"Writing Closet": Never Trust Old Lipstick

My First Kiss was onstage.

I was wearing red lipstick.

Very dark, very old, red lipstick.


I was twenty-one years old, and had never kissed anyone before in my life, so I was a bundle of nerves anyway, and being onstage in front of an audience didn't help.

The show I was in was called "The Camberly Triangle" by A.A. Milne(you know, the dude famouse for Winnie-the-Pooh); and the basis of the plot was that a war bride, Kate Camberly, had to choose between her husband, Dennis, and the guy she'd been kind sorta maybe having an affair with while Dennis was fighting in WWI. She's given five minutes with each man to make up her mind.


Cute, right?

It really was. The ending is so sweet and romantic! But then, I'm an INFP Romantic so any time I see/read anything sweet or romantic or whatever I do this:



The good news? I knew and trusted my scene partner.

We'd already played Lord and Lady Capulet the summer before, so we were pretty comfortable with each other already.

Except Lord and Lady C never kissed.

Dennis and Kate Camberly did.

It hadn't actually been originally planned like that, but during our final run-through, "Dennis" shut "Kate" up by kissing her. And the director fell in love with it, so we kept it.

Because the play is set after WWI, the director wanted us looking as authentic as possible(because that's what good director's do: strive for authenticity); and women at that time wore lipstick.

Dark red lipstick.

Which I didn't have because at that time all I bought/owned make-up wise was pink lipstick. So I had to go find red lipstick.

I don't remember how or where I managed to get hold of some, but manage I did; and I do remember it felt funny when I was applying it.

That should've clued me in.

The performance went quite swimmingly until we got to the kiss part. I looked at my scene partner, said my lines and then he leaned in and kissed me, just as we rehearsed.

And when we kissed, my mouth got stuck to his.


Yes.

Stuck.

Like attached-to-his-lips-and-wouldn't-disengage.

(and yes, it was probably only thirty seconds but still)

Lucky for me, he was 6'3 to my 5'5 so all I had to do was clunk down hard on my heels to break the kiss.

You know what the best part was?

One of my friends caught the whole thing on film.

So now I get to watch myself get stuck to some guys lips for the rest of forever.

Thespian Musings: Writer Plot Clues

I was eavesdropping on one of my housemates' homework assignment last week(I think she's taking a writing class or summat) and the video lecturer said something very interesting. And I quote:

"In [a script], when a character is going to succeed, he doesn't tell you his plan. When a character is going to fail, he tells you his plan from beginning to end."("you" being the audience or the reader or whatever)



After thinking about it for while, you know what?

It's totally true!

And as with everything there are exceptions, but for the most part anytime your hero/heroine is going succeed in anything, you have no clue what that actual plan is and when they fail, they tell you about it.

In detail.

Hamlet goes on a massive monologue about how he's going to take revenge on his uncle for killing his father. Two and a half hours later, Hamlet is dead (I know he succeeds in killing Claudius, but he still lost his life).

The original Danny Ocean(Frank Sinatra--swoon!) gets his guys together and tells them the heist plan--in detail, so even the dumdums in the audience get it--and they fail to get the money.

But in the George Clooney re-boot sequels(not the first one) we only know half the plan, and they get away with it.

In Man on a Ledge, we spend the first like twenty minutes trying to figure out exactly what is going on, and while that's the case, our hero is succeeding. However, once we know the entire plan, it starts to unravel and things get bad---only to find out that there was a part of the plan that no one except the hero knew and because of that he manages to succeed.

Side note: Man on a Ledge  is one of my favorite films. So good, and so underrated.


Fellowship of the Ring: nine people are supposed to help take the One Ring to Mordor to be destroyed; we are told that verbatim. By the end, the Fellowship is scattered and one is dead.

In half of the umpteen adaptions of Robin Hood and King Arthur if Robin/King Arthur plans an attack or an escape or whatever and we know the hows and whys and wherefores--he is always caught!

And in those same Robin Hood/King Arthur films/stories, if the villain monologues about how awesome he is and what his Grand Master Plan to Take Down the Hero happens to be, then--even if Robin/King Arthur is temporarily captured/defeated--you know the Villain's gonna fail. And not just cause he's the Villain😛

I went back through some of my scripts to see if this was true in things that I wrote.

Guess what?

Every time my hero failed I told the audience exactly what was supposed to happen.

Every time he succeeded, I didn't say a word.

Then, being a film fanatic(aka a cinephile, yes, that is actually a word), I "tested" it on films from other genres, not just heist movies.

1917 passed the test.

Little Women passed the test.

Just Mercy past the test.

Both Creed movies past the test.

So did Crazy Rich Asians, Spies in Disguise, and Dolittle.

I even "tested" television episodes: Supernatural, Downton Abbey, The Flash, Arrow, Call the Midwife, Boy Meets World, and even Friends and Speechless. They all passed!

So apparently, no matter the genre, this...I'm going to call it a Writer Plot Clue...happens in all sorts of plots, and it's almost a subconscious action that writer's take.

Which is kind of cool, right?

Thespian Musings: I Always Know...Whodunnit

I love mysteries.

 Period Mysteries, contemporary mysteries, thrillers, spy stories, murder mysteries, whatever. I've read all the classics--Agatha Christie, Inspector Campion, Wilkie Collins; and the contemporaries like Anne Perry, Dorothy Gilman, Deanna Raybourne, the Bourne Trilogy and Jack Ryan.

I've seen Knives Out six times.

I binged both Sherlock and  the Sherlock Holmes series from the 80s.

I own several of the Marple re-boot episodes(partly because I adore Geraldine McEwan and Julie McKenzie).

If I see and Anne Perry novel on the shelf it mine.

Which is a problem.

But not for the reasons you think.

My problem is I always  know "whodunnit".

Always.

Like pages and pages and minutes and minutes before everyone else does.

Watching the Poirot films used to drive me bonkers because I figured out who the killer was like twenty minutes into the film,

and then the detective took up the last thirty minutes of film in dissecting the case before the Grand Reveal...which wasn't actually so grand anymore.

And I'm pretty sure this has a lot to do with the amount of mysteries I read/watch coupled with my writing background.

Which is fine. 

 I can count the number of plot twists I missed on the figures of one hand.

That's one normal sized hand.

With five normal sized fingers.

But two of them are Christopher Nolan films, so that's ok.

Christopher Nolan is brilliant!

I digress...

Instead of spending the film or book trying to figure out whodunnit, I spend the rest of it watching the killer/villain get away with it.

Which is sometimes so much more interesting!

I knew who the killer was in Knives Out ten minutes in--

--the murder actually happens like thirty seconds into the film, it'd be on page one, maybe page 2 of the script--

--and then spent the rest of the film watching how they almost got away with it.

No spoilers.

Have you seen it?

SEE IT!!!! IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!

And because I can figure out plot twists faster than anyone in my family(which makes sense cause none of them are Stage and Screen Artist people) sometimes I end up watching them figure it out rather than watching the movie.

You know what?

Sometimes that's more fun!

Script Tidbits: Smoke and Mirrors

A million years ago I took a beginning script writing class.

We had three big assignments: a short drama, a short comedy, and a short screenplay.

And I wrote an extra one.

I've said I write based on images or words that won't get out of my head, right? Well, this particular piece was inspired by both.

I kept getting this picture of two people standing in the dark, and I kept hearing this beeping sound every time I saw them.

Turns out, the people in my head were brothers; and the sound I was hearing was an EKG Machine.


And the sound and the image wouldn't go away.

So, I did what all writers do when this happens--I wrote it down.

And then, thanks to various other projects, I forgot about it.

Flash forward six years(and a lot of tinkering) and the story is still rattling around in my head. Only now--thanks to six years of stewing in a tiny corner or my imaginative little brain--the characters have gone from two to five and the plot has become more developed.

These five characters had things to say and they would not shut up! It was awesome!

And, I already had the ending, thanks to my ten minute piece.

I wrote the first draft in ten days and then tinkered with it for the rest of year.

I called it "Smoke and Mirrors".

And it's contemporary, which I'd never done before.

It's non-linear, which I'd never done before.

It's a small cast, which I'd never done before.

And writing's raw and vulnerable and everything I'd never done much of before. And ohmigosh it was hard and cathartic and so much fun to write!

Do these characters also have models?

Yes, yes, they do.

Because they always do.

However, their looks and personalities are based on friends of mine, rather than people I see on the big and small screen.

And since I'm not about to kife their pictures from social media, you get to form your own pictures in your head.

You're welcome

What I can do is share the soundtrack(complete with music videos, if you feel so inclined) :

Theme
How to Save a Life, by The Fray

Ashes of Eden, by Breaking Benjamin

Broken, by Lifehouse

With You, by Tyler Shaw

Dayton
Hi, by Adam Jensen

Sunny Hours, by Long Beach Dub All Stars

Becca
FRIENDS, by Marshmello and Anne-Marie

Beautiful People (feat. Khalid), by Ed Sheeran

Cal
Too Little, Too Late, by Bare-Naked Ladies

Bottoms Up (feat. T.I.), by Brantley Gilbert

Naomi
Always on Time (feat. Ashanti), by Ja Rule

Tequila, by Dan +Shay

Kevin
No Brainer (feat. Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper, and Quavo), by DJ Khalid

Love Someone, by Lukas Graham

The Announcement
Setting the Night on Fire, by Kane Brown

The Crash
It's My Life, by Bon Jovi

From Where You Are, by Lifehouse

The Decision
Say Something, by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

Closer, by Joshua Radin

Tell Me It's Ok, by Josh Henderson

 
And also the links to the ten minute piece which inspired the full length one.

Enjoy!

Thespian Musings: Playwright Goals New Year 2020

New Year!

Yay!

I've been thinking a lot about things--including how far I've come as a playwright.

2019 threw me for a loop artistically, but in a good way.

Actually, it blew my mind artistically.

I got not one, but two productions;

wrote two and a half additional full length plays(the half is cause the draft of the third one won't be done for another month, which means half goes on the 2019 writing list and half goes on the writing list for 2020), one short and a one act;

and one published script.

Oh, and I got back to this blog.

Yeah.

Consider my mind exploded!

It made me want to do more as an artist and member of the theatre community.

So, because it's New Year, I have made a couple of Artistic Goals that I have the next twelve months to accomplish.

(and maybe now that I've written them down some of you out there in the blog-o-sphere can hold me to account, cause I'm also gonna try to keep this blog up better than I have in the past, ha ha).

1. More Draft Readings
Deanna Raybourne said something in an interview once that has become my mantra

"It needs to be done and CRAP before it can be done and GOOD."

I'm one of those people that doesn't want to show my work to anyone until I think is perfect.

 But, let's be real, a playwright's revision can only go so far unless he or she shows it to other people. Or several other people in a reading.

And guess what?

Readings don't have to be staged--they can be done in your living room and you can bribe friends with food

(but even if you don't have food, if they're your friends and if their schedules allow they will come anyway).

I didn't do any readings for a couple of my plays until a friend of mine called me out(see terrified of everything above), and boy was I ever glad she did cause there's nothing like a reading to pull one out of Writer's Slough.

So I'm going to do more Readings of my script drafts.

(which is actually one of the more terrifying goals I've ever made, ha ha)


2.  More Cold Submission
One summer I was so bored I just started submitting to every single theatre I could find just to have something to do.

I made over a hundred submissions--

and got rejected a lot--

and still felt like I'd accomplished something besides keeping a roof over my head(which is a great thing too, because I love my day job!).

That was five years ago.

And while I do understand that there are theatres that will take agent submissions only(with good reason, probably), there are other theatres that don't and they take digital submissions.

So the only thing that's stopping me is laziness.

Go figure.

I'm going to see how many times I can hit the "send"/"submit" button this year.

(which is probably one of the easiest goals I've ever made)


3. More Involvement on NPX 
I've been on the New Play Exchange for a while now, and recently got involved in an NPX Reading Challenge group where we get to read a certain number of plays every other month; and the experience has been amazing!

There are so many talented playwrights out there with mind-blowing stories that are begging to be read and I doubt I'd have read as many as I have without this group.

Which is sad, because I shouldn't need an incentive to read plays and support the artistic ability of others.

That's stupid.

Goal number three is to do a certain number of NPX recommendations a week, because I love to read plays anyway so why not choose from the thousands on New Play Exchange

(shameless plug: go join NPX as a writer or a reader cause they are incredible!)


So those are my Artistic Goals for 2020.

Ambitious?

Yes.

Terrifying(to me)?

Of course!

Doable none the less?

Duh!

Happy New Year guys! May 2020 be as amazing or better than 2019!