The Importance of being Active

I've decided, in light of all of the horrible things happening world wide, and in my life, to duck my head deep into the sand and ignore it all. Iran next up on Bush's to-do list? Climactic climatic changes happening world wide? I got dumped? Yes, yes, yes! On all counts yes. Do I care? Yes. But what can one man do besides shut out the bad thoughts and think about something happy?

Something happy like writing a play.

Many of you know that as an elementary, junior high, and highschooler I was immersed in the theater community. My Mother thought it was important to foster artistic expression in me (though why she couldn't have pushed me like some of the other theater moms did I don't know. Shit, I could be the next Freddie Prinze Jr. right now). I took summer theater, I auditioned for plays, and when high school rolled around I enrolled in the Central High School Touring Theater.


(This is Jan Mandell, director of the Central Touring Theater)


Now, with this long glorious tradition of participating in, and writing, plays one would ask "what have you been up to lately?" Not plays. That's for damn sure. I discovered, when I was 19, a medium in which moving pictures could be paired with sound to create the illusion of watching a play on a screen. Through careful editing you can condense the "play" or change it up altogether so it's not so much a "play" anymore as it is something entirely it's own. But these moving plays are time consuming and difficult to put together. They require actors, scripts, directors, crew, equipment and money. A play however is the poor mans moving picture (movie).


(Who is this dapper fellow? Why, it's the biggest pimp in playwriting, Oscar Wilde)


Now sure, my heart wasn't broken by the dumping, but it left me confused and rejected. How do I take this bitter no-good feeling and translate it into words? I could go the Neil Labute direction and write plays about bitter men misogynistically ruining women's lives, and how the women really deserve it anyway, but I don't think like that. Yes, I could write something autobiographical that paints me as a charming (true), handsome (true) and devilishly clever (oh so true) man trying to figure out the world, but who would care? You have to keep the people in their seats. Considering most people flee from talking to their friends about "emotions" and "feelings", I doubt putting it into a play would fare well. Instead I think of Shakespear, Wilde and Shepard and their comedies and I feel inspired. Yes a comedy is exactly what's needed. A comedy... of errors!

So over the rest of this summer and well into the fall look for me in your local coffee shop (assuming your local coffee shop is the Verb Cafe on Bedford in Williamsburg Brooklyn) casually sucking on the end of a pen and staring wistfully up at the sky. It may just be a pose to show the girls I'm "deep" but it may also be you witnessing brilliance. You'll know by the signs. If I start writing: Brilliance. If I sigh loudly and then consciously look around the room to see who noticed: Posing.