Looking ahead - Chicago edition

I'm starting to wonder just how much travel we really can do, since it does add up (not just money but time), and at least to date, we really can't do long car trips, which are generally more economical.  I think this might change, but the downside to being in Toronto is that you aren't a reasonable car ride to anywhere really.  Certainly Buffalo isn't that far, but Buffalo...

Detroit and Ottawa are both within range, though I'd just prefer the train to Ottawa.  In terms of Detroit, it would probably be simpler to fly to Windsor and then catch a bus across the border, and I'll investigate that as a serious possibility this fall (particularly since the Detroit Jazz Festival over Labor Day weekend is always a major event -- this year Ron Carter is the featured artist in residence).  I suppose the train to Windsor is also an option, and it is an interesting trade off - 4.5 hours on the train for about $100 vs. $300 or so for a half hour flight (but then also time wasted in getting to the airport and going through security).  It is possible to drive to Rochester or Ithaca, and I'll probably do that one of these days, but it isn't a particularly high priority.  For all the other places, particularly Chicago, flying is just the better option.

Nonetheless, my wife and kids will be in Chicago for 2-3 weeks this August, and I'll swing by towards the end to pick them up.  We are also tentatively thinking of going in October, though that will be somewhat dependent upon the school calendar.

Since I like to bundle things together, I have started looking into museums and theatre to keep me occupied on these trips.  Unfortunately, it looks like on the August trip, I will just miss the Aaron Siskind exhibit at the Art Institute by just a week or so (and we missed it by about two weeks on the previous trip).  So that's unfortunate, though I was able to check out a copy of Aaron Siskind 100, which appears to have most of the photos that would be in this exhibit.  But I should be able to check out the Invisible Man exhibit, which looks interesting.  It looks like I could probably skip the Cultural Center and the MCA in August.

In terms of theatre, I am quite likely to check out Maria Fornes' Fefu and Her Friends at Halcyon and possibly Freedman's Sister Cities.  (I'd probably read the first act to make sure I want to see this play, but it generally had good reviews.  Apparently, this will be the Chicago premiere of the work.)

If we do make it back in October, then for sure I want to see the Norman Lewis exhibit at the Cultural Center, and I'd probably swing up to the MCA on that trip.  I would probably check out Posner's Life Sucks at Lookingglass, which is a follow up to Stupid F***ing Bird.  (One of my major regrets from 2015 is that I didn't make it to the Victory Gardens' production of this play, but I think it will eventually hit Toronto.*)

Nonetheless, I should stress that I don't spend all my time looking up out-of-town events.  I have enough trouble staying on top of everything going on in Toronto!

* Speak of the devil, I was checking out DPS, and someone (Vintage Productions?) has applied for the rights for this and it should take place in March 2017.  I'm pretty excited about that, so now I can just focus on making Yankee Tavern happen, and of course see about staging some of my own work.

The Neil Simon of Canada

This is a somewhat tangential review of Fox on the Fairway by the Village Players.  Toronto has over time developed a somewhat interesting theatre culture.  There are quite a few really professional theatres with established companies (Tarragon, Soulpepper, Canadian Stage (even though I don't like what they are offering) and arguably Factory Theatre (though it doesn't really look like it ever recovered from firing its AD back in 2012)) and a lot of storefront theatres with really hungry, young artists doing challenging work (and despite its longevity, Buddies in Bad Times probably fits in here as well).  Then there are companies that have been around for a while and are a notch above community theatre but are really a bit closer to what one would find in smaller cities.  In my mind this includes the East Side Players, Alumnae Theatre and the Village Players.  Alumnae probably takes slightly more risks and East Side Players may be slightly more professional.  After our experience watching Fox on the Fairway, I'd say the Village Players goes for really comfortable, middle-brow work.

We really did not like this play and left at the intermission.  I don't think either of us laughed once at the stale jokes (the waitress talks about kissing a patron's dimpled balls -- oh she means golf balls... ).  My wife said it was predictable, just like watching a live episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.  I realize farce is very hard to do well, but the production was only so-so and the script was lousy. 

This has almost completely dissuaded me from going to their production of Tremblay's Les Belles Soeurs in the fall.  I just don't feel they will do a good job, and this will blur the very good production I saw out in Peterborough this winter.  I think there are only two critics who could write a review and make me change my mind, and one of them (Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star) retired.  The other is Lynn Slotkin, with whom I seem to agree about 75% of the time, but I generally find her reviews quite insightful with only one where I felt she had kind of missed the point or was just viewing things very differently from my take on the play.  While I definitely find the listings in Now and Mooney's very helpful and the reviews often interesting, I don't find them particularly persuasive (as the reviewers just seem a bit too green to me). 

So I probably won't ever go to another Ken Ludwig play again, since I am just not his core audience.  Norm Foster is a slightly more complicated case.  I started looking into his work, since both the Village Players and East Side Players are often producing his work.   I've sort of vaguely been aware of Norm Foster but haven't seen anything by him.  I believe his two most famous plays are Maggie's Getting Married and The Melville Boys (and Village Players was going to do The Melville Boys in the late spring 2017). Then I read up and he is one of the most produced playwrights in Canada (and perhaps also the Canadian playwright who is the most produced in the States).  I Googled some of his plays, and he sounded like Neil Simon, and later reviews made the linkage more explicit.  I don't strongly dislike Neil Simon's work, but I am generally not that interested in it, even though in some ways I often write in that same general territory myself.  (And I recognize how hard it is to write something fresh when there are only about 5 plots to work from, but Ken Ludwig was stale stale stale...)

I checked out a few of Foster's plays and honestly was not that impressed. I started off with Maggie's Getting Married, which I missed from last season.

SPOILERS

I particularly didn't like Maggie's Getting Married, since the twist comes out of nowhere (all of a sudden the groom has a twin brother, which he then laboriously has to explain why he never mentioned this fact to his finance).  That said, I was almost certain as I was reading that there would be a twin brother involved, since I thought that was the most likely way to get out of the corner Foster had painted himself in, but there were certainly no hints to the audience, which I find unfair.

I thought the way the on-stage play within a play in Opening Night fell apart was just exhausting and bizarre.  (I suppose Foster meant this as a counter example to Noises Off or even possibly French's Jitters, since in "real life," with all the huge distractions backstage, the performance actually put on would simply not come together for an actual audience.  So points for that, but I still can't imagine enjoying watching this mess, even though it is an intentional mess.  Then the second-to-last twist is hackneyed and predictable.  It was sort of the theatre equivalent of Mean Joe Greene tossing his jersey to the kid in the Coke ad.)  
 
Even though I generally don't like reading plays ahead of time, this is clearly a case where I will have to read Foster's, since I don't want to waste my time and money.  I'm quite sure I will skip The Melville Boys, and actually pretty much all of his work, since I have not been impressed with these plays.  I find the twists unconvincing and people acting in unconvincing ways to me (again, maybe he is essentially writing live-action sit coms).  All that said, I may still go and see Office Hours, which will be put on by the East Side Players next season.  I'm a bit more forgiving of plays about work (since there aren't all that many of them), and the East Side Players are a lot closer to my house.  I'll still read the play first, however, and if I hate the script, then I am definitely scratching Norm Foster off my list forever, and I'll go one step further: any company that is producing a lot of his work is definitely going to be considered suspect...

No sword over me

I just reported on being done with two academic projects, which is such a huge relief.  It was so strange waking up and not feeling like I had an overwhelming mass of work hanging over my head.* That's not to say there aren't looming deadlines at work, but they just don't feel as crushing as the ones at my last job.  And I have plenty of tasks around the house, not even including some sewing that I am hoping to take up.  Nonetheless, it was so nice feeling that my time was my own this morning, even if only for a few hours.

In terms of things I will try to spend my new found free time on, this might include:

• more time at home with the kids (possibly even starting up our Vancouver tradition of watching an episode of Get Smart nightly), 
• breaking out the sewing machine
• working on my full-length plays, which now means juggling 4 or even 5 of them!
• sorting through boxes of stuff in the basement
• fixing a hole in the fence that the raccoons are exploiting
• working on an art safari website (details to follow)
• watching the movies that I stash over by the DVD player
• heading over to the gym from time to time
• studying French (partly for my own benefit but also to help with the kids' homework)
• deciding if I truly will try to co-produce Stupid F***ing Bird here in TO

I'm sure there are a few things I have forgotten, but that certainly seems more than enough to keep me busy but it might not feel so busy if these aren't formal obligations.


* I don't think I should count having to complete the Census as an overwhelming burden, but it is droll that it showed up yesterday.  It's mandatory again, folks ...

Back from Sing-for-Your-Supper

It has been an extremely long, but actually quite productive day.  Not only did I get in two presentations/papers in for TAC (a transportation conference taking place in Sept!, but they wanted the first round of submissions now) only a couple of days late, but I went off to Sing-for-Your-Supper.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough lead time to convince anyone from work to go, though there was one young woman who wanted to go but had plans.  She said she might go another time, though I may not go again for a while (or at least not submit anything for a while).

I realize I am quite biased, but I think my playlet was the strongest single, unified piece, though probably the final piece got the loudest laughs.  There was another good piece that had comic moments, but wasn't exactly a laugh-out-loud comedy.  Then there were two frankly bizarre meta-pieces.  (Oddly enough, the second or third SFYS I attended had a similar meta-piece where they wrote a script about SFYS and the quirks and foibles of the hosts (and the mentalist who comes up after the intermission).)  The last one definitely had its moments, particularly when the actors were stalling for time and got into an argument about the merits of Star Trek Generations (this was part of the act of course).  The mentalist was standing right near me and just kept cracking up.

I got a few compliments on my piece, but more importantly I got quite a few laughs and in the right places!  It was useful feedback of a sort, since I think I am getting better at getting jokes into my scripts.  It is true that I need to rewrite one of the last jokes, since it just doesn't hit hard enough.  It should be seen as completely bizarre that they go through this re-up process every four weeks.  But that was on me, not on the actors, who did a great job with the piece.

I'm still not making any useful contacts though, and I haven't even run across the actors that did my very first piece, since I want to reach out to them some day.  I did hear during the pitch session* that Toronto Cold Reads is looking for pieces, so I think I will submit the Late Night at the Seven-11, which is probably the best piece that was rejected so far by SFYS.  Depending on how that goes, I might tweak The Study Group and send that along as well, though I have to say I probably do have to make it punchier.  (If nothing else, I think watching a lot of short pieces at SFYS has really made me appreciate that getting a point across quickly is vital if you aren't to lose the audience.  You really have to grip them fairly early on.  The slow-burn approach may work for some movies or for novels, but generally doesn't work in theatre.)

Anyway, it was a good time out, even though I don't think I will do it that often again in the future.

* I heard about so many upcoming cool events (there is so much talent in Toronto!), but honestly, I don't think I can add to my list of things to do, unless it is Fringe-related, which takes place in June.  Obviously, I would make an exception for Toronto Cold Reads.  (Goes away and pokes about here.)  Now that I have investigated Toronto Cold Reads, it might be just what I am looking for.  The writers skew older, and it is so much closer to where I live -- they are at Broadview on the Danforth.  I definitely will have to check this out.  In fact, it is the same location as "Read Stuff with Eric," but that is apparently a recurring event for trying out solo material (I love the name), while Cold Reads is restricted to 2+ actors, which is definitely more my style.

May - Sing for Your Supper (w/ my piece The Re-Up!)

So persistence is paying off for me.  I just found out that my piece The Re-up has been selected for the May 2 Sing-for-your-supper!  Some details here.

I'm pretty excited, especially as I had to made quite an effort to get it in on time.  I've gone through my list of submissions, and this now brings me to 3/8.  In at least one or two cases, I was a bit too late and the slate had been set.  (And for better or worse, the curators seem to feel that a piece resubmitted the following month is "stale.")   I would probably have been more content had I made it to 4/8, but it's still a pretty decent batting average (0.375).

As I mentioned before, I will probably be focusing on longer pieces (including expanding my very first successful SFYS submission -- Straying South -- into a full length play), though if I feel inspired, I'll write something short and send it off.

But for now, I will enjoy the accolades that come from getting even a short piece up on stage.  Hope to see some of you there.  Ciao!

Worn down

I am feeling quite run down.  I think this is largely from my body trying to catch up on 6 + months of not getting enough sleep, and the best way to get me to slow down is to threaten to get sick...  Anyway, while demands at work are far more reasonable than before, there are still a few tasks that are taking up a fair bit of time and it is hard to find the time to do them (during work hours) and fit in all the various meetings I am required to attend.  During one particularly long meeting, I did sneak in some work on a policy paper I am drafting.

But it is the extra-curricular work (two papers for the Transportation Association of Canada) that is really dragging at me.  I have one presentation all but done with only some minor edits requested.  The other one is far more interesting to me, and I've managed to do the advanced modelling (all over night, mind you) but I still have to draft something up by tomorrow!

So I won't be writing much more, since I have a fair bit left to go on this paper.  I still have a fair number of events, probably at least one scheduled per week, but there are new events coming up all the time, and I am really starting to weigh the cost (both in terms of money and time) and deciding not to go.  For instance, next week, someone is coming through and playing Bach's solo Cello Concertos.  Normally, I would be all over something like this, but I'm just not feeling up to it.  That's not to say I am not enjoying the events I do go to, and I'll write at least a little on some of the highlights of March and April, but I am starting to cut back a little and then trying not to have (non)-buyer's remorse.

Late April grab bag

This post will probably touch on most of the posts I have made over the past week, but I am feeling too lazy to actually link back to them.

In terms of reading, I am finding Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival to be pretty slow going, but I'll probably wrap it up by the weekend.  I've also dipped a little bit into the books on relativity.  I think it will be good to change things up a bit, since my reading has been so dominated by fiction for such a long time.

I did finish my Canadian taxes over the weekend, though I am missing some RRSP form, and of course the bank is so far behind the times they can't just scan it and send it over.  I'm getting pretty frustrated with this company, and I think I'll end up submitting the taxes with a note about the missing form that will have to follow later.  I find myself really annoyed at how frequently the Canadian tax code shifts, particularly in the tax treatment of children.  I had originally followed my previous year's return, then realized that they had zeroed out one of the credits unless your child had severe mental or physical problems, which is not the case for us fortunately.  But there is no point in rehashing all the problems with the way that Canada Revenue treats individuals as monads with little reference to their place in a larger household.

It was touch and go, but I have managed to pull together a presentation for a transportation conference, and the deadline isn't until the 29th.  Now I have a bit of time to get feedback from others.  Unfortunately, I have a second paper and that one may be a bit late, since the data came to me so late, but I'll see what I can do over the next two or three days.

Given all the upheaval last month, I didn't get more than a page into my latest short dramatic work, The Re-up.  It is a piece about relationships and what would happen if marriage more or less withered away and most people just signed short- to medium-term contracts instead of all this til-death-do-us-part business.  It's only slightly futuristic.  Anyway, I managed to finish that up as well and sent it in for the May SFYS.  I still don't know why they didn't accept my piece on an alien invading a 7-11.  Hopefully, I will hear back by late Sat. or Sunday if it was accepted.  I'm not really supposed to check email at work (if I don't get word until Monday), but I may make an exception -- or see if I can check on my phone over lunch.  I don't have all that many remaining ideas for short pieces, though I do have a slightly manic scene set around the delivery of a file cabinet (directly inspired by Slesinger's The Unpossessed), but I have to admit, I don't think that would go over all that well.  I think regardless of whether this piece is accepted, I'm probably done with Sing-for-Your-Supper for the time being.  I want to focus on the longer pieces, either finally revising them and editing them down a bit or working on Straying South or The Study Group.  I probably actually will have the energy now that I am not working absurd hours anymore and feeling squeezed all the time.  (Famous last words...)

I'll end with a poem I wrote many years ago with some unorthodox reflections on Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and Company

Shakespeare leers back at me;
through the dark centuries he can still slight me
and my contemporary sensibilities.
There is bad blood between us.
That there is any blood between us is a minor miracle
and is totally the fault of my mother
and her mother.

He looks grubbier somehow,
though not in that studied grungy look that has taken over the West.
I can feel dirt under his tight collar.
Perhaps I can even feel the lice crawling around
somewhere beneath those elaborate expansive costumes.
I eventually stop staring and go take another bath.

When I return he is still there --
obviously less tense but still silent.
Perhaps I can crack his resistance.
Should I ask "What's up?" or
"Shoot some hoops, Bill?"
or would that only make it worse?
I might be able to manage "Nice weather, eh?"
However, it is snowing outside
as if God sent the Flood in the dead heart of winter,
which is why I am inside in the first place,
looking through my books
and getting ever so slightly bent out of shape.