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March 31, 2008

I arrived in Colquitt Thursday night to do some more shooting on our upcoming Film "A Garden of Gratitude". This film is part documentary, part theater, part film, and it's core is more like a spiral unfolding-- at its heart are both how we create community performance projects with community AND the story of The Garden of Gratitude from last year's Swamp Gravy play, "Visiting Hours".

March 22, 2008

I’ve finished the rewrites for my Franklin County play, titled "The Last hard Times". Writing for community performance projects is very much a juggling act. I’m writing a dramatic piece out of stories of the people. And in order to involve at a high level all areas of the community, I’ve got to include stories with agency of these people. They will show up to participate and perform in the project if they see themselves somewhere within it. If there’s not a role for a strong woman in the show, we won’t get strong women to participate in the "general cast". If we don’t have strong roles for kids, we’ll lose them. If we don’t have strong roles for people from the smaller towns within the county, we’ll lose them, and it will cease to be a county-wide project. Whatever demographic there is, I’ve got to find a way to effectively write for that group, while also creating a cohesive, entertaining piece of writing.

March 12, 2008

I was putting the finishing touches on the first draft for Franklin County’s play until 7 minutes before the first Public reading.

I had a scene. A pretty powerful scene. But something was bugging me. I felt like, because I’d received the stories, I could use it. But then again, I reminded myself, well, in other projects, stories such as this can become problematic. All good plays have tension. And all of our good projects grow along the edge of tension we walk together—and we’re constantly expanding that edge. But I pulled back. I rewrote the final scene, about a moment in time when the community was dealing with some civil rights issues. “This is their first play, Jules. This is their first project. Do they trust you enough to do this, or will there be huge resistance?” That kept going through my head on the (extremely bumpy) flight into Atlanta after opening the Swamp Gravy show on Thursday.

So, I pulled back. I rewrote. I remembered the resistance we faced in other projects. After we landed and arrived in town, the others went and ate dinner while I stayed home, re-writing. And I finished 7 minutes before we were to be reading the play.