Reborning

Its a bizarre world out there. Zayd Dohrn's play deal with a "reborning" artist - a woman who paints, sculpts dolls to look like real babies. She suspects an older woman, a client, may be the mother who abandoned her.

You've got to see these dolls. They are totally creepy. There's also something enormously hokey about the hobby too. And the websites embrace that hokeyness.

The cast are all juilliard students who are approaching the material slowly and steadfastly. We've three weeks to put this on its feet. There are a number of technical issues we won't be able to tackle (crying babies and video projections), but the goal is to develop a new play while simultaneously stretching these students.

Ojai finale

Whoa. A very good way to end my summer of developmental workshops. There was thunderous applause at the end of the first act. I was really moved by how well the actors did - and how well the story was told. Patrick Adams was really remarkable as private reeves (nee green) and I think josh and amy sloane took great steps forward.

As bill cain's agent said, its a good sign when at the top of act two the audience is clapping for me.

SPOILER ALERT:
Bill did impressive work all week - and I think we've come up with a great shape for NINE CIRCLES. The ending now has in circle eight private reeve's last words before his execution and circle nine are his thoughts as he is dying. It is haunting and moving and I think almost right. Close. But man, it was a great week. A real sense of accomplishment.

Once again, ojai has proven to be immensely fruitful for play development. It succeeds for so many reasons. Which I hope to get to next.

Juilliard

On my way to juilliard to work on zayd dohrn's REBORNING. Its my second time working at juilliard on a second year directing project.

Zayd's out of town this week so I will be on my own. Having just taken the red-eye I plan to take it real slow. We'll read the script once without stopping. Then go through slowly and ask questions. If there's time, we'll break the script down by beats.

There's a lot of interesting information on reborning dolls online. And it creeps me out. But that's a good thing too.

Blogging when cranky

I just reread my last entry. I sounded lsooo annoyed. And much of what I said sounded under duress.

Chalk it up to fatigue. But it might be a good lesson as to when to post and when not to.