Wiseacres West Blog

I started a theater company.

In the past, I’ve accidentally created a theater company (and you’re on its website!) And I’ve joined companies already in progress (thanks First Seen!) Of course, I’ve worked for others. But this is the first time I’ve intentionally done it. Started a company, ground up.

We’ve got a mission:

To serve its member playwrights by providing ongoing workshops, dramaturgical and administrative support and production opportunities – on the playwright’s terms.

And a vision:

Kyle T. Wilson, Katherine Murphy and Tira Palmquist begin the ExAngelus Playwrights’ Collective with a small but powerful idea:

     we will do it ourselves.

I’ll stop there. You can read the rest on our website.

The real proof:

The ball is rolling! On Sunday, October 2nd, 2001, Kyle T. Wilson’s make a whisper kicked off our, well, our everything: Our reading series, A Month of Sundays, and our company. And what an inauguration it was! The house was full, the audience loved it, and the script told tales of small theater in LA in a small theater in LA by a small theater company in LA. So meta.

Last Sunday was just the beginning. Every Sunday in October you can see a new play in our Month of Sundays. (A reading of my script, Box Store Cowboys, will happen in January. Crap. Time to rewrite!)

Last but not least — Thank you Psychic Visions Theatre for hosting our entry into the world.

Trying to remember when we started studying Tennessee Williams, I looked back at my email trails. The traffic started in January.  That means we studied Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams III for nearly half the year.  Reading so much Williams, I felt like I was in grad school again. (To me, that’s a good thing.)  Some classics so great to be reminded of, some lesser known plays from the ignorable to the surprisingly different. (My favorite surprise was Kingdom of Earth (think Sam Shepard meets Tennessee.))

You see, I’m more comfortable in my head. I’ve loved immersing myself in the studying. Unfortunately, being in your head in improv is not a plus. All these years I honed planning and thinking and controlling only thwart my improv. Planning and thinking and controlling works for me at work, saved me with my family, but hinders me when I’m improvising. Here’s my dilemma: I love long-form improv, (never thought I’d say that!), but I need to learn to study the required literature without going to my happy place — my head. Intellectually, long-form seems like the perfect place for me, but I worry that it feeds in to my weakest improv link. (Great. I’m worrying about thinking. This is not a good sign.)

I will continue to try to learn long-form, to spin the plates of spontaneity, story-telling, and scholarship. They will wobble. They will crash.  And, really, what’s the big deal if it all crashes?

Part of my “Not Playwrighting” series…

What I know: My father was abandoned as a child.

What I believe: He was emotionally stunted because he was abandoned as a child.

What I know: Starting at the age of six, my grandmother sent my father to live with family and friends of the family, many of them unkind and interested in child labor.

What I believe: She shipped him off because my dad looked like his father (she kept my Aunt Iris with her.)

What I know: My father was three years old — I think — when his father left. I’ll verify this with my brothers. He saw his father once more, at a train station, when he was ten.

What I believe: (Simplified version) Because his father left when he was so young, whenever a man would befriend my father later in life, he never questioned their friendship. He was desperate for their companionship.

What I believe: People smell desperation. Healthy people are repelled by it and parasites are drawn toward it.

What I know: In my lifetime, my father’s two closest friends were con men he met in A.A.; not necessarily good con men, but con men nonetheless.

Friend #1: Let’s call him Dusty, because, well, that was his name: Read the rest of this entry »

Why can’t I finish my play? It’s never been an issue until this current play. I’ve never been prolific, but since I started finishing plays, I’ve never had nothing.

Of course, non-writers are chock full of advice. To them, I say, “Offer no advice, unless asked.” And writers who’ve never been blocked, please don’t tell me what you do.

I’m full of “oh, that won’t work” advice for myself. But one idea just occurred to me. People are always saying “write it out” in one way or another. Of course, when you are blocked, it’s like telling a depressed person to exercise to make them feel better. Ain’t happening. However, since I’ve been doing this silly blog thing, telling stories for myself and my five readers, I’ve been writing – just not playwrighting. So, here’s my thought… Use this blog to write it out… just not as a play. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and addiction lately. So much has been written on the subject, I should probably read some of it. But I’ll probably watch TV instead.

I quit Facebook because I was spending too much time there. I know to most of you it sounds like the most pathetic addition, but I’ve given up almost everything else. All that remains is coffee, TV, cheese, and the computer. Not necessarily in that order.

Photo by Lucas Gattuso, my hubby, taken in Wisconsin. Of course.

Reflecting on 2010 as one does at the beginning of a new year, I realized how I hadn’t written anything except maybe two scenes in a play I’d been diddling with for two years. And to write those two scenes, I’d had to retreat to Northern Wisconsin for several days specifically to write. My retreats are usually where I start or finish something. This time, I sat. No substantial writing. Then I thought again. Oh no, Murphy, you’ve written way more than two scenes. Think of all the status updates and witty comments to other people’s status updates. Think of the time and energy spent on pithy little nothings.

Since 2002, I’d finished a full-length play every other year.  2002: Greater America; 2004: To Hades and Back (Again); 2006: Drug of Choice; 2008: Word of the Day. And 2010 passed without finishing Box Store Cowboys. This has really been eating at me. I have no desire to work on it. And no ideas for something new. Is this because I’m numbing my brain with the Book of Face? Or have I been numbing my brain because I’m done writing plays and don’t want to admit that to myself?

I spent two and a half weeks with no Facebook account. Yesterday I logged back on. I had a reason, but I’ve already forgotten what it was.

Flashback to Halloween 2010.

Luke and I were invited to a Halloween party of one his friends. Neither of us are big fans of parties, but felt mildly obligated and, well, heck, Halloween used to be my favorite holiday – still, I wasn’t feeling it. Until! I was on my way home and realized that I was wearing my father’s flannel. I had a stroke of brilliance (read: laziness): I could dress up as my father for Halloween! It would be simple and I could be comfortable. A pair of Luke’s beige pants, hiked up to my “upper waist,” white t-shirt, light colored shoes, my father’s baseball cap, and, voila, I am my dead father!

(Note: I know that those of you that knew my father are screaming foul at the baseball cap. “It should be a cowboy hat!” I concur, but this was seat-of-the-pants costuming and I had one of his baseball caps, not one of his beloved cowboy hats.)

Drama geek that I am, I needed a prop to finish off the costume. My father was a book NUT. No. Really. He was obsessed. So, of course, the proper prop was a book. Shakespeare? No, cuz he’d read from the giant anthology — not one of those piddly little paper backs – and I wasn’t carrying a behemoth through the whole party. (Oh, if only I’d had his walker to tote it around, but alas…) Luckily I’d inherited a few hundred of his books. I perused the shelf and ran across James Joyce’s Ulysses, chosen not because of his affinity to Joyce, but because it matched my outfit. Something my father never would’ve considered.

I opened the book and inside was a small note written on a sheet of one of those page-a-day calendars.

"The first day of my Death" -- initialled, in case we didn't know it was him.

Flashback to Independence Day 2009.

My father’s evil children (me and my brothers) moved him out of the house he’d lived in for half his life and into an assisted living facility that smelled of COOKIES. Thus, July 4, 2009, had been dubbed “The first day of [his] death.”

Flash forward to Halloween Flashback.

I’m reeling. Punched in the gut by my father’s words. The guilt and horror of what I’ve done, of what I did to this poor, defenseless old man, make me nauseous. I call my brother. He laughs. “What a jerk. So passive aggressive. He’d never say anything to our face.”

Later, I realized the baseball cap of my father’s that I was wearing said “Rule 62.” For those of you that don’t know, that means, “Don’t take yourself so damned seriously.”

I don’t know if those words were to me or to him, but I’ll take’m either way.

Okay. I’m exaggerating.  It weren’t that bad.  I swears.

2010 just started crappy, with my dad dying in January. Mind you, the old coot lived way longer than he should have. It’s just, you know:  He was my dad. Sure, he wasn’t up for the “World’s Greatest Dad” award. It’s just, you know:  He was my dad.

I actually remember getting him a "World's Greatest Dad" something or other from Spencers Gifts in Topanga Plaza.

And then there’s the fact that I was writing a play about my dad in his cooterage. A comedy. His dying went and put a damper on the play. The bastard. Can you believe he did that to me? Went and died while I was making his life make people laugh? (Please note: I am fully aware that I am sealing my own special place in hell by writing these words and those words.) In 2010, I’ve written all of one scene of that damned play. Okay, maybe two. But not much more. Since 2002, I’ve finished a play every other year. Until now. Because instead of writing, this year I’ve opted to watch the telly and play on the puter. 2010, the year of doing too much and doing nothing at all. (And whose fault is that, missy? You can’t blame everything on the old coot. Did he put that remote in your hand? Make you obsessively update FaceBook? I don’t think so. (Oh great. Now my mom is in my head. And I can’t believe my mom called him “the old coot!”))

Good things about 2010 (That’s my mom talking again. She’s making me find positive things): Doing too much, but the too much was so much fun:

• Oodles of improv, and even found an improv home. I’ve become addicted to musical improv. I’m about to sign up for class #3 of musical improv, which is followed by musical improv performance! I’ve never done anything in moderation.
• A new car. With money from my father. Thanks, Dad!
• A writing retreat (where I wrote the one (or two?) scenes of aforementioned not finished coot play.
• The husband got a teaching job in the crappiest job market for teachers since The Enlightenment. That’s a bleeping miracle!

Note to future me: Put down the remote. Step away from the computer. Keep improvising. And write. You don’t have to finish the dad play. Just write.