The May/June Have To Do List

Things to Do in May:

1)       Close STRANGERS, BABIES Saturday night.

2)       Deliver Stage design for Malta BLASTED to Adrian on Monday.

3)    Interview peeps for RG Company membership Saturday and Monday.

4)       Read Paul Pakler's plays.

5)       Finish first half hour of "Snuff" edit and watch with Bryan, "Greg", Keith and Scott. (Just a paltry ten minutes left to edit to hit that goal.)

6)       Pay NOCTURNE royalties.

7)       Pay California taxes…first year I've had to pay in years!

8)       Get hi-def BLASTED pic of Bryan for Adrian next week.

9)       Pay car registration.

10)    Pay Bryton the $300 I owe it.

11)   Lose 4 pounds (2 lbs. a week is the goal.)

Things to Do in June:

1)       Finish second half hour of "Snuff" edit.

2)       Re-read Sarah Kane's PHAEDRA'S LOVE for possible 2009 production.

3)       Read Jesse Berger's adaptation of REVENGER'S TRAGEDY for possible 2009 production. If it sucks or costs too much for royalties, start working on my adaptation.

4)       Go to auditions for my one-act play "What is the Word (with apologies to Samuel Beckett) " for SEVEN DEADY SINS June 9 and 10.

5)       Start writing "Finger Bang" screenplay with Greg.

6)       Work on that PSA.

7)       Lose 8 pounds.

Currently listening : Spring Awakening (2006 Original Broadway Cast) By Duncan Sheik Release date: 2006-12-12

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The St. James Cavalier

As I'm in the process of  putting together a set design for the Malta production of BLASTED, here are three pictures of the beautiful theatre I'll be working in, come October.

The upstage area.

The playing area viewed from over the upstage area balcony.

The playing area and stage from the opposite balcony.

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A few thoughts on that Supreme Court decision

I'm in the lunch room at work this morning, making coffee.
Two of the guys are eating donuts and watching the news on the large flat screen TV.
One of them is confused about the gay marriage debate. "Why are they talking about Massachusetts? Isn't that a done deal?"
He apparently hadn't heard the news yesterday.
When the other guy apprises him--grunting out some caveman comments which I only half-heard--the questioner's face droops and you can see an "Oh, fucking hell" look on his face.
Sarcastically spoken: "Oh, that's because California's sooo radical, isn't it?"
I piped in with, "You got it."
Nothing more is said, but you could slice and dice the tension/anger in the air.
I was ready for a fight and was rapidly rehearsing about what/how I would announce that I was queer and that they were fucking assholes for what they were saying.
Nothing happened.

******

Read any on-line discussions about this in the past day or two?
Hateful, hateful, hateful.
Often with a "God hates the sin, hates the sinner" component.
I can't read these any more.

******

I'm wondering what will happen when the proposal for the Constitutional Amendent to ban gay marriages shows up on the ballot in November. Will it pass? If it does, it trumps the Supreme Court decision. How much support is that piece of legislation going to get?
Fact of the matter is, that much of the progessive attitudes towards gay issues from straights is lip service...when they actually punch the card in the privacy of the voting booth, they circle the wagons around their selfish interests and vote accordingly or even worse...simply don't vote at all.
I'm not very confident--not matter how much I love my straight friends--that they'd actually go to the wall for me/us on this.

******

"Greg" emailed Bryan and I to see if Bryton would be willing to put our money and action where our mouth is, and help produce/shoot/edit some anti-Amendment PSAs.
We've agreed and are just waiting on the details.
If you'd like to particpate, let me know.
First concrete activist-y thing I've done in years.

******

I told Peter that if the Amendment doesn't happen, that I'll officially ask him to marry me.

Currently reading : God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything By Christopher Hitchens

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The embrace of beautiful things Part 2

The long tracking shots in Gus Van Sant's film Elephant.

Anti-war protests.

Greg Louganis diving. (Possibly one of the most beautiful air ballets I've ever witnessed.)

French culture, but especially actor Louis Garrel.

The bright yellows of sunflowers.

The movie and the novel Fight Club.

Posters from ACT-UP's artistic wing, Gran Fury. 

The black and white elegance of James Nachtway's war photography.

Stupid pictures involving kittens.

A bald Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta.

Coming soon: The Ugly Things List.

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The embrace of beautiful things Part 1

The forces of darkness--geo-politics, the pursuit of "happiness"/wealth, the day-to-day grind--distract us from noticing just how much loveliness surrounds us.
With my morbid sensibility, I often forget this.
To celebrate this, I have attached pics and brief descriptions of things and people that catch my eye and have some substance behind them.
Beauty is such an individual thing that I'm interested/intrigued by what YOU think is beautiful.
Please let me know if you blog about this. I don't subscribe to everyone, so keep me posted.
Once I got started, I found too many to put in one blog, so expect a second one shortly.

Jackson Pollack painting...which amazes me even more than the finished product.

The blood-spurting, bullet-riddled, slow motion ending of The Wild Bunch.

The blissful tranquility of whirling dervishes.

Ingrid Bergman.

The mocking of Republicans.

Anarchist thinking.

Westminster Abbey.

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Movies to See, Books to Read, Plays to Read

When I'm between projects--or working on a long-term one like SNUFF--I consume a lot of movies and books to keep re-charging my creative batteries.
While most of the summer's movies sound like Hollywood is just recycling its own shit, I am anxious to see the following indies:

Errol Morris is the king of docs and this one tackles the Abu Ghraib pics. I'll suspend my War Fatigue for this one.

Julia Sweeney's one-woman show about her turn to atheism (something that's been kind of knocking around in my head a lot recently...but more on that later...)

Queer film maker Tom Kalin back in action with his first full-length film since 1992's Swoon.

Bill Maher goes cross-country to ask people about God.
And these two studio flicks look like they might be fun:

Ledger's kind of last stand.

This looks more like a video game than its anime roots would indicate, but still a very, very cool one.
I just bought a copy of Christopher Hitchens' contentious 2007 book and expect it to show up from Amazon in a week. (Yeah, there's a theme going on here.) :

And last, but not least, Phil Ridley has a new play coming out in two weeks. While I can't see it this time around--having to save my vacation time for Malta--I'm anxious to read it.

With a title like that, what self-respecting provocateur wouldn't want to get their bloody little hands on a copy?

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11 Years

Rude Guerrilla was born eleven years ago, tomorrow.
Yep, we formed on May Day, 1997.
Our first rehearsal at L.A. and Wendy Margrave's Anaheim Hills palatial condo for a read-thru of "In the House of the Lord."
I don't think any of us expected that we'd be critical darlings; that people would actually come to see our work and pay for the privilege of doing so; that hundreds of actors would walk onto our stage and directors direct and Designers design...and so many of them become our friends; that we'd produce 112 plays (with another 10 to go just this season), many of them US Premieres; that the whole thing seems to have just begun yesterday, instead of over a decade ago.
So how we going to celebrate?

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Malta

Producer Adrian has started producing: He just sent me the e-ticket for my London to Malta flight.
Discussing Virgin's Economy vs. Premium Economy seating and then that's  a done deal, too..
Looks like I'm leaving the US October 3, arriving in London on the 4th. A few hours later, head out to Malta, arriving on the 5th.
Start rehearsals for BLASTED on the 6th.
More info to come.

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The Editing Begins

At precisely 6:30 p.m. (perhaps a little bit later if it's too hot in my apartment since the air conditioning went down over the weekend), SNUFF editing gets started.
Keith on the beach...Scott's first monologue...then Steve and Keith, devil ducks and bubble bath.

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LaBute Quote

"Most writers are pussies. We sit back and watch the world go by, writing down the things we find funny or sad while trying to make a buck off it."

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