I broke my ankle. Or, rather, a grey pit bull with an unconscious owner broke my ankle. Lady and Curtis and I were on our morning walk in Central Park. Curtis, on leash, tends to bark at other dogs. Having noticed the pit, I head off toward Huddlestone Arch (one of my most favorite spots in the park I even wrote a ten-minute play about.) The stones in the arch all fit together purely with gravity. There is no mortar or anything else to hold them together. Just gravity.
Next....what is next? Well, work. Let's talk about work. I always like talking about work.
We have a new outline for Lf&Tms taking everything we learned from our week and presentation. Feeling good. Going deeper. Gaining clarity. I'm just about ready to start writing again. And that is a fun collaborative process because I write a draft and Ariel edits that draft and we go back and forth building on each other's ideas. Love that.
I'm pressing forward on The World Avoided. I have finished Act One, though I keep discovering things as I start Act Two and going back to add in. It is all progressing with a million questions. My goal is to have a complete draft by the end of May. I want to be ready for what comes next, because what comes next is fantastic. My colleague Stephen Andersen is opening up the world of the Montreal Protocol for me. First I am invited to a seminar in June in New York City where I'll get to meet many of the people I've been writing. Then, get this, in July, I have been invited to the Open Ended Working Group meeting in Paris. I am like IN! I can't believe it. I'll actually get to participate in the kind of meetings that I've been imagining and recreating from reading and conversation with Steve. I'll meet literally everyone I've been dreaming about. And get to spend 10 days in Paris with them all. I am over the moon and know this experience will grow the play immensely. There's some other good news coming on the play soon.
I went back to another play to do something different. I took a workshop with Paula Vogel in March and she was talking about making your plays look like your plays in how you format, font choice, etc. To not be ruled by some idea f what a play looks like, but to show the reader what your play is with how it looks. I went back to ME YOU US THEM which has a particularly dichotomy and put different characters into different fonts. I love how it looks. It feels like the play. Good advice, Paula!
Also spent time this past month (pre-break) on Central Avenue Breakdown. Enjoying working with Dominic Taylor who has come on as co-bookwriter. We worked up a new outline and I tackled Act One and Dominic tackled Act Two. We should have a new draft to think through in the coming days. This has been such an interesting project to work on with Kevin Ray, the originator and songwriter, Suellen, producer who has contributed additional story, Dominic and myself. There has been a slow, but steady evolution figuring out what works and what doesn't work including sometimes something that is essential to Kevin or someone else that doesn't seem to work but through thinking and testing we find a way for it to work. Lots of growth. Lots of give and take. I feel like we're getting somewhere. And they do say musicals take a long time. Tis true.
Other scripts are out being read with high hopes there. I'm anxious for a production. This has kind of been my longest dry spell in a while and I don't like not being on the boards. I'm looking for more opportunities, more chances to work as the year moves on. Here's hoping.
Otherwise, here I sit, ankle up, working away. The great joy is I can do what I love every day even if there is no one else to play with and the greater joy is there are other people to play with and I do believe.