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Jim_L
Member
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Posted: Mon Dec 24th, 2007 12:35 pm |
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My names Jim from Allenstown NH. I'm not a playwright as such but I did write a musical comedy for my son's high school which was performed by the school's drama troupe (does that make me a playwright?).
I'm more of a songwriter/musician (guitar, bass & drums) and have been writing songs off & on since I was 17 (I'm 46 now). I'm currently working on a sequel (very slowly, not like the ten days it took me to write the first 290 page script).
Merry Christmas!
-Jim
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Luana Krause
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| Joined: | Tue Jan 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Wyoming USA |
| Posts: | 107 |
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 02:36 pm |
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Hello, Jim. Nice to meet you.
Congrats on your musical comedy...best of luck on the sequel. As for me, I do very well with short plays and one-acts, but have yet to complete a full-length. A different beast altogether, as I'm finding out.
Welcome to the group.
Luana
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Jim_L
Member
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 02:52 pm |
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Thank you Luana. I wish I had some insight for you for writing a full length other than just write until your done, but I don't know what i'm doing myself! I started the Tavern script by writing scene 11 (out of 21 originally). I guess that was the core seed that everything else sprang from?
-Jim
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Luana Krause
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| Joined: | Tue Jan 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Wyoming USA |
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 03:36 pm |
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Thanks for the advice, Jim. The hardest part is just sitting down and getting the first draft on paper. Oy!
To become more familiar with the full-length form, I've been reading a LOT of plays...mostly classics that I'd never gotten around to reading before. Currently I'm doing a round of Herb Gardner stuff...WOW! He's incredible! "A Thousand Clowns" is totally brilliant.
William Missouri Downs teaches at our state university and wrote a delightful comedy called "Cockeyed." It was performed here by our community theatre. Absolutely hilarious! It's a play I wish I'd written...it really struck a chord with me on many levels.
Don't ya just LOVE theatre!
Luana
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Jim_L
Member
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 06:12 pm |
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Actually, I'm not a theatre person & the 4 productions/plays i've seen have been at my kids high school only because they were in them and i helped the drama teacher build the sets. Other than that, I normally wouldn't go or be interested in watching those stories (but I do like the Man of Lamancha movie and the school's production of it). The last one they did (I can't even remember the name) was about some family that owed taxes, some americana thing where each member was quirky, uncle or grandad in the cellar making explosives, a brother playing a xylophone, a sister who danced and the mother who kept writing scripts/stories. I just sat there in awe wondering what was so funny about it then left after the first act.
Not british enough I suppose...?
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Luana Krause
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 06:46 pm |
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The play you're referring to is "You Can't Take It With You" by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. I've never seen a stage production, but I've read it. Hilarious!
Kaufman is brilliant! He also wrote for the Marx Brothers.
Luana
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Jim_L
Member
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 09:32 pm |
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That's the one. It made no sense to me and i found nothing funny about it. Others in the audience were chuckling here & there but again, it made no sense to me at all - kinda like rap, hip hop, msword and those incessant CSI shows... ;>)
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carlblong
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| Joined: | Sun Feb 11th, 2007 |
| Location: | Manassas, VA, USA |
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Posted: Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 08:31 pm |
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| I've seen the show done once well and a few times badly. Without having ever worked on it, I think it's a script that's easy to do poorly and difficult to do well.
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Will Kemp
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| Joined: | Thu Feb 14th, 2008 |
| Location: | Kentucky USA |
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 10:21 pm |
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| Jim, About 3-4 years ago the Dramatist's Guild magazine had an issue about people who write musicals..
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Paddy
Moderator
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Posted: Wed Mar 5th, 2008 12:04 pm |
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Welcome, Jim.
Love how you started at scene 11. Curious what scene you started at in the sequel.
Paddy
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