Culver City Public Theatre presents "Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street"

Brian Knoebel as
Alma Tadema-Lawrence
(CCPT, 2020)

Last night was a treat. Chennelle and Chelsea joined us for some late summer, socially-distanced deck time so we could watch the premiere of the Culver City Public Theatre (CCPT) production of Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street.

This is the second production of that script. The folks at CCPT, who produced Rosalynde & the Falcon last year, were intending to offer performances of About a Ghoul to their audiences as their annual, free, outdoor summer show for families. Things being how they are, they thought a mystery might be better suited to the medium.

At first they considered a live “Zoom” performance, opting instead for something pre-recorded, with surprising results!

California is three hours behind us, so I made the mistake of thinking last night’s 6:00 PM showing would be during one of my classes. When I finally put it together that it would be, in fact, at nine (eastern) … well, then I thought I might see it. I might not. I haven’t been sleeping well. I might wait and see it this weekend.

Richard Rosales (left) in
"Rosalynde & the Falcon"
(CCPT, 2019)

I told all of this to Chennelle late in the afternoon and she invited herself over -- which was just all right with me! We rarely see each other (we all rarely see anyone anymore, of course) and besides, she originated the main character of Vicky for the inaugural production for Great Lakes Theater.

I don’t just mean she was the first to perform the role, either. I wrote it for her. I was so happy to get to watch this with her.

We all sat out on the deck, beneath the fairy lights, six feet apart, drinking seltzer in the open air, on an appropriately cool September evening, and were treated to an engagingly loopy COVID-era production.

Richard Rosales is the titular detective. He played the King in CCPT’s Rosalynde in the park, and brought his high haughty humor to the character of Sherlock Holmes as well, while Ashley J. Woods as Vicky is like a Covent Garden flower seller channeled by Catherine Tate’s schoolgirl Lauren Cooper, and they make a charming pair of sleuths.

King Edward busts a move.

Scene-stealers include Brian Knoebel who was killing it with his drag renditions of Miss Barnaby and boho artiste Alma Tadema-Lawrence (he left us cackling with glee) and the precious young Maggie McKissick as Annie, the orphan, in an actual curly red wig and moppet’s dress.

Director Marina Curtis Tidwell did not merely direct a play, she produced a TV show, complete with music and Pythonesque animations. Marina truly did a remarkable job keeping the edits tight and timely.

Each actor created their own scenes in their own homes, provided costumes, backdrops and set pieces by the company to give a coherent look. The production would not look out of place on your local PBS station, a playful mystery for kids with some historic educational value and a strong anti-bullying message. 

First Reading
(August 25, 2019)

They were even able to incorporate the “choices” that are intended to be offered to a live, child audience -- “should I do A or B?” In this case, the actor looks at the camera to consult the viewer (a Blue’s Clues moment) though in this case the outcome is predetermined.

It is shocking to me, shocking, that it was one a year ago that a number of us clustered together on our deck to hold the first reading of this script. Chelsea and Chennelle were there, too -- Chelsea reading Vicky and Chennelle the Barney track. If we knew then what we know now, right? It is a mystery.

Last night I slept like a baby.

  

UPDATE: "Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street" is now available from Pioneer Drama Service

How I Spent My Summer (2019)

Providence, RI

For the past several years I have taken a moment before the school year begins to reflect upon the fleeting days of summer. What does "summer vacation" mean to adults? Well, we do have school age children, and are each professionally tethered to the academic clock. We work, but we also play, and enable play.

The opportunities during warm weather months are great, and we endeavor to take advantage of them. This year my wife and I celebrated twenty years married, my daughter and I watched all of Stranger Things 3 over the course of two days, the boy and I went fishing. And there was so much more.

Beck Center for the Arts

KING LEAR

Feels like a million years ago now, but the summer began with a five weekend run of King Lear at the Beck Center, directed by Eric Schmiedl. Performances were only three a week (Fri, Sat eve & Sun mat) and there was something about that schedule which made performance much less of a struggle than a traditional, non-professional four show a weekend schedule. Just that much more manageable.

And yet, the focus I needed to exhibit, the hyper self-awareness, to conduct myself as this stoic, wound-up character. At times it was maddening, walking out in the lead, having the first line for this three-hour ordeal. One night, I cannot even comprehend how this happened, my tongue lost control and I stuttered my first line, in its entirety. It was through a supreme effort of will not to lose all confidence right then and there. I do not know how I was able to remember the rest of my lines.

Contemporary Youth Orchestra

JASON MRAZ

Working as an actor in a play (as opposed to writing or directing one) is that you are compelled to attend every performance. This is one of the reasons I don’t like acting, but only one of them.

As a result of this selfish commitment, I missed out on the opportunity to see my daughter perform with Jason Mraz. As a violin player with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, she had been working on his catalog all spring, taking three days of rehearsal with this incredibly charming pop star culminating in two sold out performances at Severance Hall.

I was welcomed to one of the rehearsals, which was a delightful consolation prize.

Great Lakes Theater

CAMP THEATER!

Teaching middle school students to improv can be very challenging, and for a very good reason. Young people can be emotionally abused for making themselves look silly.

A: Help me to milk this water buffalo!
B: Uh, no.

The basic tenet of improv is YES, AND which is to say, agree to what is being offered and then add something to it. This year during Camp Theater! we had a camper who was not only very good at this, he raised acceptance to a new level. Shaun and I noticed that whenever someone made him a suggestion, he would not only agree, he would say, “Excellent!”

A: I have created for you a new dress made entirely out of termites!
B: Excellent, they will go so well with my new maggot boots.

It was the introduction to an inspiring summer of discovery.

Culver City Public Theatre

ROSALYNDE & THE FALCON

While I have had a number of my published plays produced in other cities, this was a first -- one of the works I wrote for Talespinner Children’s Theatre was being revived, and on the west coast, too! Culver City Public Theatre produced Rosalynde & the Falcon. Not only that, but it was an outdoor performance, offered for free to area families! And you know I love free.

ROAD TRIPS

July was an odd month, in that I shared a bed with my wife for perhaps one out of every three days. This is no sign of marital tension or anything like that, we were simply not in each other’s presence. She spent a week on silent retreat in Kentucky, we traveled separately to and from Maine, and I took my daughter on an extended weekend to New York City.

We visited potential schools on that journey, something we also accomplished driving home together from our Maine vacation by way of Providence, RI. My son and I drove there the week before, enjoying authentic Buffalo, NY buffalo wings and spying fancy cars.

Come From Away

COME FROM AWAY

For three years we have been subscribers to the KeyBank Broadway Series at Playhouse Square, and in all that time I was never so unprepared to be completely delighted and moved by a musical like Come From Away.

Come From Away is a magical illusion, with songs that still echo in my head, a small company, their everyday wear belying the speed and specificity with which they assume dozens of characters, to tell a story of tragedy without leaning into the tragedy (we all know the tragedy) instead focusing on what the best people do for each other no matter who the other people are.

One of our dates for the evening pointed out how refreshing it was to see a cast of characters who were entirely adults, and I have to admit I hadn’t noticed. Was that it? I polled my friends on Facebook, wondering if younger audiences preferred, for example, the teen-directed Dear Evan Hansen, but I received almost universal praise from all ages for this special Canadian musical … which did not win the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical, whereas that other play did.

Story Board

WRITING "HOLMES"

Just the other day, Missy asked me about my writing process, and I have had a number of different processes, which is only correct. I am a creature of habit, but breaking them is as significant as adhering to them.

To complete the new touring script, I spent just one working week away from the office. I gathered all the notes I had made, then went into the attic to find an old cork board so I had a place to post them. I used drawing paper to create a “story cloud,” connecting one plot point to the next and filling in all of the details in between, with lists of actors and characters and who would be available to do what when.

It was all mapped out before I had created a single word of dialogue. The entire thing was drafted in three days, completed just before heading out of town for two weeks.

Barnstable

FRIENDSHIP, MAINE

Actually, I spent only seven days in Flood’s Cove this year. Sometimes that happens, but it felt even shorter as my wife and daughter (and mother-in-law) were flying in on a Monday, only to have their flight cancelled at LaGuardia. They did not arrive until Tuesday evening, and their travel drama troubled me for the better part of those two days.

There was an interesting collection of folks, so much coming and going, and the weather was hot. I missed cool weather, mornings by the fire, a slow pace, and perhaps most of all my father. His absence has been felt the past several years, this time he was just absent.

Hofbräuhaus Half Marathon

SEVERE ALLERGIC REACTION

Last week I ate something which tried to kill me, or rather my body tried to kill me for something I ate. I’ve never had an allergic reaction, to anything. And yet, something in that sushi made my heart race, and my skin turn beet red.

I’m fine, but it was scary in a manner in which I am not used to being scared. The week that followed was one of dragging my ass from place to place as I coped with the side effects of medication meant to ensure that whatever was in my system had run its course.

That also meant not exercising for the better part of a week, so ironic following my time running the Hofbräuhaus Half Marathon just the day before my attack.

TRAINING FOR THE CHICAGO MARATHON

Which is where I am left today. Hotter days of summer are behind us, the days already noticeably shorter. I am currently training for the Chicago Marathon, October 13. Have been all summer, and raising money for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation.

Preparing for New York in 2006, and for the Twin Cities four years ago, August is when the training is supposed to be ramping up, pushing further across the city in preparation for the big day. Instead, I have had to take the better part of a week off, and it is discouraging.

But then, has it ever been easy? And isn't that the point.

"Rosalynde & The Falcon" at Culver City Public Theatre

Thieves enjoy some tasty soup.
(Photo: Nic Henry)

For the few months I spent squatting with some friends in Venice Beach, all those long years ago, I never imagined I would one day have a play I had written performed in a park, a mere twenty minute drive away.

Culver City is a bucolic oasis of calm in the midst of the Los Angeles megalopolis, the former home to MGM headquarters the city is tied to the history of American film. Hughes Aircraft was based here, today you will find Sony Pictures, NPR West, and Amazon.

This small city, incorporated independent from the city of L.A. (which surrounds it) is also the site of the Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park. It’s one of those one block, city parks, serving a modest residential neighborhood, the park surrounded by one-story homes, many dating back to the 1940s.

For over twenty years, Culver City Public Theatre has presented shows for child and family audiences in Carlson Park, free of charge. This summer that production is my play, Rosalynde & The Falcon.

Rosalynde & The Falcon is a mash-up of several folk tales, notably those that focus on a damsel or princess driven out of the kingdom in fear for her life and finding her way through unfamiliar surroundings. This is the basis for Snow White, but also Shakespeare’s As You Like It. There are also elements of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood ... and a wide variety of other sources.

Originally commissioned and produced by Talespinner Children’s Theatre, this is only the second production Rosalynde has received, and my first children’s play to be remounted anywhere. And because it is such a fanciful tale, I was intensely curious about how it’s all coming together.

Rose Leisner (Rosalynde) & Ryan Hardge (Roland) rehearse.

I had a delightful conversation with director Marina Tidwell yesterday, who was not only able to share with me some of the design concepts, but also to give me a nice sense of what it’s like to attend one of CCPT’s outdoor productions.

With an uncomplicated set, meant for use in the out-of-doors for an audience of children seated on the ground and close, costumes are a significant part of communicating the story. Rosalynde is a goofy satire (in verse) and the folks at CCPT are leaning into the classic animated Disney character of Snow White; the princess Rosalynde (Rose Leisner) dressed in blue and yellow -- with a red hair bow -- when she first identifies as female, and then maintaining those signature colors when she becomes the male-presenting “Falcon.”

The script was written to accommodate a company of no fewer than six players, though so few performers requires double-casting several roles. Tidwell brought on two powerful singers to perform the several songs and to assume supernumerary roles.

When I wrote the play I included song lyrics, leaving the music up to the individual companies to create. In addition to playing the role of Rusty, Susan Stangl is the music director and has composed original tunes inspired by classic Disney songsmith Leigh Harline (“When You Wish Upon a Star”) and even an homage to Claude-Michael Schönberg (“Les Misérables”).

You know I love creating theater for the community, offered free of charge, presented out of doors on a beautiful summer’s day, and I’m just tickled to think of all the kids -- and parents -- who are going to hear my words on a warm summer afternoon in Culver City. It’s my West Coast premiere!

Performance rights for "Rosalynde & the Falcon" are available from Next Stage Press.

A Tale of Haina

I need an easy friend
I do, with an ear to lend
- Nirvana, "About a Girl"

Tiffany Thomas, Abdelghani Kitab, Maribeth Van Hecke
"About a Ghoul"
(Talespinner Children's Theatre)

Several years ago I received a wonderful gift from one of my in-laws, a recent publication of the First Edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Many are aware that folk tales, like those from which popular Disney “princess” films are based, do not necessarily have happy endings. They can be violent horror stories, which arguably teach a child valuable lessons. Lessons like, “do what I say or someone out there will murder you.”

What was most interesting about this book, however, was that the Brothers Grimm did not write these tales, they collected them, just as ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax collected recordings of American folk music. Documentation, not creation.

I have had the great fortune and opportunity to create and adapt tales for the stage at Talespinner Children’s Theatre. One of the things I have noticed about folk tales from around the world are their great similarity, and also their differences.

Every culture, it would seem, has a story of a young woman or girl who is either cast out or runs away, in fear for her life. This is a story found not only in tales like Snow White, but repeated in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. These two version, and others, formed the basis for my play Rosalynde & The Falcon.

The Indonesian folk tale Bawang Merah Bawang Putih is a story much like Cinderella, with a put-upon step-child eventually receiving great reward for her patience, even as her mean step-mother and step-sister get their comeuppance. This was the basis for my play Red Onion, White Garlic, though I took liberties with the story to make the sister allies rather than enemies.

Margi Herwald Zitelli & Sarah Bogomolny
"Red Onion, White Garlic"
(Talespinner Children's Theatre)

Moroccan culture also has many, many tales of young women and girls in peril,who are either punished for their bad decision making, or rewarded for their wisdom and cunning.

Like Grimm’s original tales, the Moroccan tales that I have read are a transcription of an oral tradition, and as such the tales do not necessarily have a complete, narrative arc or structure. They can go many different places, with characters and story lines being introduced and just as suddenly abandoned.

What I found most fascinating about Moroccan tales are the preponderance of ghouls. They are the bogeymen in these stories, not just as monsters, but as characters.

Talespinner artistic director Ali Garrigan introduced me to Abdelghani Kitab, a Moroccan musician and actor living in Cleveland, and we met several times over the past year over coffee to discuss Moroccan culture and folk tales. One afternoon he translated for me (from the French) a story that his grandmother used to tell him.

Here now, my simple retelling of this version of the story Haina, threads of which are found in my new play script, About a Ghoul.

Haina - or - The Girl Who Married the Ghoul

Haina was a girl with long black hair, so long and soft that at night she would roll up her hair and use it as a pillow.

She had a wealthy father, whose dying wish was that she marry her cousin. Following the marriage, Haina found it strange that her new husband would depart for seven days, every seven days. What she did not know was that every night her husband would turn into a GHOUL, and that he would stay awake for an entire week, and then sleep for another, necessitating the lie that he was always traveling.

Now this ghoul would eat anything and everything. Each morning, when her husband was in residence, Haina noticed that they would lose another horse. Soon only her favorite horse remained. The horse pleaded with Haina to free him from his chains. She told her husband that the horse was ill, and only fed him rice and milk. The next time the ghoul departed (or rather, hid in sleep) the chains fell off the now much thinner horse, and the two of them, Haina and horse, made their escape.

Upon waking, the ghoul cried, “My horse ran away with my wife!” All who heard his cry laughed and mocked his folly.

Haina disguised herself as a talib or a holy man. They came to a city where they were warmly welcomed, though the children were suspicious. That night they peered through the window of the house in which the talib was staying to see him combing his long, black hair.

The children went to their mother to tell what they had seen. Their mother thought of a test to prove whether the talib was a man with long black hair, or a woman posing as a man. The next day they offered the talib a meal of food both spicy and sweet -- as it is well-known that women prefer sweet food and men prefer spicy food! The talib passed the first test by choosing the spicy dish.


But then the mother surprised the talib by telling him that their horse died during the night, and the talib broke down in tears. Mother reassured the talib that the horse was not dead -- but also that only a woman would cry over the death of a horse, and Haina admits her deception.

Charles Hargrave, Valerie C. Kilmer & Tim Keo
"Rosalynde & The Falcon"
(Talespinner Children's Theatre)

The story continues, and for a moment it appears that things are going to end well for our heroine. The eldest of the children, a young man, thinks Haina is very beautiful and they agree to marry. But when her first husband, the ghoul, learns of her second match -- and that Haina is pregnant with twins -- he spreads an ugly rumor that she is about to give birth to two dogs.

Her new husband hears the rumor and flies into a rage. He orders Haina’s hands to be cut off and the newborn twins be put into cages. In the end all deceptions are revealed, lovers and family are reconciled and the site of Haina’s punishment becomes a shrine.

Elements of the first part of the tale of Haina forms the basis for my adaptation About a Ghoul. No one in my play is maimed (though some are shamed.) In America we have a tendency to shield children from monsters and harsh punishments in the tales we tell, and maybe this is for best, or maybe not. There are monsters in the world, and harsh punishments.

I was concerned that a title such as “The Girl Who Married a Ghoul” might scare away parents, but also that they should know that we will have ghoul characters. As you can see, our idea of what a ghoul is in the West, whatever that is, is only one example. Through the many tales I read I saw all kind of ghouls, outsiders who live by a different set of laws, several of them capable of sympathy and kindness.

Some have asked if the title About a Ghoul is a play on the title of the film About a Boy, and the answer is no. Because the title of the novel upon which the film is based, About a Boy, is inspired by the title of the song About a Girl by Nirvana, and Nirvana is never mentioned in the film About a Boy.


Talespinner Children's Theatre presents "About A Ghoul" at the Reinberger Auditorium, opening March 9, 2019.

Play a Day: Red Onion, White Garlic

Photo: Steve Wagner

Two weeks ago I shared some background on my previous work for Talespinner Children's Theatre, Rosalynde & The Falcon. That was the same day my new work, Red Onion, White Garlic opened at TCT, and folks in the Cleveland area still have two weeks to catching it. In fact, tonight (Friday, April 21) is a pay-what-you-can performance, so bring the entire family. Bring grandma.

This play is a collection of Indonesian folktales, strung together into one continuous narrative. These tales include The Golden Snail and The King of the Parakeets among others, including that from which the play derives its title.

The original version of Red Onion, White Garlic (Bawang Putih Bawang Merah in Malay, literally "shallots and garlic") follows a familiar narrative of a young girl oppressed by her "evil" stepmother and stepsister.

The young girl, Bawang Putih (White Garlic) must do all the housework while her stepmother dotes on her own child, Bawang Merah (Red Onion). Virtue is eventually rewarded when Bawang Putih is awarded a pumpkin full of jewels for doing a good turn for the local sorceress. When Bawang Merah is sent by her mother to get another one, she behaves with entitlement and is rewarded with a pumpkin full of snakes and scorpions.

This tale did not compel me, however, and anyway, Rosalynde & The Falcon is already a story about an oppressed stepchild. And is it not time to be done with the "wicked stepmother" narrative all together? How many of us are or know people who are members of blended families?

So the challenge I set for myself was to tell a new version of the tale, one in which these sisters love each other and take care of each other, and I looked to those closest to me for example. In doing so, I noticed the marked age difference that can often exist between step-siblings, and how family economics can affect the way each person was raised as children.

Then there's the whole Gen X vs. Millennial dynamic, make of that what you will.

Finally, I noted how our central tale centers entirely on characters who are women; mother, daughters, female witches. As my tale expanded, I realized that all of the characters were going to be women. The opportunity for a male character never presented itself.

The Talespinner production is downright gorgeous, each of the five actors in beautiful kebaya and hijab, and performing wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry.

"Red Onion, White Garlic" is available from YouthPLAYS.

Play a Day: Rosalynde & The Falcon (BONUS)

Photo: Steve Wagner

I am not only a reader of plays on New Play Exchange, I am also a contributing playwright. Tomorrow night my new work, Red Onion, White Garlic opens at Talespinner Children's Theatre (TCT).

Since 2012, TCT has created professional productions designed for an audience of children and their families. They have a five-play season, four mainstage shows and a touring production, and each script is an original adaptation by a Cleveland-area playwright.

Red Onion, White Garlic is a collection of Indonesian folktales, woven together into a single narrative. Featuring a company of five women, the performance includes wayang kulit and sendrati (shadow puppetry and dance drama.)

Four years ago, TCT produced my play Adventures in Slumberland - adapted from the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland - and more recently, Rosalynde & The Falcon.

Inspired by Shakespeare's As You Like It, I also borrowed heavily from other tales like Snow White and Robin Hood to create a female protagonist who, instead of serving, cleaning up after or falling in love with any of the men she encounters in the forest, she becomes their leader, and eventually the ruler of the entire kingdom.

It's a short play, written in trochaic octameter, clocking in at around an hour. If you do read, please consider leaving a recommendation ... and thanks.


Performance rights for "Rosalynde & the Falcon" are available from Next Stage Press.

The Bechdel-Wallace Test

Alison Bechdel (b. 1960) is a MacArthur Grant Awarded cartoonist, creator of the long-running strip Dykes To Watch For and the graphic novels Fun Home and Are You My Mother? As a young theater artist in the 1990s reading Dykes in the Gay People’s Chronicle was a primer helping me to see beyond coarse stereotypes about lesbians when my circle of friends were either largely straight or closeted.

Click on to enlarge.

An edition of Dykes titled "The Rule" featured two friends discussing what movie to see. One explains she has three rules which dictate whether or not she’s interested in seeing a movie:

1. One, it has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who, two, talk to each other,
3. about , three, something besides a man

Now generally referred the Bechdel Test, the cartoonist prefers joint attribution with the person who originally thought up the criteria, an old friend names Liz Wallace -- whose contribution, you will notice, was noted on the original strip. Though "The Rule" is thirty years old, the term has become a meme in the past decade and a starting point for discussion about gender parity across all spectrum of media.

Breaking Point (1989)

What do the results signify? You could deduce from the dearth of roles for women in film that the point is representation. You can also consider what those roles consist of; do the female characters exist merely as romantic foils or objects of sexual desire - do these female characters even have names?

The bigger question, and the question I have been asking myself of late, is what stories are we telling? It’s not about cramming more women into your movie, and it’s not even about employing more women writers - although that would go a very long way to ameliorating the discrepancy. We should be asking ourselves what stories we writers choose to present to the world.

Scripts written for the theater (call them plays) have a handicap when it comes to passing the test, if only because most plays by design will have fewer total characters. But the challenge remains the same, what story do we choose to tell?

The first play I tried writing was the one-act Breaking Point, based on my own college comic strip. One night, as I was conversing with my stage manager and fretting about the one female housemate in an apartment of four. She was as smart and smart-alecky as the rest of them in the strip, but distilling several months of story line into a thirty-minute play, I realized how all the male characters treated her like shit.

“I write terrible female characters,” I sighed.

“Yeah," she said, shaking her head somewhat sympathetically. "You do.”

The Vampyres (1997)

I didn’t have another play produced for the better part of ten years. When I finally started composing The Vampyres in the mid-90s (finally, as in, why wasn’t I writing plays before this?) I had a story I was burning to tell, about a cynical med-student and a couple of poseur vampires which also included a former crush of the protagonists and a teenage barista onto whom he transfers his affection.

No, the two women do not talk to each other. If they did, it would certainly have been about the men. However, by that time I was aware of sexism in my writing, even if I didn’t know exactly what to do about it. I strove to retrofit the character of Mary so that she was a strong women who had her own agenda as an artist, but really, in brief she fell in love with a male vampire because he was irresistible in the way we are all told we just have to accept.

The story belonged to the male characters. It was a struggle between he and the other two hes. And it was represented in a battle over possession of the two shes. Giving the female characters their own personal agendas does not change what was the central conflict of the plot.

More recently, I have been working on a two-hander, the as-yet unproduced The Way I Danced With You. There’s two people in this play, one man and one woman, so the Bechdel Test does not really apply. But is the story equally theirs? Is the pursuit of her goals on an equal footing with her pursuit of her own goals? I believe that it is, and it is important to me that it is -- and not merely to satisfy an agenda. As I reported previously, the reception of this play changed from the Valdez reading in June and the Cleveland reading in November.

My breakthrough in creating feminist plays, however, comes largely thanks to my work in children’s theater. Who knows why this is, perhaps because at a distance I can tell stories to children in which gender has the fluidity that children themselves possess.

White Garlic and Red Onion

Adventures in Slumberland featured a protagonist in the form of a five year-old boy, who could be a girl, and was, in fact, played by a woman, and probably usually should be. His hero’s quest ostensibly is to find the princess (this is eighty years before Donkey Kong) but that’s a McGuffin, it’s really about a child growing to appreciate their own personhood.

Rosalynde & The Falcon turns the princess story on its head, as a young woman is persecuted by her wicked stepfather the king, and escapes to the wood where -- instead of looking after a band of thieves (or dwarfs, what have you) she becomes the leader of the thieves, and eventually the ruler of her nation. There are two named female characters … I guess it’s funny that one of them doesn’t even speak until the very end, but they certainly do not talk about the men, they talk about governance.

My latest work, Red Onion, White Garlic, opens early next month. I hate to describe a play by what it is not, but I did not set out to create a feminist children’s play. It was not my intention to create a play which passes the Bechdel Test entirely and without qualification.

What I did do was investigate Indonesian folktales, arrive at one which centers upon the relationship of two sisters, and every moment I found myself searching for a new character to add to the narrative, she was always female. I even considered male characters, but they never made sense as part of the story. It is not that men are absent. The tale belongs to women.

Red Onion, White Garlic opens April 8, 2017 at Talespinner Children's Theatre.

Red Onion, White Garlic: First Reading

Red onion, white garlic & cookies.

Last night my new work, Red Onion, White Garlic, was read for the Playwrights’ Unit and several guests. It was a great thrill to hear the words, and a joy to hear the assembled laugh and react to it.

The work is a commission by Talespinner Children’s Theatre, it opens April 8 at Reinberger Auditorium. This is my third work for TCT, though the first two were ideas I brought to the company. For the 2017 season, Ali Garrigan, the artistic director, suggested I look into Indonesian folklore.

As you often discover when researching folktales, no matter where you look you find many of the same stories. The original Red Onion, White Garlic has elements in common with Cinderella. A wicked woman favors her own daughter, Bawang Merah (Malay for shallot), and not her stepchild, Bawang Putih (Malay for garlic), who is made to do all of the household chores. As in the western tale, the put-upon girl receives a magical boon, and when the jealous stepmother and stepsister attempt to capitalize upon her fortune, they are punished.

Now, this was one of many tales I found (there are, in fact, several wound into my play) but the story as is didn’t make me happy. First off, I already did the “evil stepfather” thing in Rosalynde & The Falcon. And secondly, this idea that the stepparent is mean and unfair, while it may be true in specific circumstances (there are mean people everywhere) it is an ugly stereotype and hardly in keeping with modern society.

What if these stepsisters share a mother, and that they love and care for each other, as siblings do? What would that story be like?

After the reading, the attendants discussed theme and found out just what that story would be like. It would be a story of confidence and teamwork, temperance and balance. Accountability and humility, envy and loss. These are certainly important lessons for our time.

Listeners also tuned into how beautifully the sisters get on with each other, in spite of their having been born a generation apart, and having been raised in such different circumstances. One of the most vivid comments came from Megan, a member of the Case MFA Acting program. She observed that just as many rivers flow into the ocean, there are many ways to raise a child.

Rehearsals begin February 16.

Red Onion, White Garlic at Talespinner Children's Theatre opens April 8, 2017.

Assessment

Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know you know.- David Bowie, Where Are We Now

The year 2014 was a highly productive one for me. In my previous assessment, almost a year and a half ago, I reported my intent to do two very important things; read before sleep, and to write upon waking. And this I did, every single day. And there were dividends.

I wrote a play. I wrote another play. I wrote a few more things which may or may become things we might call plays. This became a ritual, and a very healthy one. My wife brought me coffee and I wrote for a half-hour, every morning. At the least.

Then, just after Thanksgiving I injured my back. To alleviate the pain, I was prescribed stretches. These took a half-hour every night, and again every morning. I lost my time. I spent far too much time online, and none writing. None, or rarely any.

But I was also directing my own play, and I had another in production. The Great Globe Itself was a success, a performance which received many positive comments:

I brought my 14 yr old daughter and she loved it. This is exactly the best kind of
outreach to bring theater/Shakespeare to the young.
- Audience member at Cleveland Heights-University Heights Main Library

Cool beans! Kudos to the writer! this play must have taken lots of research and
time. It was grand.
- Audience member at Lakewood Public Library

As someone who only partially enjoys Shakespeare, I found this play to be a delight.
- Audience member at University of Akron

Also, this.

However, directing the work was very stressful for me. I do not enjoy directing my own work, you will notice I do not attempt that very often. Directing is a skill I admire in others. Especially when that person is Alison Garrigan, who directed Rosalynde & The Falcon at Talespinner, which closed yesterday.

Rosalynde & Rusty

Sitting in the audience for this one was such a joy, listening to children and their parents and grandparents all laughing at different things, and also at the same things. I have been blessed to have had many wonderful productions of my writing, but I don't think I have seen a show from one of my scripts that so successfully incorporated a unity of movement and music, costumes and masks, and the set painting and structures, with a company working so hard and fluidly for such an extended period. It was just everything, and I could not make note of a single weak note.

Last week was crowned by a special announcement, that I have had a second play published. YouthPLAYS is an online distributor of play scripts intended either to be performed by young performers, or by adult actors for young audiences. I am delighted to announce that they will be managing the rights for Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick).

Beatrice & Benedick

This makes me happy for a number of reasons. All the plays are special, but this one is more special than others. The response we received was very emotional, it goes places I have rarely gone in my work. The idea of a high school Thespian troupe performing this work is thrilling to me.

 Also, in spite of its being inspired by a preexisting work (and one by Shakespeare, at that) it is original, it tells a unique story, I wrote it in verse, it is mine. The also-published Agatha Christie piece is also certainly mine, but I have to admit I feel validated for having something truly original in my name in print, and available for production.

And suddenly, without really noticing it happened, my back is noticeably free of pain. I stopped doing the exercises about a week ago, a little over a week ago, and just forgot to do them. Because nothing was reminding me to do so. At the same time, I had renewed my resolve to read and to write, every day. Next week I have a reading of something at unit. Can't really say what it is yet. Awful folk tales. And by horrible, I mean terrible.

But there it is. Writing. Something I still do.

Rosalynde & the Falcon: On Copyright

Julius (Charles Hargrave), Leo (Tim Keo) & Rusty (Valerie C. Kilmer)
Talespinner Childern's Theatre (2015)
Steve Wagner Photography

But do not think we stole these tales
For that would make us thieves.
- from "Rosalynde & The Falcon"

There has been a lot of talk lately about copyright, following the Blurred Lines decision … actually, whenever the subject of the Blurred Lines decision comes up, the conversation is generally high-jacked by people who just want to keep emphasizing what a terrible song Blurred Lines is.

The fact is, copyright is a bizarre legal concept when it comes to art, imitation and appropriation. The Blurred Lines verdict is bad, because it imposed a penalty based on a mood or feeling - a groove, if you will - and not on any specifically defined melody.

Rosalynde (Rose Leisner) & Roland (Ryan Hardge)
Culver City Public Theatre (2019)

Likewise, Sam Smith didn’t even bother to fight a potential copyright challenge from Tom Petty et alia when it was brought to his attention that the chorus of his Stay With Me has the same seven notes in the same order as part of the chorus of Petty's Won’t Back Down. Whether or not you think this is a fair decision depends a lot on whether you are over or under the age of 40.

In Rosalynde & The Falcon which opened this weekend at Talespinner Children’s Theatre, there is a running gag about copyright violation (I know, right?) in which one character, after mentioning a familiar song title, begins to sing that song but gets interrupted with the warning “Copyright!” before reaching the legally-punishable third note.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the text of Rosalynde & The Falcon includes samples from or allusions to the following works and artists. See if you can find all of them:

• Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge
• Gamelyn by Geoffrey Chaucer
• William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and King Lear
• Sneewittchen AKA Snowdrop AKA Snow White
• Goldilocks
• Robin Hood
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Lewis Carroll
• Simon & Garfunkel
• Woody Allen
• Cole Porter
• Jack Kerouac
• MC Hammer
• Battlestar Galactica*
• The Firesign Theatre 

... and, of course, The Marx Brothers.  

"You may want to sneak back to see it again ... just to make sure you caught all the jokes." - Christine Howey, Cleveland Scene 

*Further update: We had actually cut the "Battlestar Galactica" joke before the show premiered in 2015. You be the judge: 

RUSTY: President Rosalynde!
LEO: (aside) "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again."
JULIUS: (aside) Mister J.M. Barrie.

"Rosalynde & the Falcon" is now available from Next Stage Press.

Rosalynde & The Falcon: Stumble-Through

"Rosalynde" company with Movement coach Stephanie Wilbert

It has been a long winter. On February 10 I attended the first read-through of Rosalynde & The Falcon. The next day I began rehearsals for The Great Globe Itself, which has been on the road for two weeks. This afternoon I had my first opportunity to return to Rosalynde, and to sit in on a rehearsal.

Rosalynde is based loosely on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, or maybe something close to a parody of same. After all, the basic storyline had been well-worn before Shags got to it. A young woman fears for her life and escapes to the forest, disguised as a man. There she meets a band of outcasts and has an adventure.

In the folk tale Snow White she falls in love with a prince. In my story, she becomes one.

When we were discussing the season, Ali asked to add a parenthetic title, and suggested A Topsy-Turvy Tale of England. All the plays this year are denoted by parentheticals as to their origins. The Silent Princess (A Turkish Folktale) or Prince Ivan & The Firebird (A Russian Tale of Magic).

At first I was confused, and also afraid. I was afraid audiences would think this play is, well … English. No doubt this is because my heritage is mostly English, and I don’t go around trumpeting that fact because it’s like saying your favorite flavor is vanilla or your favorite color is white.

But that’s ridiculous. The play is based on the work of the greatest playwright ever, who was English. There’s also a lot of Robin Hood in it, he was certainly English. We all saw the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics, right? A tiny island nation faced the world and said, you like culture? We made that.

I am reminded of the 1996 Doctor Who movie, which takes place in San Francisco. Introducing The Doctor to someone, his American companion explains his demeanor to a friend by referring to him as English. The Doctor thinks for a moment and says, “Yes. I suppose I am.”

So, yes. I suppose it is. Rosalynde is an English tale!

There have been many suggested edits to my original script since rehearsals began, and I have agreed to all of them. What I wrote is a comedy, somewhat broad in nature, borrowing from many familiar comic tropes. True to form, the artists at Talespinner have built the work with great music, dance and movement. What works, what is funny, stays. What is only funny to David gets cut.

Settling in for the beginning of today’s first-ever “stumble-through” of all scenes performed together, in order, is\\they began with an old English “whistling song” and I couldn’t help be reminded of the opening of Disney’s animated Robin Hood. And that was a very good sign.


Performance rights for "Rosalynde & the Falcon" are available from Next Stage Press.

Twenty-Fifteen

Okay, motherfuckers. Where's my hoverboard?

Odd years are normally my favorite, and certainly the most productive. This isn't a fact or anything, just a subjective opinion.

My written work continue to spread like a an ultramicroscopic, metabolically inert, infectious agent that replicates only within the cells of living hosts, with odd productions of Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles popping up at high schools and church drama clubs.

Whether or not Acorn would allow foreign productions of Styles was put to the test this past year, and they will not. Certainly not in Britain, where they retain copyright to the book which is in public domain in the US.

Just this last week there was a performance of I Hate This at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester, and shortly thereafter I found this very interesting blog post from a gentleman, Paul Kleiman, who attended the performance and participated in the post-show discussion.

He noted that John Dayton, the actor, was brought on board perhaps a month prior to the October 15 performance and so it was decided he should hold book. Instead of being a distraction, Kleiman suggests that holding a document and reading from it provides an appropriate distance from the production - we know this is not David Hansen, we are not going to pretend it is. This actor is interpreting his experience.

I am reminded of the play 8, which was produced one night at Cleveland Play House last year. Taken from court transcripts, holding book was a necessity of the brief rehearsal period, but also reminded the audience at all times that this was not fiction, that these are the actual words that were spoken in open court, and in interviews.

As for the upcoming year, I have at least two new works that will be produced in Northeast Ohio.

Rosalynde & The Falcon will debut at Talespinner Children's Theatre on Saturday, March 28. This is my second collaboration with TCT, and I am very excited to be working with them again. I have loved everything this company has produced, and am constantly amazed at their dedication to every moment and detail of each production.

For this piece I was inspired primarily by Shakespeare's As You Like It, and also its source material, Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, which was itself by the anonymously written, Medieval age Tale of Gamelyn, and all those folk tales that involve threatened women driven into the woods where the have adventures, meet strange men (dwarves, thieves, bears, what have you) and discover strong, important things about themselves they would never have learned at home.

It's also written entirely in trochaic octameter, but don't let that bother you.

Interestingly, another new play will debut on the exact same stage, at the beginning of the month. This year's free Great Lakes Theater outreach tour The Great Globe Itself opens Tuesday, March 3 in the Reinberger Auditorium, home to Talespinner Children's Theatre, before moving on to another 26 venues around northeast Ohio.

In brief, Globe describes with playful humor how the history of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is a line which runs straight through Cleveland. But you have followed this blog long enough that you already knew that.