| Author | Post |
|---|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 05:22 pm |
|
Just got mail from AcidTheatre in the UK - my piece won!
Originally it was called 'Putting the Fun Back into School Shootings' - but I offered up an alternative title 'Almost Dawn' - when they asked how set I was on that title.
Without giving too much away, I will say that I've been wary of sending it out to US theatre groups, as I didn't and don't think they'd take kindly to it. I wrote the piece and have been sitting on it for some time (I think I cut n pasted a bit of the opening here on forum, a while back).
The AcidTheatre competition, was I think, almost the first folks I'd sent it to.
It's certainly brightened up my Sunday :) Apparently there'll be a staged reading before Christmas, and then a regular stage production next year. (Assuming of course they don't all get arrested for it :)
http://www.acidtheatre.blogspot.com/
|
Edd
Moderator
| Joined: | Sat Jun 10th, 2006 |
| Location: | Denver, Colorado USA |
| Posts: | 889 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |    |
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 06:00 pm |
|
Ian,
BRAVO! YEA! CONGRATULATIONS! GREAT NEWS! And even though I believe in Shakespeare :) I am very, very happy for you. Good news is contagious among friends.
~ Edd, the formally-uneducated farm boy peasant
P.S. I am struck by something in their blog that gives me pause to ponder: "The winning AcidTheatre Freedom of Speech Monologue for 2007 is "Putting The Fun Back Into School Shootings" or as we will probably market it: "Almost Dawn" to avoid being arrested or beaten up before we even get the show started!"
Isn't it ironic that a contest known as "Freedom of Speech" appears uncomfortable, even through their jocularity, with your original title?
Again, Congratulations, Ian!
Last edited on Sun Sep 16th, 2007 08:39 pm by Edd
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 08:20 pm |
|
Ian,
I remember your original posting and I highly congratulate you on continuing with the play and finishing it!
I found my response to it when you posted part of it at the time under its original title and want to re-post here and share it with the other playwrights. You had mentioned about its possibly being "too creepy."
It is a lesson to all playwrights not to fear what they write.
I agree with edd about the irony about a title change, but as Robertson Davies once wisely said about one habit to acquire about getting published "Rewrite to editorial specifications." (This does not mean listening to idiots however. He was talking about working with an excellent, accomplished editor.)
I am not certain about the value of the new title, but you also don't want a title that gives away the store or kills (no pun inteneded) any surprises or keeps people from possibly seeing the show. You want them in tthe seats.
I am very happy for you!
Best,
in media res
My original response:
Ian,
This is filed with beautiful wrting. The humanization of the buildings is eloquent and something I have felt, and you put those feelings into words so eloquently, despite who is saying them and the conditions that are present.
This is filled with intrigue. suspense. Poetential of something - what - happening. Whew!
Creepy???!!!! Naaah! Terrifying potential - yes. Don't edit yourself.
Macbeth is creepy. Medea is creepy. Oedipus is creepy, if they are done right. They also have terrifying potential. I don't think it is creepy if you consider it in their league. I think you should continue. I'd be very curious about where this is going. Going deep into uncharted is the best writing. That which unnerves us can have the best lessons for our humanity. If the writing illuminates a larger truth, it can not be called "creepy" in the sense you imply. That is the modern popular connotation of the word.
I sense the work is still nascent. Raw.
I say write it and see where it goes. Maybe it will go nowhere. But I hope you try to find out. It might have more positve impact than the creepy quotient you are worried about.
Best of luck with it.
If not...well, that is your choice. Writers have to stare down their demons in this kind of work. Yes, even comedies. Think of Moliere! Then they are free to write. Well, in almost any work. The last thing I want when I come out of a theatre is to hear or to say, "Well, that was NICE!"
Just so it illluminates and does not merely exploit.
best,
in media res
|
Edd
Moderator
| Joined: | Sat Jun 10th, 2006 |
| Location: | Denver, Colorado USA |
| Posts: | 889 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 08:39 pm |
|
Where is the original post? I would love to read it.
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 08:42 pm |
|
Thanks for the supportive words and thoughts.
(re the title) I suppose originally I'd just decided to go for the jugular from the beginning, so that whatever whiny kneejerk reactions people might have, they can simply, you know, just 'have them'. The play, I think, is 'meatier' than the already deliberately confrontational title. And being here in the US, I'm deeply aware that even the title will freak people out, (which I think is a lovely thing to do - as a first punch, provided of course, one follows up with an even nastier punch, from the story and the writing). Thus causing total panic and distress..
Well, that's my theory anyway :)
But I think I understand AcidTheatres' angle - I'd be a little wary myself about putting up big posters saying 'Putting the Fun back into School Shootings' :) I mean, picture doing that around Columbine, or Virginia Tech.. Hmm, thats just given me a thought, I wonder how the 'avant garde' theatre groups in those areas will take to a query letter :P
Looping back to AcidTheatre, I can see their possible quiet thoughts of 'Oh man, we're gonna get hit on the head by red-faced old ladies with umbrella's , and growled at by people, just from the putting up of posters.. '
Its one thing to get howling mobs baying for the blood of all concerned, because of content, but not if everyone who's putting up posters, ends up beaten to begin with :)
|
Paddy
Moderator
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 08:50 pm |
|
Good for you, Ian!
And you IMR.
You nailed it, didn't you?
As for the title. I'm undecided. Thinking on it.
Paddy
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16th, 2007 09:21 pm |
|
edd,
Original posting:
Under "Critique my play" April 17, 2007
best,
in media res
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Tue Sep 18th, 2007 04:53 pm |
|
Why do we need free speech? Why did Acid Theatre sponsor this contest? Those silly little Cassandras!
Is it really that important?
Many of you may have already seen this video or variations of it. Hit the internet today.
It is a student asking a question of Sen. John Kerry at University of Florida.
It really is fun to be tasered for asking a question at a university, a place of open debate.
This kid did nothing more than what happens in the "The Prime Minister's Questions" in Parliament. Or in the Statehouse of Illinois in Springfield - Land of Lincoln - or the Chicago City Council.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s
Best,
in media res
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Tue Sep 18th, 2007 05:04 pm |
|
I think we always need freedom of speech - but it doesn't get exercised too much, it seems, these days.
I'm constantly aware that just 5 or 6 companies control almost every single media outlet in America - all the radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and magazines. All run by a tiny handful of corporate board rooms.
So it may appear to be a wide range of conflicting voices, and the exercise of 'freedom of speech' - but the truth lies elsewhere...
re that video - was listening a little while back to some right-wing radio station, and they were playing the audio clip of the guy screaming, and the hosts were laughing happily at it. And I thought 'Hmmm, I don't think I recall ever hearing the sound of someone's pain and agony, after being electrocuted at a political meeting, being played over the radio, for public amusement'.
I think freedom of speech exists to try prevent the closet Nazi's and Fascists from taking over completely (let's assume for the sake of debate, that they haven't already).
|
MaryS
Member
|
Posted: Tue Sep 18th, 2007 06:13 pm |
|
Oh Ian!
What wonderful news -- Please keep us posted on your play's progress.
Congratulations!!!
Mary S.
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 12:14 pm |
|
Thank you for the kind words :)
From the mutterings on a certain other dramatist board - I get the feeling it's going to be a long hard road to get US theatre groups to look past the title and just read the darn thing. Debating whether to change the title, just to stop any initial knee-jerk reactions from theatre groups at first glance at script title.
(I kind of wonder how well famous plays like 'Shopping and F**king' did in the US. I get the feeling that theatre groups here, don't seem used to brazen titles for theatre pieces).
Oh well, already gearing up to start writing the next piece. A more normal title, but equally as curveball a concept..
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 01:34 pm |
|
ian,
I liked edd's suggestion "The Normal Sounds of Architecture."
Great title for ANY play.
Shoppind and... did okay here. but in chiago the neighbors asked to have the title not so big on the marquee as it was in a neighborhood with a lot of children.
Oddly, America, the gun-totingest nation and the biggest proliferator of selling arms in the world, would be upset by your title, but they will.
Check this commercial out if you want to see dysfunction junction/nation about guns.
I love the product warning in last line of the commercial.
http://www.home-backup-protection.com/buy/commercial.php
best,
in media res
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 02:24 pm |
|
I take your various points. Titling for me is - if anything - a more angst-filled process than writing. I've actually spent longer on play titles than I have in writing pieces. (I usually do - when its a 'regular' play - 10 pages a day) And I've sat for sometimes weeks, going through various title options, and their potential impacts.
While, for instance the suggested 'normal sound of architecture' has a definite dignity and an artistic 'formality' to it that's appealing on various levels, including the classical - I'm wary of the audience running across the phrase so early in the piece.
If anything, I like to misdirect at times, with titles. Set up expectation of 'A'- and then deliver B, C and D. I have an attraction for semi-cheesy titles that just give broad brush-strokes, but don't nail anything down too easily - even after the piece has been seen. Titles for me are more about the 'feelings' they convey, than formally descriptive.
Occasionally, as I like public mischief - I'll play with the 'waving a red flag at a bull' concept.. that said, I'm still mulling over it :)
The piece is fairly tightly controlled, very simple structure, and inherently very angry - there's a growing level of overt anti-Government sentiment which occurs in the piece, and (hopefully) in the minds of the audience as well, as they watch the unfolding twin stories of both the main character's present reality, and the slowly advancing 'presentation' that he gives/intends to give, as a prelude to all out violence and slaughter. Its kind of 'protest theatre done standing on the barricades'...
Its somewhat trippy all round.
If anything, the suggested title (normal sound of architecture) is almost too 'good' for the piece, and audiences might be angered by the form of misdirection - as they're being taken to places that (for me) such a title wouldn't take them.
I like the idea of a seemingly cheesy and pulpish 'angry' title - which sets up certain expectations, and then the audience is hit very hard, with a classically structured piece with very controlled inherent anger and outrage, that goes way beyond the cheesy expectation, and slaps them upside the head in ways they weren't expecting.
Well, that's the hope, I suppose :)
*goes back to writing* :)
Last edited on Wed Sep 19th, 2007 02:28 pm by IanFraser
|
Claudia
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Minnesota USA |
| Posts: | 125 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 01:06 am |
|
Many congratulations. I do understand the title change - been through a true lockdown, had a friend working at one of our infamous school shooting schools and it is very sensitive. As it probably should be. I would like to hear how this process goes for you from reading to production. Is the USA ready for it?
Claudia
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Wed Dec 5th, 2007 09:20 pm |
|
Well, here is exactly why the contest you won is sponsored, Ian:
From today's Chicago Sun-Times.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/681607,CST-NWS-blog05.article
It may be in other papers and online sites as well.
And here is another one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04tue3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Both of these would have been stunning to me twenty years ago. Now they are all too commonplace.
best,
in media resLast edited on Wed Dec 5th, 2007 09:25 pm by in media res
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Wed Dec 5th, 2007 10:09 pm |
|
re the Freedom of Speech aspects, and those two news items..
I know first hand about being on the receiving end of authorities wrath - as back when I was in South Africa (prior to relocating to the US) I got peeved enough to write something in a fictional format, trying to express my own angst, disgust and horror at being in a country with 1.7 million rapes a year, 120 murders a day, 1200 deaths a DAY from AIDS, and a new democracy that - to me - had completely lost its way..
(Picture a country with just 45 or so million people, with a higher murder rate per capita than the USA, with its 300 million+..)
So I came up with a short fiction piece, which creatively expressed exactly my feelings - and all hell broke loose and I had the SA police after me, my editor refusing to let them know who I was (I was a journalist on the side, at the time), and suddenly I had various intelligence services and the police after me, and I was being potentially threatened with charges ranging from 'treason' to 'sedition' - and it was only due to an awesome NGO called the Freedom of Expression Institute, who took my case on, that I managed to avoid ending up in jail.
Authoritarian systems tend not to have much of a sense of humor - or 'irony' for that matter. My lawyer laughed and howled happily at the utter tastlessness of what I wrote..
So having fought my way through the apartheid era, and caused trouble then, I then ended up running foul of the supposedly democratic new regime.. (I see a pattern emerging here :)
That said, South Africa is still technically 'more free' in some ways, than the US. I recall at the time, lawyers telling me that if I'd written in the US, what I'd written in SA - I'd have been in jail almost immediately.. Go figure..
re whether the US is ready for the 'school shootings' play - well, I kind of believe that its up to us writers to decide for ourselves (at least with so-called 'questionable material') whether a society is ready, and to give the society their unwanted medicine when it seems necessary - rather than watching to see whether ones work can 'fit in' with whats already there. I'm always wary of trudging along the same old well-worn paths creatively - its always fun to try step off into new uncharted territory and see where it ends up.
But that's just my approach to it..
re the public shootings, agreed, it is unfortunately commonplace these days - but I can understand aspects of it, I think - as symptoms of a wider disease (malaise?)thats spreading - social numbness, political helplessness, and frustration in general.. Kind of like steam escaping from a pressure cooker.. I see while writing this that another shooting's happened in Nebraska: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071205/ap_on_re_us/mall_shooting
|
in media res
Member
|
Posted: Wed Dec 5th, 2007 11:13 pm |
|
ian,
An incredible tale you just told. Everyone should read it.
Same B.S. goes on here
As Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary said soon after September 11, 2001 in a press conference:
"People better watch what they say. Watch what they do."
I am sure it will immortally and iniquitously be entered into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in coming years.
Tim Robbins, the actor, was one of the only ones to quickly and publicly stand up to this idiocy in a forceful speech to The Washington Press Club. It was brilliant. The pity of it is, it should not have had to be so "courageous." it should have been labeled as what is "expected" of a citizen in "The world's Greatest Democracy." Anyone who said what Fleischer said should have been laughed off the podium by the assembled throng of reporters! But, pathetically, he was not. Most reporters have become spineless. The Great retired NYC reporter, Jimmy Breslin calls them "The Pekingese Press."
Wouldn't you think by now an educated guy like Mr. Fleischer, would publicly come out and apologize and do a major mea culpa to the nation for espousing such a concept in a Democracy? If he has, I haven't heard it yet.
And as far as mass shootings, I read the Chicago paper everyday. We have many shootings and killings, but they tend to be one at a time, so they do not attract the notoriety. It is very, very sad.
Anyway, keep us abreast about your play.
Read Swann's "Chatroom and Citizenship" under reviews and Critiques.
best,
in media resLast edited on Wed Dec 5th, 2007 11:25 pm by in media res
|
IanFraser
Member
|
Posted: Thu Dec 6th, 2007 03:33 pm |
|
Just for interest - here's a link to the short fiction piece I mentioned above.
I put it up online 'back then' in the midst of legal battles and police attention, after it had been yanked from my newspapers official blog site - and I havent touched it since, so the formatting isn't corrected nicely..
(I'd decided to do an ongoing series, something in the Wile E Coyote vs Roadrunner vein - detailing an assassin's ongoing attempts to ahem, 'take out' the President of SA. I figured this fictional structure would provide a solid creative way to express and detail the horrific reality of modern SA, and allow me to indulge in a lot of quite malevolent ghoulish sarcasm and irony, and get points across in a 'throwaway' way. Don't read it 'literally' (as the authorities did). But naturally, it never progressed to 'episode two'.
Its useful to note that the 'Zuma' (Jacob Zuma, the deputy president of South Africa) mentioned in this piece, would later be charged with rape, and make the infamous comment about having taken a shower after to sex to wash off the AID'S virus'..)
Its fairly brutal and 'adult' in attitude, so avoid if you're a sensitive soul :)
http://ianfraserwritings.blogspot.com/2005/06/killing-president-episode-one-fiction.html
(and yes, now I'm in the US, two years on, I'm a much gentler, kinder person - fond of little puppies, lambs, and heart-shaped chocolates :P
|
Current time is 06:41 am | |
|
|
|
