With the New Year, brings the creation of a new script.  For the last two years I have been working on seasonal productions that take place over the Christmas and Easter Holidays.  Today, I have just finished an Easter script that will be performed on March 27, 28.  It is a very rough draft, but the basic story is complete.  Now the task is to mold it into something better.  This play has a cast of 12 actors and we begin rehearsals at the end of the mouth.  I enjoy doing these productions because the turnaround is quick.  It forces me to come up with an idea and run with it because I have a strict deadline to abide by.  Sometimes with writing, too much thinking gets in the way and the words cease to flow.

The next words to flow off the page come in the form of my new spec script.  I am satisfied with the outline for this screenplay – the third act, however, is a mess.  This script definitely has an independent feel to it in the same vein as 500 Days of Summer, Lars and the Real Girl and The Savages.  These are all quirky independent films that are funny, but have edge.  That’s how I would describe my new screenplay.  My hope is to enter this script in the 2010 Nichol Fellowships in Screenwriting which is due on May 1.  I have my work cut out for me.

I have yet to look at the re-write of Circus.  This is my two-act play about mental illness.  The plan with this script is to have a second reading sometime in the spring.  We had an enlightening reading of this play back in the fall.  It is a strong story with believable, but very flawed characters and it has a unique structure to the plot.  My purpose is to show how crazy mental illness can be and how it has affected this one family who are desperately trying to find some peace in the chaos.

Blue did not get drawn for the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival, but I did receive some great news to start the year off.  My short film Picture This has been accepted into the Ozark Foothills FilmFest.  I also entered my screenplay Home into this festival and will find out in March whether I place.  Visit the festival site here www.ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org to find more info. The updated schedule will appear online February 15.

So as this New Year begins, the pen remains in the hand and I remain determined to continue exploring my writing, sharing it with others as we all try to make some sense of the human condition.