Just a whole lotta cute

Yeah, so I'm still stuck on Act II of In Memoriam - although I think I wrote about a page that'll actually stay last night...so that's good. But in lieu of that, here's a whole lotta cuteness!



Mood: Trying not to be grumpy
Music: Acqualung's "Something to Believe in"
Because: iTunes is dangerous to a music junkie....

I AM A PUBLISHED PLAYWRIGHT!

So, bonjour bonjour!

I was in my looong class today when we were delightfully given an hour free with a partner to do this acting exercise. My friend asked if it was alright if we checked our e-mails since she had a piece of business to resolve and that was fine by me so I checked mine as well...

...only to find in my mailbox this e-mail from Playscripts, Inc., to whom I'd submitted my "Wallace's Will" back in...mid-June maybe? that they're going to publish my play! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I was flabbergasted and elated and in shock and overjoyed and needed to dance, so I ran up a flight of stairs to my advisor - this wonderful middle-aged gentleman named Bob who is always a little nervous but so very warm-hearted - and told him the news and he allowed me to embrace him (which was good because I seriously needed to hug). He then told me a little about the company - v. good, v. reputable, apparently v. big deal - he showed me a few of their scripts that he had on hand and said that once all contracts were signed, etc. to tell him and he'd tell the college and they'd be delighted to take credit for it and brag about what one of their students is doing and get some articles in the college and local Boston papers!

I'm getting 60% royalties on performance; 10% royalties on books sold. Which is very good. They're apparently pretty aggressive about marketing - which is a joy - although I'll probably contact all my alma maters and mention that their alumna (?) has a play that's just PERFECT for any school to put on (hinthint). And I'll probably contact booksellers here and in Boston to see if they want to arrange anything. And I'll DEFINITELY have an in for pursuing an agent now - consider the book and novella and now a play are out. And I have two other plays that are ready to be sent to Playscripts and two others I'm finishing for November...so....!

What's incredible, too, is that they've only had the play for at most three months (I'm trying to remember when I sent it in). This may seem a long time, but it isn't - replies can take upwards of a year, particularly if a submission isn't solicited (non-agented), as mine was. This is an uber-quick turn-around. The earliest I was expecting to get rejected was another four months from now - if then!

BUT, the most wonderful, wonderful marvellous happy splendiferous Lord-lovely thing is that - although I'd told myself that this was the year to get an agent, to start trying to get my plays published, to try to actually make a "go" of it in the professional world - quite honestly, in the back of my brain, I was thinking that perhaps I ought to bone up on my secretarial (lacka) skillz. Or learn how to brew a really good coffee. SO, to have this affirmation...! It's so very, very good; it's so very, very God.

The play itself can be seen in its entirety on YouTube (I own all versions to video - which is good). It's a single angle (the finished version IS for sale - four angles, bloopers, commentary, the whole shebang), but it still gets the idea across of what the play looks like.

Oh - sigh.

Let's just say that I was literally dancing around - nothing formal - just skipping, clicking my heels, whirling like a little girl with an invisible ribbon - ALL through Boston Common for perhaps half an hour - no matter if people were looking. And I was BELTING in the car show tunes - including "O what a beautiful morning" with the window down - again, all the world to see. And why not?

At 5:15 I left my looooooooong class just me, Emily, bored-student nonstrordinaire - but when I returned, I was something else. I was a playwright.

And I think of Shakespeare and Wilde up in Heaven, clicking beer mugs and cheering me on. And I think of the pink rose He gave me on my birthday (our own secret signal for "Hey, howyadoin-ness"). And I think of how there was a day - there MUST have been a day - when Shakespeare first set foot in London, having just come from the countryside, having been run out for fear of his life from Sir Thomas Lucy, having to leave behind his wife and child, having been run out from his job tutoring up North because they were being persecuted by Elizabeth's reign - arriving in London - all grease and grime and debris and mud and wonder and bustle and words and words and words - and going to the theatre, perhaps - probably already having written "Comedy of Errors" and "Titus Andronicus" and thinking he'd never written anything better - and watching someone else's work, and looking up at the buildings and down at the grime and the mud and feeling so very, very small - and yet with a secret fire within him, a SECRET within him, a gift within him that he might have felt might never be known - and I think of who passed him on the street, who ran into him, who sassed him, who fell drunkenly against him - never knowing that they had just passed the greatest playwright of the age - and he, not knowing, that there was more to his secret than even he knew.

"Lord, we know who we are, but not what we might be."

...wow...just...wow....

Mood: You seriously wonder?
Music: Creme de la Creme playlist - currently "Dancing" by Elisa
Thought: Oh, God - really? Me? *waves a little flag* "Yaaaaaay!"

Unpacking

A few thoughts - semi-cryptically, mais naturallement.

Casted Our Town. Think we've got a good ensemble on our hands. Need to look for the two sides to each character. Can't wait to really sit down with my Emily - I think we got the right one. Did ensemble building, though, first few days. My Simon Stimpson, too, is...going to have a wonderful experience. V. excited for her (yes, her).

It's a curious thing, though, to be directing that age but not my old troupe - there are things that I take for granted that I forget they don't. Such as, we ended the first rehearsal with a wish drop - you wish something for the person beside you - either for what they need as a person or in the play. It's a nice (quick) bonding thing. And my Stage Manager asked whether it was supposed to be for just what the actor needed, or what the person needed. So I told him what I'd forgotten isn't typical of traditional theatre experiences - that I am just as interested in the person as the actor - to be honest, I'm more interested in the person than the actor. The actor is what he does but not who he is. Existence always trumps action when it comes to love.

Anyway, that seemed to give him pause - which surprised me for a minute, because again I'm accustomed to my old troupe who simply expects that...just because that's what they know...anywho - so I take that pause to tell them all the secret: that theatre can change you if you let it. And out of the corner of my eye, I see my Romeo - now my George - nodding; sitting forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, lips shut tight so he won't jump up and start telling them everything because it's not the time to tell them - they'll find out soon enough, those who want to find out. Those who want to enter the wardrobe will learn, very soon, what it is to be a King or Queen of Narnia....

And it was interesting to me, because I'd never put those words out there, I don't think. Not at the beginning, anyway. Possibly never. I'd mention it to a soul who'd just discovered what had happened to him - but I never thought (clearly - pun apparently intended) to mention it before. Why did I never invite before? It's very strange of me. So many things one knows that one never thinks to say before it becomes a thing of hindsight....

So, I hope it's a good time, a good play, a good troupe. I think it'll be good. Wow. Our Town, huh? Seems to me I need to rewatch Anne of Green Gables....

Classes are good. It's wonderful to be back with friends - familiar faces - that's the best part: the knowing already what's going to happen. It's WONDERFUL to be back with Bob, taking class with him, with several of the folks from last year, too! Happy day! And I find it comforting to be doing several of the games/exercises that we did with him last year - comforting because I know what to do in said game, and comforting to know that even he repeats his own games and therefore I can repeat games with my kids. Nice to know.

He read us The Giving Tree on Wednesday. (That's the sort of teacher he is. I love Bob.) I was totally crying through the first section - but then I didn't cry towards the end. I realized that I couldn't be the Giving Tree anymore - that I oughtn't be. It's part of this whole...difference in...what I am? Who I'm meant to be? At the moment. It's a good thing. But every time I return to that book, I discover something new.

The Shakespeare class - is throwing me for a bit of a loop. I'm enjoying it - I'm thorughly glad I'm in it - I don't feel that I have a feel for it yet. Not the material itself, but the way I'm meant to fit into that class. Fortunately, I'm going to be able to do nothing but perform, if I so desire. Which I do desire, because I want to remember what it's like to be directed and to learn from that experience. I must keep that goal in front of me, though, in order to keep my equilibrium. The difficulty, though, is that I want to do more than is required at the moment - and I feel that I'm not coming off as well as I should like. My thoughts are very convoluted on this subject.

Trepidatious. That's what I feel. What I think is a mix and a muddle.

So, I'm thirty-one years old. How weird is that? Had a good birthday - lunch with friends, got a rose (!) and hostess cupcakes (lol), classes (in which, apparently, I was running a major fever, due to some sort of cold that's running around Massachusetts and which I didn't realize until about half-way through the Shakespeare class when I simply had to give up and admit to myself that I was burning up - boooo), and then home for dinner, cake and presents with the familia which was loverly. Low-key, but I liked that.

Dunno...c'est ca. Music runs through my brain. Need to buckle down on projects, now. Flying continues to be scary, even for Granny Weatherwax. Holding on tight to the shoulders of God, who apparently thinks doing a celestial polka is fun.

Mood: Mieux, merci
Music: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - although this is in lieu of listening to the R&J soundtrack since I've been keeping that on repeat in the car far too often lately.
Thought: However, this pretty much ensures that I'm never going to get Dr. Horrible out of my head and will be waking up to it playing in my mind for the next week or so!

And now for something

Completely different. Or not. More of the same. A public life in bullets. (Huh - that'd be a great title to a book I would never write. Feel free to steal.) Regardless:

The day after going to see David Cook (see below), I trundled myself off in my car all by my onesies to drive on down to see Kristen in Jersey. Of course, Rte. 90W knowing I was coming greeted me with such thick rain that I was obliged to pull over and spend some quality time with the side of the road before I could continue on. The rest of the trip, however, was uneventful - except in that I could not sing (the usual means I have of staying awake on long carrides) because of said shouting myself hoarse for the previous two nights at the concerts.

Never to fear, though! Mrs. Kane demanded a rendition of "O mio babbino caro" nearly as soon as I arrived (in return for staying as a guest :) and operatic training came to the fore to get me through the series of high Ab's. Had a beyond magnificent time with Kristen - LOVE YOU, KRISTEN! - wherein we talked of everything and nothing until obscene hours of the early morning (nearly meeting her father on his way out to work on the second morning!), and went to Authentic Jersey Diners (I miss AJD's), got lost, used GPS and Emily's Sense of Direction from Her Mother, met up with our old English teacher from High School (oh, happy day, Mr. Ciervo!) and went into NYC to see a bit of Central Park (the bit that this dehydrated delicate Northern flower could bear to see under the beating sun, anyway, which included a LOT of penguins and a blonde Aida).

Krissytina was also so good as to let me subject her to hours of YouTube Gaudetery, as well as three different ways of describing Romeo and Juliet to her (that is: backstage shenanigans, me acting out key scenes in her kitchen, and sharing an iPod as we listened to the sound track and I described the scenes by a clever use of napkins, forks and my fingers). We went on walks. We accidentally circled the Cloisters while looking for the George Washington Bridge. We discussed fanfic. We discussed teaching and children and stinky-poo-poo-headed administrations. We discussed her boy. We discussed my sister's boy. We laughed a lot and I couldn't have asked for a better time.

For me, though, everything was accompanied by two things that struck me that I had not gone in seeking. The first was that as we were leaving NYC (that's when we were getting lost trying to find the right exit for the bridge), and I was happily in the passenger seat, and we were passing all this beautiful white stone architecture, I was struck by the thought: "I could live here. I could really see living and working here." Which came completely unbidden. Moreso since I've never ever wanted to live in a city my whole life. Suburban girl through and through. Give me cows here, skyscrapers there, me in the middle, I'm set. But there really was a great sense of peace about the thought of setting up a life in NYC for a while. It got me thinking.

Then Kristen, who has always been and still is one of the best critics I know - honest, honest, honest - was so wonderful to what she saw on the Toob (which surprised me and humbled me) - and so articulate about what she thought and what she saw and the bits that were the direction, and the bits that were the playwriting, and the bits that were the worldbuiling, and the bits that were the teaching and everything - and she said what others have said but which I've never really believed...that she could hardly wait for these plays of mine to be done with "real actors." That is, with actors of the age they're supposed to be. Of the experience they all need to have across the board. She said, and again I'd heard but never seen, that she could see my vision between the scenes - could see what I was striving to show, and that - in the most loving way - I had not achieved the fullness of the vision yet. I've always been defensive whenever anyone's said anything like that to me before: "But my kids have risen above where they were!" I'd whine. "They're much closer to the vision than they had been!" But I finally saw that, no, the vision requires more...

...and between those both, I realized, it was okay to desire more, to leave myself no recourse but to strive for more.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

But I'm going to do it.

Insert a stronger word than "poot" here.

And a sense of trembling excitement.

And a sense of not-quite-goodbye to what I've known.

Because, I realized that with the exception of the Raytheon year (which was it's own weird and horrible thing that I needed to know I never wanted to experience again), I've spent nearly all my life in academia in some capacity. And now...I'm going. Slightly. Because I'll always be teaching, I know this now. I'm incapable of not teaching, just as I'm incapable of not singing even when my throat's been screamed hoarse, as much as I'm incapable of not having three dramatic projects on the fire and twelve more percolating in my brain and a novel or two besides. So...not quite goodbye.

My life, lately, seems to have been made up of such not-quite-goodbyes.

It's getting a bit wearisome.

To continue the "What I ought to have blogged about" make-up post. About a week after Jersey, my father's mother suffered a heart attack. She survived, miraculously, although at 91 she was just as happy to have gone or to have stayed (she's an awesome lady, and a woman of great faith), but I for one am glad she stayed if only because Dad and I packed up my good old car and drove all the way back down to Deleware. Rte. 90W realized our urgency and so greated us both ways with good weather and Dad in his urgency actually ended up doing quite a bit of driving, which was very nice. We got to see Johnny (he's moved down there) and a few family members, stayed in Aunt Betty's house, saw Grammy several times, said a rosary with her (a sneak attack rosary - we were talking about Mary and then she pulled out her beads and we all joined in - love Grammy), and then headed back up. On the way down, which was my favorite part of the driving trip, Dad plugged in his phone (oh technology these days!) and went through his playlist which is very chipper and fun. Many Irish jigs.

I came back last Tuesday and had a meeting that Wednesday with Kathleen MacKenzie about Hudson High School theatre, which begins very soon. It's good to be back in the swing of things. Met up with several Emerson friends during August as well. Talked playwriting. Watched the Olympics and talked about life. It turns out that Brenda is still interested in directing Cupid and Psyche this Spring, which means I have to finish it, as well as In Memoriam (which was once called Lethe) which I'll be submitting to the NewFest playwriting competition at Emerson. I'll also spend this year working on my thesis, finishing those plays, directing Our Town, musical directing Once Upon a Mattress, bugging dramatic agents to take me on (for the plays I've been writing), and interviewing for positions in actual theatre companies (e.g., last Spring the Kennedy Center was looking for someone to head up their high school outreach program). I plan after writing my thesis to look for a book publisher for it - hence starting the writing process early. I don't know if I'll finish writing all the music for The Stalwart Tin Soldier but I got another piece of the musical puzzle two nights ago, so it's possible I'll have a working copy of the script/score by the end of the year.

So...I've got stuff to do. Which is good. And a few feet positioned near the door.

So, anyway, this year begins next week for me. Like so:

Monday: Start of classes. Shakespeare's Much Ado and Bob's "Theatre for Young Audiences."

Tuesday: Auditions for Our Town 2:30-5:00 at Hudson High, joint with auditions for Fools

Wednesday: Classes and I turn 31 and think, "What the HELL?!?" Some form of mild partying may be had at the Snyder household late at night.

Thursday: First rehearsal for Our Town 6-9 at HHS. Yes.

Friday: Second rehearsal for Our Town in the afternoon. Voice in the evening. Week done. Good golly.

Anywho, so there one is. Oh, dear God, help. Amen!

Mood: Violently pendular
Music: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog naturally!
Thought: At least my floor is swept.