Okay, I'm just taking a reality check for what needs to be done to get this play Cast Away written. I have about six pages of script and various pages of notes so far. Some of those notes will make it verbatim into the script. But I do need to establish a plan to get this piece done.
This will be my sixth play and I find that I haven’t yet established a routine for writing a play. Each play seems to dictate its own process. I’ve taken many screen writing classes and the emphasis is always on outlining incessantly and then start writing. With my playwriting, I don’t always know where I’m going to go. Sometimes the story is just there and I know where I’m going right from the beginning. Other times I start writing and see where it goes, discovering the story along the way.
Cast Away should be fairly straight forward, I think. I figured that I would basically tell the story from my first interview for the play being accepted into the Emerging Artist Series (EAS) to opening night. Then it’s just a matter of finding dramatic things to put in. Of course, as I’ve been thinking, I figured that I could add some stuff about the creative process. I’m torn because I don’t know if it will be interesting or not.
I’m toying with playing around with some of my metaphysical attitudes. I did a bit of that with my play Laund-o-mat at the End of the World. I angst over it because I know that it will turn some people off and it might give other people the wrong idea that I’m a religious writer. I can hear Paul Thompson’s voice echoing, “Do what scares you.”
But I really like the idea of the title Cast Away being a play on words. It’s about some of the cast leaving the show and about feeling left adrift in the creative process. A possible poster image is of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam part of the Sistine Chapel. The image of Adam's hand reaching up to God’s hand. But in my poster, I would be reaching up, but God would be giving me the finger. Not sure if it is too scandalous or not.
I’ll let it gestate for a while.
Aside from the creative development of the play, I need to get it written. The Festival runs from August 18 to 27. I will have four performances in that time. So not only does it have to get written, but it needs to be learned and rehearsed. Do I self-direct? I’m leaning that way at the moment.
Ideally, I need to have a first draft finished by the end of June. Then I can probably fit in two rewrites by the end of July. That would give me almost three weeks to rehearse. Hopefully, it will be percolating in my head anyway, so learning the lines won’t be too hard. But you never know… Last year I acted in a play that I co-wrote and I found it very difficult to learn my lines. But I didn’t have as much time to prepare as I do now.
So, I have thirteen days to get the first draft done. The piece will be about fifty minutes, so let’s call it approximately 50 pages of script. That means that I need to write about 4 pages a day for the next 13 days. On your marks. Get ready. Go!
Let the page count begin.
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