Counter Resolutionary

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I did make some annual goals. That one about journaling at least twice week has already fallen apart. The good news is that when I was not journaling I was doing some actual playwriting. Plus I made two submissions this week. So, I'm being productive. I'm just not journaling.

One of the plays I sent out yesterday is the revised version of my first full-length play. The audience reception when an earlier version of the play was performed at a small festival in 2004 is what encouraged me to focus on playwriting. Unfortunately, even though I collaborated with some respected peers to come up with what I feel is a much stronger script (dropped stuff that hadn't worked on stage/expanded stuff that did), I haven't been able to successfully pitch it anywhere else. I gave up on it for a while.

Maybe people just don't like. Maybe it's not that good. But I have a fondness for it. I think one of the problem with marketing it is that the play is simply a zany farce. There is no higher meaning. It is not a political or social commentary of any kind. It's just fun, and it seems that so many theatres looking for new works are looking for plays of "substance." I tried hitting some community summer stock theatres, which do tend to lean toward lighter fare, but this play also has some very dark humor. The lead's wife shoots herself in the head on page three. That's just not the comedy that most blue-haired, barn-going, summer audiences want.

Still, there is a warm place in my heart for this script. I hope some twisted person will read it and decide to put it on. I hope I get to see it again.