One is purely generative, brand new. New characters, new ideas, new plot.
One is from original source material; a journal. I am not writing, so much as reshaping unedited thoughts into something more coherent and cohesive.
One is an existing piece which I am entirely retyping, and editing in chronological order based on my experience with having produced it as a workshop.
I can procrastinate working on one by working on another. Or doomscrolling Twitter.
The Wytches: Working in order, from beginning to end, retyping the entire script. Sections that need to be entirely rewritten I am skipping, and will come back to those. Not a surprise, they are all scenes that take place in the past.
Scenes From a Night’s Dream: I was very pleased when my professor mentioned Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls when discussing the new pages for this piece. The first act is a dream, it follows dream logic, but characters are introduced and something like change occurs for the protagonist.
The great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki was originally on the team that produced the film Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland, but was dissatisfied with the entire project. One of his main issues was that a dream is not real, and therefore holds no consequence, for anyone, including the dreamer. “A film that professes to be set in a dream world will only make the audience blank out.,” said Miyazaki
When I wrote a stage adaptation of Little Nemo for children, I took this challenge head on. There are three dream sequences (he wakes up twice in the night, it is, after all, Christmas Eve) and each time he learns something about himself and wakes with a fresh awareness.
The first act for my new work is also a dream, and then the audience is presented with a real world setting and situation, and they may be confused at first how the second act relates to the first. This is why Top Girls is relevant, as the first act is a coming together of women from throughout history for a luncheon. Only the host, the founder of a women’s employment agency, continues through the rest of the play, which is based in reality.
One revelation in the second act is, who is the dreamer? The actor who plays the boy (who for the moment I am calling Nemo) in the first act has not yet been seen. He will be, I promise. That doesn’t mean he is the dreamer.
Falling (new working title): I have transcribed those elements of the notebooks I kept while my mother lay dying which are relevant. They are written in present tense, as though they are diary entries from over the course of two months. Having set myself on this project, I am pleased so far that I was even able to do it. I had no idea what I would find in these notebooks. I was surprised by what was there. I was surprised by what was not there. My wife is looking it over, not only for style but also for errors. I want it to be accurate.
No, It was not easy to read these notebooks.
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