Tomorrow morning I’ll be spending all of a long day in LA, directing another 10-minute play for Sacred Fools‘ produced-whenever-we’ve-got-nothing-the-hell-else-going-on-this-weekend Fast & Loose showcases for 24-Hour Theatre. At this very moment, my script is in the early stages of writing by some caffeine junkie with whom I’ll be randomly matched in the morning. I’d really like one of those writing slots one of these times.
The first time I did this, I got a lively case of the hots for one of the actresses in my cast, pursued her with an uncharacteristic boldness while I was still in the early stages of re-assembling my heart after a breakup, and ended up getting embarrassed, ignored, and punched in the groin. Ah, the Theatrical Life.
I’m taking an early bedtime tonight, and have downloaded the sound-mixer Audacity for my laptop. The last time, with my old laptop that was a glorified word processor/porn storage device, I lost two hours driving back and forth to Orange County to mix and burn the music and sound cues on my home desktop. When you only have eleven hours to stage a play soup-to-nuts, you cannot just go giving away two hours to LA traffic. I remember almost crying from the CDs not playing in regular CD players, calling to push back my tech rehearsal so I could give it one more shot, and barely making it in time to smuggle the final working versions to the sound operator before tech period closed.
I keep doing these little quick-hitter jobs, and they do scratch the itch; but they also serve to remind me how long it’s been since I got involved in something bigger. I can’t remember any point in my life when this close to 100% of my creative energy was going solely into writing. Maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s going to drive me mad soon. I do know I jumped at this opportunity, and I anticipate enjoying it. I also anticipate you won’t hear much from me Sunday, while I recover.