Just a quick post to announce that my newest play, Rx will premiere Wednesday night, April 25th. And once again, I'm so sorry to say, I won't be able to attend. The good news is that my work is being produced across this great land of ours. But the bad news, I can't always be there to see it.
Rx was a commissioned piece written especially for the high school theatre students of Pittsburg, Kansas. This is the 3rd year in a row they have commissioned me to write an original piece for them. Rx deals with the pervasive use of prescription drugs among teens. I'm very proud of this piece.
A big thanks to Greg Shaw, the cast and crew of Rx and my girl Kristi Alarid who lent me her brain and taught me so much about all sorts of prescription meds and their effect on people. And she was able to put it all in terms I could understand and not use a whole lot of medical jargon as she was explaining it all to me. THANK YOU KRISTI! You are a walking, talking encyclopedia and I'm so grateful to you!
For those of you in the Portland area, I will be having a short play performed on May 12th. If you're interested, send me an email and I'll give you all the delightful details, including the fact that I'm acting in it as well as having written it! Oh my goodness...this should be interesting. But it will be worth seeing, because it's directed by the extraordinary Jane Bement Geesman and features the outstanding talents of Kristin Olson and Morgan Cox. These babes are the best!!
Creativity abounds! I feel lucky. I feel grateful! The weather here in Portland has been gorgeous; good things are happening and I am so very happy to be here! Yay!
I committed to this script-writing challenge for the month of April, called Script Frenzy. The challenge is to write 100 pages in the month of April, and hopefully have a first-draft of a play by April 30th. No sweat, right? Ha!
I started off great. Worked diligently for the first 9 days of April, and then on April 10th...something happened. Well, actually...nothing happened. I stopped writing. Why? Well...in a word...life. I let life interrupt me. It's known to do that from time to time. And you know what Mr. Isaac Newton said, right? A body in motion, tends to stay in motion, but a body at rest, stays at rest. Because as soon as I stopped, I found it very difficult to start up again. And now I'm way behind and there are only 2 weeks left.
When a friend of mine suggested a hike in the glorious Columbia River Gorge, I knew it was exactly what I needed to free my mind. And, if you've been following this blog at all, you know of my love for waterfalls. I have a very emotional and visceral response when getting up close and personal to these magnificent creations of Nature.
We had the trail to ourselves; just me, my friend and his two wonderful dogs. We hiked along for awhile, the mist intensifying as we made our way up and down and all around. We heard the water falling before we saw it, and then there she was. In all her majestic glory. And I stood up on a boulder, and let the mist encompass me. I felt amazing; I felt all my stress release in that one moment; I turned to my friend to thank him for bringing me to this spectacular place, and found, not surprisingly, emotion rising in my throat.
Much, much later in the day, after I finished rehearsing for my play that's going up next month, I sat down and wrote 5 pages of my script. It was midnight, and I wrote without stopping. 5 pages. Is it any good? I have no idea. Does it make sense to the story I previously created? I have no idea. If I read through it, I think I would become blocked again. But it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. What matters is that the momentum has picked up once again. I will worry about the quality of the writing when it's time to rewrite and revise.
For now I'm just thankful to the beauty and wonder of Nature. For freeing me up...I'm so grateful to be living in such a stunning place and whenever I seek solitude, friendship, wonder and awe, it is literally in my very own backyard. Who would have ever thought this city gal would become a Nature girl. Yet here I am, and the better for it!
I usually remember my dreams upon waking, but if they aren't note-worthy, they wash away from my thoughts like the tide going out in the ocean. But last night...hmmm...a strange and evocative dream came my way. And when I woke up, it took awhile to shake it. It was slightly disturbing, but not in a violent or gruesome way. Then I fell back asleep and the dream continued. That rarely happens to me. It was like watching a movie. And I had put the dream on pause, and when I went back to sleep, I must have pushed the play button.
Of course, the longer I am awake, the less I recall the specifics. I was talking to my mom this morning, because she had played a role in the dream, and I was trying to tell her about it. But my words were disjointed; I was stumbling and fumbling with language. I couldn't seem to be specific as to what had unfolded in my subconscious mind.
Even now, as I try to write about it, I find myself faltering. All I know is life in my dream was changing at a dramatically fast pace. In my dream, I had to leave the life I was comfortable with to forge into the vast unknown. I was scared; there were people in my dream who wanted to harm me. But there were crowds of others, strangers, who wished me well. It was dark, pitch-black; throngs of people in my midst trying to flee as well from a horrible existence. It sounds like George Orwell, doesn't it? That's the sense I got from it. I was trapped in my own version of "1984."
In my dream, I received a text message from an unknown caller. One word appeared on the screen..."Courage." In the dream, I was being forced to leave my belongings and my home behind. Where was I being herded to? I do not know. Courage...
When I put this down on paper, it seems like such a simple metaphor. It's easy to see the parallels. But in the moment, last night and again early today, the dream itself was truly haunting. I felt a bit discombobulated this morning.
By the end of the day today, I'm sure those feelings will be gone. That's how dreams work. Since it's April 1st, I considered the dream to be an April Fool's joke from my subconscious. But somehow I doubt that. There is a real message here. I know I need to pay attention. But I also know I cannot let it bog me down. And as usual, I move forward...
What are the dreams you remember?
