The Way I Danced With You (process)

Sarah Blubaugh & Michael Johnson
(Blank Canvas Theatre, 2018)

Several of my plays have been commissions. There is a need, a proposal, I satisfy certain criteria, the play gets produced, we move on. Then there are the plays I write because I want to write them, I need to. But where do they go? And how do you know if they are even any good?

The Way I Danced With You has followed a process, it keeps moving forward. We read it at music stands in Valdez, Alaska following a two-hour rehearsal. We took three days to rehearse and stage it with scripts in hand, no tech, no set or costumes in Waterloo. And now we have taken three weeks to fully memorize the piece, dress up the actors, and see what it actually looks like or could look like in some future, premiere production.

It makes a difference, hearing the script aloud. A big difference in this case. At the first read-through a few weeks back, Sarah (playing Dani at Blank Canvas) observed that the second scene or act is entirely different when read out loud, looking at the person you’re speaking to you, about the person you're speaking to. You really have to do that to understand what is happening and the emotions involved.

It is still a script in progress, but not by much. The first two scenes are pretty much right where I want them. The first was almost completely set in stone after Alaska, I remember cutting an entire page during our brief rehearsal. Tyler and Chloe read it and I was like, wow, we don’t need that at all! It was liberating.

But that third scene … my lead adjudicator at Last Frontier was Kevin Armento (Balls, Devil With the Blue Dress) and one of the most significant questions he asked was; whose play is it? I said I wanted the play to be about both of them. He said that’s fine, but that it was currently Charles’s play, the man’s play. And that this was largely due to the third scene or act.

Chloe Cotton & Tyler Browning
(Last Frontier Theatre Conference, 2016)

Significant revisions were made, for Playwrights’ Local, and then for Blank Canvas. My wife says the play is now about Dani, the woman, that it’s her play. And I am all right with that. But even now, listening to Michael (Charles) in the third scene, playing it all out, I am in sitting in the house constantly thinking about every line -- this could be different, that is unnecessary... Hearing it, seeing it, and seeing her (Dani’s) reaction to everything … it’s important. It’s necessary. I’m seeing and hearing things I’ve never heard in the previous workshops, when scripts were in the way. Reactions are as important as the words themselves.

Having said that, the performances this weekend have been tremendous. And during that scene, that final scene, you could hear a pin drop in the house. No one in the audience moves, they’re all hanging on every word. It’s thrilling. They want to know.

Interestingly, while I leave the ending with a question, Lara, the director, has pretty much made up her mind her mind as to what happens next, after the curtain, and I think it’s pretty clear. Another director might handle that differently, and that’s okay, too.

So there are a few minor edits still to be made on that last scene. But it’s ready to go, this script is ready for a full production.

UPDATE: BorderLight Theater Festival presents The Right Room, a new play by David Hansen and directed by Jasmine Renee, July 16 - 19, 2025. Help support our production by dropping a donation on our GoFundMe campaign! 

Play a Day: To the Orchard

Les Hunter

Twenty-eight plays in twenty-eight days! Four weeks of new work. And April is almost complete.

For Friday morning, I read To the Orchard by Les Hunter, and available at New Play Exchange. Dr. Hunter is a professor at Baldwin Wallace, one of our great Cleveland playwrights, and a total boss.

To the Orchard premiered at Playwrights Local last fall, and received the Foundation for Jewish Culture New Play Award. Like Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, from which the play's title is derived, this piece focuses on the relationship between parents and adult children, and the ghosts of things unspoken. Or not yet spoken.

You know that thing they told us recently, about how if the spiders worked together they could devour humanity with hours? The same could be said of trees. Those things are everywhere. The pervasive realty of trees. They play a major role here, the Tree of Knowledge and/or Life. Trees that might reach out and grab you and pull you into the earth (or as was the case in Poltergeist, eat you.)

I am charmed by this story because it touches on elements of my life which I feel are absent, so they interest me greatly. The intense relationship between parents and children, the importance of mentors and lovers, and lovers who are mentors. I never stayed in touch with my mentors, to my continual disappointment. My wife is my mentor, and perhaps that is why I will never leave her.

In spite of my somewhat casual relationship with my parents, at least I am confident that my father knew I loved him, and there is a spiritual comfort in that.

Two more plays in two more days. Then what is the plan? The reading has effectively put the writing on hold. Why? Because I write in the morning, that is when I can think clearly, so that is when it happens. Can I return to a regular process of writing every morning at five.

Mornings at Five. If I give it a name, will that make it real?

Selections from Weimar, a new play by Les Hunter, will be read at Dobama Theatre on Monday, May 1 at 7:00 PM.

Objectively/Reasonable

Objectively/Reasonable

The common wisdom is that in order to present the appearance of fairness and balance you must provide “both sides” of the story.

The Guardian (UK) recently published the article Cleveland's dividing lines over race issues come to light under Trump by Chris McGreal (3/3/2017) an interesting, troubling profile of race relations in our city. The story includes interviews with two men - one white, one black. “Both sides.”

The problem in this article, as is the case everywhere, is that the considered, carefully stated opinions of Police Detective Lynn Hampton, who is black, are drowned out by the bellicose, defensive, defiant and cognitively dissonant opinions of retired steel executive Brian King, who is white.

With the election of Donald Trump, Detective Hampton worries about an escalation of tension between the Cleveland police and the African-American community. “What kind of society does (Trump) want to create? You can’t continue to back people into a corner without anybody eventually getting tired and striking out. That’s the very thing that I’m trying to avoid,” Hampton says.

A Trump supporter, King badmouths all other politicians for pandering. “They’re all snakes and getting rich off us,” he says. King hopes that “Trump puts sane people in charge of this.” But he also admits that Trump is “an asshole,” but that that is why he supports him. “He’s a shyster. He’s a crook. But I want him to be a crook for us.”

Asked for his opinion, King talks not only out of both sides of his mouth, but out of every orifice he has.

Anyone remember this speech?

The white man’s word so totally overwhelms that of the person of color. We saw this on full display at last week’s Oscars, when the embarrassment of white producers, the dithering apology of a white Hollywood legend and the several days of analysis and hand-wringing over dingbat white accountants entirely eclipsed the historic fact that this year the Best Picture was in fact awarded to Moonlight, a film starring, directed and written by people of color.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to see Objectively/Reasonable at Playwright’s Local, a play created by several local playwrights based on numerous interviews on the subject of recent police violence in Cleveland. Watching this performance, we did not hear two sides of the Tamir Rice tragedy and the Brelo case -- we heard the story from dozens of sides. From citizens, police officers, community organizers, city councilmen, journalists and family members.

The fact that each point of view we heard from, every unique opinion, was from the mind and mouth of a person of color does not make this performance piece “unbalanced.” The absence of white voices - the “other side” - meant that we could actually hear it, without the noise of that dominant party, always obfuscating, misrepresenting, and whitesplaining.

I am white. I am not the "other side." And I do not need to hear other white people explain anything to me, at all. Especially white men.

Loganberry Books

Objectively/Reasonable is a breathtaking performance, too, you should see it. The performers are uniformly excellent, the stories deeply affecting, director Terrence Spivey truly outdoes himself with this event. Our city needs to listen to these voices, without the sudden urge to respond. Listen first, and think without prejudice.

On a similar note, the folks at Loganberry Books have staged their own performance-art event in honor of Women’s History Month.

As reported in Cleveland Scene, Loganberry Books Shelves Men's Books Backwards as a 'Metaphor of Silencing the Male Voice' by Laura Morrison (3/3/2017) owner Harriett Logan and her staff reshelved every book written by a man so that their spines face the back of the shelves.

What do you see? Perhaps how few books that have ever been published have been written by women? You can also see more clearly all the books which are written by women. The picture of the shelves is quite striking, when the books are are presented that way.

Unfortunately for Harriett (who is a good friend) when being interviewed, she said that the display is a “metaphor of silencing the male voice.” And as you see, that became the headline.

Well. You can imagine how many men who happened upon this article on the internet took to the idea of being “silenced.” The social media blowback was ugly. They have called for a boycott, probably the same people who called for a boycott of the musical Hamilton.

The very idea, the suggestion of forcing a white man to be silent, to stop talking, to wit; to shut the fuck up ... and not even in reality! As a metaphor, as a display in a second-hand bookstore. Why it’s unconscionable! It’s unbelievable! It’s unfair, it’s discriminatory, it’s sexist! Sexist against men!

Honestly, white man. For the first time in your life, sit down. Take a deep breath.

And shut the fuck up.

Objectively/Reasonable at Playwrights' Local continues at the Creative Space at Waterloo through March 11, 2017.

Loganberry Books is located at 13015 Larchmere Blvd. in Cleveland.

Entry Point (2017)

Rehearsal for "Set Fire and Start Again"

New play development is a thing. It is as though almost every theater in town has its own playwrights ensemble or presents some new plays festival. Convergence-Continuum has the NEOMFA Playwright Festival, Ensemble Theatre the Columbi New Plays Festival, Dobama Theatre has a playwrights program called Playwrights’ GYM, and the Play House the Playwrights’ Unit, that last of which I am a member.

Reaching back twenty years, I was an actor for Cleveland Public Theatre’s new play festivals. That event included a prize for best play, the Chilcote Award, which would go on to receive a full production the following season. I was in the world premiere production of Lucy Wang’s Junk Bonds in 1995, and performed in both the festival (1997) and premiere (1998) production of Sarah Morton’s Love In Pieces.

In more recent years, when they produced an annual festival of works-in-progress called Big Box, I was afforded the opportunity to develop my own plays, including solo pieces I Hate This (2003) and And Then You Die (2009) among others. Each had life outside Big Box, but the assistance provided by CPT made them happen.

Of course, there are a wide variety of ways to develop a new script. You can invite friends to your house and read it. You can stage your own public reading, or submit it to a celebration of new works like the Playwrights Local Annual Cleveland Playwrights Festival or attach yourself or gain membership to one of our local theaters’ playwright collectives. You can even declare your script completed and submit it for production, here or anywhere, really. The internet has made it much easier to find companies across the country that actively seek new work.

This year, CPT is trying something new, by producing a trio of events designed to progress dramatic works at various stages of completing. The first stage of these, Entry Point, takes place this weekend. Over the course of two and a half hours, audience members can move between over a half-dozen locations on the CPT campus to witness - and comment upon - new works at various stages of development.

In addition, they are featuring panel discussions on Saturday afternoon. A number of my favorite artists and CPT stalwarts are presenting as part of this project, you can even sit in on a brand new work from Eric Coble. Also, there's free beer.

My friend and colleague Carrie Williams is working on a script titled Set Fire and Start Again, since the beginning of the year she has been directing our company of five to create a script-in-hand, twenty-minute performance of what she calls “fragments” of a larger piece that she’s working toward. I have had a wonderful time working with this crew, a lot of positive energy devoted to developing Carrie’s work, giving her what she needs, we hope, to drive this piece forward.

This is the project I was referring to when describing those of us who go into the cold to create. For some reason my sharpest memories of participating in the creation of someone else's work, generally as an actor, with highlit and marked up new pages in my hand, take place in deepest winter. During the rehearsal process I was standing in the wings, and turned to face the black wall of the Levin Theatre. Painted black, and repainted many times over, how many layers of paint dating back how many years. I touched its surface, which has born witness to so much new work.

When I was a youth, when I was in college, even, I was not interested in new work. My ignorance of the classics placed a premium upon them, they had staying power and pedigree, they had been endorsed by time and I assumed therefore those were “real” plays. And I considered myself a writer!

Since that time I have come to an entirely different conclusion. New writing is the lifeblood of civilization, and that working as a collaborator (even as an actor! yes!) in the pursuit of original plays is vital to the progress of culture. The open, creative exchange of ideas in a public venue. You like movies? You like TV? It all begins with the basic, local act of crafting the words to be spoken from one person to another, on a stage, before an audience. That is the basis of understanding.

Entry Point will be presented at Cleveland Public Theatre, January 20-22, 2017.

Top Ten Events of 2016

Obligatory "Hamilton" sidewalk selfie.

There are those who have suggested that 2016 is the worst year in recent memory. They are generally referring to the deaths of numerous pop culture figures from the 1980s and the election of Donald J. Trump.

My father died this year. In fact, two of my great friends from my youth, their fathers also died this year. Everything else can go hang, it has been a year of personal mourning, it’s all subjective, ask the children in Aleppo how this year has gone. Kind of puts the death of the inventor of the Red Solo Cup in perspective.

Every year sucks. Every year is amazing. Here is my entirely subjective top ten list (in chronological order) of the most amazingly awesome things that happened to me this year, and only a few of the incredible people with whom they happened.

1. I Hate This (a play without the baby): This one-night-only, 15th anniversary performance, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris, was an eye-opening rediscovery of a work I thought I knew, and I got to share it with a wonderful audience.
2. Cleveland Marathon: Chris Fornadel and I survived the CLE Half Marathon through an absurd, freak mid-May snowstorm. Could not have done that without this hilarious running partner, but that was crazy.
3. Last Frontier Theater Conference: Playwright Kevin Armento was an inspiring and encouraging lead panelist for my new script. Also glad I got to see a performance of his Good Men Wanted at the conference, his personal philosophy of writing is one I can get behind.
4. Cavs Victory Parade.

   

   The Chosen One.

5. Twelfth Night (As Told By Malvolio): Celebrating the First Folio in Cleveland, I adapted and directed a 45-minute version of Twelfth Night with some of my very favorite young actors, which we toured to Cleveland public libraries around the city.
6. Saw fucking Hamilton.
7. Cleveland Playwrights Festival: Playwrights Local presented a script-in-hand workshop of my new work, The Way I Danced With You, directed by Melissa T. Crum, who, with Chennelle, has been instrumental in my development of this script. Response was very positive and the entire weekend of events was an instructive experience.
8. Tony Kushner & Sarah Vowell: This Think Forum event, ostensibly an open discussion about the life of Abraham Lincoln, the evening was a bleak, hilarious and ultimately reassuring post-election balm.
9. Reception: My wife and I began holding a salon of arts and ideas at our home late in the year, and we seem to have discovered a wonderful coven of brilliant hopeful minds.
10. 28th Annual Great Lakes Theater A Christmas Carol Writing Contest: Always a delight and an honor to help shepherd this contest for Cleveland middle school students, this year’s winners all felt particularly poignant, their interpretation by performers from GLT's production A Christmas Carol delightful. Have you listened to the broadcast yet?

He judges my blogging.

This list only mentions a few people and barely scratches the surface of the productions, festivals, parties, personal moments, journeys, concerts, school, neighborhood and campaign events, and all the details which make up a year well-spent.

There was so much pain in 2016, from the very first day (when I have have to admit I was terribly hungover) to this day. Well, not today, actually, today has been pretty calm and relaxing. 

I hope you have also been blessed with good times this past year, walking between the raindrops (as they say) and wish you great and wonderful things in 2017.

The 2nd Annual Cleveland Playwrights Festival

I got mine.

For nearly a quarter century I have been presenting or attending original work in rough, urban, Cleveland settings.

Recently, we attended Twelfth Night at the Hanna Theatre, and it was truly remarkable, perhaps my favorite production of that play, and produced in the most beautiful theater space in the city. Sitting in a plush, comfortable seat, the carpeted stairs and chandeliers, the molded plaster and paint, a classic home for the living arts, warm, soft and inviting.

Last night I was present for the opening evening of the Playwrights Local 2nd Annual Cleveland Playwrights Festival held at Waterloo Arts in a vast storefront; concrete floor, plastic chairs, the back row a former church pew. A simple platform stage. The pressed tin ceiling is a telling vestige of the room’s history; perhaps a hardware store, or maybe a bar, some time eighty years ago.

Earlier that night my colleagues and I had walked the length of Waterloo to get coffee, and I felt that I was had been transported to the Tremont of my twenties, as though all of that neighborhood had been confined to one side of one street. A working class neighborhood, down on its heels, where hipsters and artists had taken root and created a funky vibe and have attracted the strangest crowd of people.

Derf had an opening last night for his The Baron of Prospect Avenue, featuring all the original panels of the soon-to-be-released novel, I popped in and got a signed copy of Trashed. There are other galleries, and boutiques, not one but two vinyl record stores, and of course the storied Beachland Ballroom, where I have attended concerts, a film festival, and most recently School of Rock performances featuring my son on the drums.

With our coffee we dipped back into Waterloo Arts for a staged reading of that script I have been working on, The Way I Danced With You, and later an absurd, hilarious and profane audience interactive piece of work by three playwrights entitled Marry, Fuck, Kill.

Melissa took special care with my script, and I am grateful for all of the time and attention. We had a read-through last weekend, and then then she spent nearly ten hours over two nights working with Kim and Ryan in that space, blocking a script-in-hand performance.

I was grateful for the special attention. This piece has been read aloud in rehearsal rooms for small, invited audiences, received a standing read at Last Frontier, and now this, and at each stage the work has been expanded and focused. I have been listening and revising, listening and revising, and I have not had the freedom to do that with many of my recent works. There have been deadlines, and I have had to make and meet them.

The rehearsals, while not cold, were cool. The cement floor and dim light, before the space was made bright and clear and warm for an audience. When we rehearsed Hamlet in the Brick Alley space in the early months of 1999 we had two choices, heat or quiet. The Brick Alley was literally an alley between two brick buildings which had at some point had a metal roof installed and the heating unit was LOUD. We’d run it for every available moment during breaks, and then shut it off so we could hear the Shakespeare, the heat swiftly dissipating into nothing.

My first production at Cleveland Public Theater (Junk Bonds by Lucy Wang) we rehearsed in what had recently been an appliance store on street level. It was spring, 1995 but a Cleveland spring, again, there was cement and it was cold. Reznor heating units are a potent symbol of the creative process.

My reading was well-attended, there were well over thirty people, pretty much every seat taken. A lot of familiar faces but also many that were not. The leap that had taken by both performers from the previous night to this was remarkable. Kim particularly ramped up both her charm and intensity right where it was needed the most, and I don’t know whether it’s in the writing or some innate talent with mimicry but after meeting only a week ago, Ryan was suddenly doing an uncanny impression of me.

This is a music stand.

My takeaway from Alaska was that the two characters had to equally share the story, which is hard because she is hiding so much. My recent attention has been to throw focus on her (and take some away from him) and from last night’s reaction I believe I have found that medium. The piece runs at a neat hour twenty, and I did not feel a moment when the audience checked out, no coughing, no fidgeting, everyone sat stock still when they were silent but there was a lot of laughter, and an awful lot of laughter -- including during the third scene, which is when the room in Valdez fell silent.

Melissa ran the talkback, which I have to say was entirely satisfying, as the audience was focused on all of the issues I have hoped to address in the work. The term quarterlife came up, and indeed, that is the central focus of the final act, that sense of regret you feel before you’ve even really started.

Also noted was what I call Thelma & Louise syndrome. One out of one hundred audience members want to know what happened to Thelma and Louise after they made it to the other side of the canyon. Some people are so entirely optimistic that if you do not show them the smoking wreck, they have to imagine for themselves a happy ending. My piece has an open ending, but most in the room were realistic about the outcome.

The big, scary thing about this play (one said) is that everything you know can be wrong. Yes, that was my intention, and I was so relieved to hear that. What's next?

Ensemble Theatre presents the World Premiere of "The Way I Danced With You," opening March 21, 2019.