Is anyone even reading this out there?
??
Never mind, allow me to press nobly on.
Following this week’s trend of good news for the production, the dinner went rather well. We stuffed ourselves on spinach and bacon quiche, vomited, forced down slices of delicious apple pie (I swear, like 4 or 5 apples per slice), and then promptly died. Conclusion: Mandy is one mad cook.
But food aside, the dinner focused on our guest, my new (and first and, hopefully, only) director, Mary—the newest member of the team founded around that core of maniacs known only as Triple Decker Productions. She read the script in the days before, and rather than being scared away from touching this project with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole, actually decided to come on board to skillfully mold the written word with her directing prowess. Or something like that. As if the validation of having my play selected for a festival wasn’t enough, now an honest-to-god director likes it. I’d say my head would be swelling, if my stomach still wasn’t already so bloated with various pies.
Between bites, I filled Mary in on my brief history as a playwright and the briefer history of this production, with my loyal team at my side once again. I failed to mention this web-log, but that aside, gave her the gist of what I’m trying to do. We discussed the limitations of the theater, the potential sound design (including voiceover recordings), and the rehearsal schedule and space—an especially important topic.
But the majority of the informal dinner meeting concerned the two largest problems for this play: the actor, and staging that damned bike for 45 minutes. As it turns out, Mary already floated my play past a talented actor friend of hers. Well done, Mary. Though not exactly as old as the character is supposed to be, he is a professional interested in parts for their intrinsic artistic qualities and is actually a spinning instructor in his spare time. We glanced at his website and resume, and gave Mary the greenlight to offer him the part. As of press time, I have yet heard back from Mary on the status the young man (by that, I don’t mean “Is he single?”), but I’m optimistic that this week will conclude with getting both a director and an actor.
And then there’s the matter of the bike, as always. Well, the brainstorming began and show’s no sign of stopping. We have the stand, but an entire show with the bike in one place will be rather, well … boring. So, we are determined to inject as sense of action—time and motion—into the play. And that’s why a director was necessary, for this exact challenge. And what a challenge. Projections, sound, lights, ramps, pedaling the bike around stage, shifting it around in blackouts, not even using a bicycle on stage at all (an idea, which I must admit, only elicited a glare from the playwright) … we’ll come up with something. Right? Right. We must. After all, we’re just Max Richter pedaling away up the slope.
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