summer, but we have all, fortunately, been very busy. Will they produce it live? The call for submissions encouraged some kind of audience participation, which it has. And a “sensory” experience, which it does.

Hong Kong is a twelve hours difference from Cleveland. I’d love to watch some live, experimental short play performed over breakfast!

Timing "The Runner"

In spite of the Delta variant making its way across the U.S., many here (including, it must be said, me and my family, who are all vaccinated) have been behaving as though the pandemic is over. This is never so apparent as in the theater community, as Broadway has plans to open shows in a little over a month, and all our local theaters are now announcing their 2021-22 seasons.

With the great reopening of American theater has also come the great dismissal of so-called “virtual” theater. Some speak as though they would be happy never to see a play on a screen again. Or more to the point, that unless it is performed live in front of you, it is not even theater.

I find this distressing. Not only because I wrote and produced live performances during the recent shutdown. Not only because this thing really isn’t over yet, and anyone who thinks they may never again have to spend a year (or more) indoors again may be in for a world of disappointment. But also because as an audience member, the performances I saw, live and recorded, as well as though I participated in, gave me life and brought me hope. 

And as much as I have enjoyed the live, in-person performances I have already taken in during the past month, I am not so ready to dismiss the virtual performances that carried me through.