Andrea Lepcio Playwright | Writing Coach
  • Home
  • About
  • The Plays
  • Your Writing Coach
  • Aspiring Authors Follow Up

Sum Sum Summertime making gardens and theater and mayhem

7/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Where do the time go?  Originally, it was my goal to write weekly.  Then, my Social Media Guru Lillian Rodriguez told me I could write monthly.  So I'm around on time. It's a funny process this. I have no clue if anyone is reading.  I like the idea if someone looks me up it looks like I'm here. Like the last post isn't from 2009 or 1978.  Enough about process.
WHAT THE HECK IS UP? 
I've been back and forth between New York City and Maine this month.  I had so much time in NY, I had to engage my friend Nan to put my garden in and she did an amazing job.  There are only about 110 growing days in Seal Cove and I didn't want to miss too many of them.  We ended up about a week or so late, but everyone was late because the winter had been hard and the Spring late too.  Everything it growing well now especially after the July 4th deluge.  I'll snap some pictures before I finish. The exciting addition this year is the Arugula box.  My genius gardening friend Terry helped me put it together (note both she and I spell our names with a Y. Terry. Andy.  Y.)  We had an old large window box lying around. We placed it where it would get partial shade. Loaded it with hay, then soil and compost.  Put in Arugula seeds really close together. They popped up soooo fast.  What Terry does is she let's it grow fairly high and then cuts it with a scissor when she wants some. And it grows and fills that in pretty quickly. So it will be Arugula salads all summer long.  Arugula and lettuce. Arugula and kale - my other new favorite salad ingredient.  Photos start with the main vegetable garden featuring brussell sprouts, kale, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, squashes, tomatoes and, off camera, garlic.  The fencing is to save the veggies from the deer that sleep in the yard.  Next is the potato sunflower patch.  Next the arugula box.  
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
The blueberries aren't doing much yet and I'm worried it will be an off season. We shall see.  But the single wild strawberry plant that Loie's Mom gave me is producing like crazy the sweetest berries.  I am hoping this plant will spread.  Delish!

Picture
Alright, I know you know, everything isn't all gardening.  Progress was made on The World Avoided as I reported was in the works last time.  I attended a climate change conference at Pace with some of the characters it the play and learned alot there.  The most valuable was the sense that the greenhouse gas problem is not one big unsolvable problem about oil.  There are various layers to the problem and plenty of low hanging fruit we can solve easily adding years of life to the plant. It is almost now a problem of how people are thinking about the problem.  More on this as I learn and work.  Then, Steve Andersen, the lead character in the play and my connection to the Ozone story, and I heard the first draft of the play.  Penelope Canan, one of the key people in Ozone, also was there for Act One before she had to run and catch a plane.  Penelope is a new friend, a terrific woman and climate change hero.  Linsay Firman and Graeme Gillis from EST were also with us. This was all at home base the Lark. Love those folks.  Ten terrific actors who jumped into the rambling mess that this first draft was.  Was.  Nice to know this draft is in the past tense. It wasn't bad. And I learned a ton. But it likely has little to do with the ultimate play.  But that's what first drafts are for. I had to write this whole sprawling story - 25 plus years - down to see what I had.  In doing so, it was amazing how often I managed to leave the action off stage.  La!  So I am now mid-ponder to figure out what the structure wants to be. What the play wants to be.  I'm off in a matter of days to Paris.  What?  Yes!  I am off in a matter of days to Paris to attend the 34th Open-Ended Working Group Meeting - Montreal Protocol. I'm on the in now, thanks to Steve and his flying mileage and generosity. I'm going to meet even more characters and, more importantly, be in the thick of the current debate about phasing out HCFCs (good for ozone, bad for greenhouse gases.)  I believe the play may be right there in Paris. We shall see.  
In between World and after finally finishing the television spec and pilot scripts, I returned to Lf&Tms, the rock musical.  We had heard it in March and gotten a ton of feedback we digested and slept on. I had started to work, but mostly hadn't had time until this month.  I worked away. Sent questions to Ariel. He contributed some monologues. There was stuff we had we loved. And there was stuff we had that didn't work. The classic problem of Ariel and I got it, but not too many other people. We needed to open up the experience of the show.  We also were grappling with the balance of story and plot.  Mostly it doesn't have a big plot. Mostly it functions as story. The story of reluctant transformation.  We feel we have that more now.  We also, because it is a musical, have been looking for the dialogue song balance.  this draft, we felt where the characters had shit they needed to work out through dialogue and let them have it. we also found more places where music is organically there. Bobby, the lead, will talk, but he often will talk with a guitar in his hands, so part of what he will express is through music. Finding those dynamics.  We're digging this new draft at the moment. Next up: I'm seeing Hedwig to see what I learn - Ariel feels there is much to learn there particularly about how to set up and rock the songs.  And then we'll hear the new draft and see what we have.  Excited for that right after I get back from Paris. Did I mention I'm going to Paris?
That's about the shape of things, though I feel I'm forgetting stuff. It's been feeling like there's too much paper and bills in adult life lately. What is that about?  But I'm pressing through it.  Forcing myself to be organized so shit doesn't haunt. 
The ankle is much better, but not all better.  It is a process. I walk now without a limp most days, though I can have a set back and a limp.  I'm still doing my exercises and likely will have to for a while.  Hope is that by the time I'm back in late July I'll be mountain ready.  I miss my hiking.  
I think that's all the dreaming, achieving, yearning and hoping I have to report at the moment.   I'll have wireless in Paris and will try to report from there with some good photos.  
Signing off for now.  Enjoy!

Andrea
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Right now, Andrea is either writing, doing yoga, training,  coaching or walking Lady.

    Archives

    January 2021
    April 2020
    July 2018
    May 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    January 2013
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @andrealepcio
Home     About    The Plays    Loves & Activities    Contact