My next project is underway as we speak. I’ve spent the last month coming up with an Easter play for the Palm Sunday weekend (April 4 and 5), to be performed at the Stone Church. After barricading myself inside for 2 weeks and drinking a lot of tea in the process, I came up with a unique telling of the Easter story which involves 13 actors. All the actors are volunteers from the church community and now, as director, it is my task to get the best performance out of them. This will be a unique challenge as we have two months to put the show together. The Way of the Cross is about three distinct families who are each dealing with the absence of fathers while confronting painful realities in their respective lives. These three stories are linked together by a Stranger who enters their lives and tries to bring about a peace they desperately want and need. The play deals with themes of patience and waiting as we hope for things to change; and as we struggle with the limitations that life sometimes places upon us.

In the midst of writing The Way of the Cross, I got bad news from the Karios Prizes. I truly believed that my screenplay The Tree of Life was going to place in this contest and sadly it did not. It was a crushing blow and for two days, I felt listless. I received a generic critique from the competition which was six sentences long and gave me no specific direction as to how to improve my script. I know my script needs work, but don’t tell me it needs work and then leave me to guess what that work is. Most competitions don’t give critiques and if they give these kinds of critiques, it’s best not to give them at all.

However, I received a very positive critique from Gordy Hoffman’s Bluecat Screenplay competition. Gordy Hoffman is the brother of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and has run his Bluecat contest for over 10 years. I sent Home to them and they sent back a 600 word critique which was very encouraging and put to shame the Karios Prices’ critique. And yes, Bluecat was critical of my script, but they were able to back it up and offer concrete, logical suggestions to improve the work. Home has been in my blood for 4 years now. It’s gone through several drafts during that time and I think now after reading Bluecat’s comments, I was determined to refine the script once again.