Okay – some things are too late.  Let’s start there.  You don’t need me to make a list.   We can all come up with examples.  But for the sake of this blog, I can assure you that there are a great many things in your life in this moment that are never too late.  Here’s one moment for me.  Playwright Guild of Canada has a website where playwrights can post their plays.  In order to do so, one must be a member.  I am not a member.  Why you ask?   That’s a really good question.  I wish I had a really good answer.   I don’t.   Laziness (or its cousin, Procrastinator – nice to meet you).   Ignorance.  Or maybe just plain creative doubt (aka – the tortured artist).  Are my plays good enough to be put on a site for others to have access?  Whatever the reason, I never became a member.   End of  story.  Get over it.  Move on.

But it’s never too late…at least in this moment.   I’m in the process of becoming a member.  And the two plays above will be up on the Playwright’s Guild site once I do.  ANIMAL and BLUE have been re-written several times over.  They both hold a special place in my heart as there were countless readings, with many different actors involved over a period of  several years.

Animal was performed at the Alumnae Theatre under the Fireworks Festival.  Up to that point, I can’t count how many re-writes I did, but more were to come.  The production at the Alumnae was instrumental in the re-writes that followed.  The play that it is today, barely resembles the first draft I ever wrote of this script (which back then was called Circus).  That draft was totally experimentally.  I was trying to convey how crazy mental illness can be.  One re-write led to another and the play evolved.  Although there are many elements that remain the same from the production at Alumnae, the play is a different beast altogether.  The tone is not as harsh and it is a story that is more accessible to an audience.  I’m finally at a point of letting this play go and look forward to sharing it on Playwrights Guild.   Who knows, maybe some company would be happy to stage it.

Blue was performed at the The Village Playhouse under the direction of Jane Miller.   This production was an absolute pleasure.  After it was performed, I spent some time re-writing Blue and shopping it around to theatre companies, but there was little interest in anyone picking it up.  I tucked the play away, but in preparation of getting it on Playwright Guild, I re-read Blue several times over and was able to cut 10 pages.  That’s significant, but most of the cutting was to do with direction (and very minor tweaking of dialogue).  I am still learning to keep stage direction to a minimum in plays (and in screenplays for that matter).  I was surprised how much superfluous action was written in Blue.  The play now flows and the dialogue sings off the page.  This 3-hander (one act – no intermission, 90 minutes), would be perfect for some company to perform.

Both Animal and Blue have complex parts for actors and for a director, the challenge of staging these pieces is contrasting the dark humor with the high dramatic stakes.  I love writing drama with highly dysfunctional characters.  Comedy on the other hand is much harder.  I always knew this, but when I took the tv workshop with Ins Choi last month, I was reminded how difficult it is to write comedy and yet still be dramatic at the same time.  If you can make an audience laugh their heads off and then dramatically tug at their hearts and make them cry, that truly is a gift.   I’m in the very early stages of brainstorming some new ideas for a play and I want it to be a comedy (mostly…let’s not get carried away).  My aim is to write something outside my comfort zone which brings me to this quote by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Holley Gerth:

Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little.

In preparing to write this play, I rented five Norm Foster plays from the library.   Norm Foster is a Canadian playwright whose plays get staged all across Canada.  Theatre companies love his work.  What is it that they love?  Whatever one feels about his writing, the man is making a deceit living writing plays.  Take a look at his website and all the plays that he has written.  And so I better get writing and quite procrastinating as I would like this new play to one day in the not so distant future to join Animal and Blue on the Playwright’s Guild site.

Speaking of procrastination, I leave you with this hilarious quote by writer Douglas Adams (best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) that perfectly sums up the writing experience and made me LOL.  Until next time, do what you can to make this day a great one (or at the very least a good one):

It takes an awful lot of time not to write a book.