I Learn Something New Every Day

How Shakespeare Created Mystery Science Theater 3000, And Other Dramatic Musings

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Yesterday’s Express-News had a very nice write-up from Deborah Martin about one of my favorite Stone Oak Youth Theatre activities: the San Antonio Stage Script Study Group.  She did a great job covering the origins of the group, so I encourage everyone to visit the link to learn more about what it is and how it came to be.

To sum up: the group’s a book club, with an exclusive focus on plays.  Each month, we meet to discuss, analyze, and share our experiences of a play, and at the end of the meeting, one of us gets to choose the next month’s play.  On the last Wednesday in June – having already read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Uncle Vanya – it was my turn to lead the way. Continue reading →

In Which I Find Myself A Tourist In My Own Hometown

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“Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will lie there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.”

– Binx Bolling’s theory of “certification”, from Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer

It’s not a little sobering when you realize how little you truly know the place where you were born.  Granted, I’m not the most well-travelled of men, but having lived in San Antonio most of my life, I’d have preferred to believe that I don’t need to have it certified, made “real”, by seeing it onscreen.

But as my old catchphrase goes, I learn something new every day… Continue reading →

A Fool And His Honey, or: On The Hazards Of Sitting In The Front Row When One Of Your Best Friends Is The Star

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It’s likely an obvious statement I’m about to make, especially if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, but one of the things I love about my job is getting to follow, chart, even influence the evolution of a creative work.  When the film premieres, when the play opens, that’s the beginning for the audience, but for those of us on the other side of those seats, it’s just one more step in a process that never really ends.

And when you’re in on that process from the beginning, you know that from conception to reception, the slightest change can make all the difference.  Which brings us to the Cameo Theatre.

Continue reading →

Three Yellow Roses, Day 2: Shop Talk

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Given the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nature of production schedules, it’s pretty standard for effect to precede cause when you’re putting a story on film.  The cast, crew, and locations you need for Scene 3 might only be available before those you need for Scenes 1 and 2, so it’s often a necessity to work out of sequence.  So it’s been with Three Yellow Roses.

Having filmed a steak dinner on our first day of production, Tuesday evening brought us to Green Fields Market to film the shopping trip before said dinner, and another trip taking place some time after it.  Given that one of the themes of the film is the relationship between past, present and future, it seems fitting that our production schedule brings them together as it does. Continue reading →

The Road To “Action”

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The slate we’ll be using on our next film is a really nice affair.  It’s a dry-erase clapboard (very like the one you’ll see to your left) that Nikki picked up at MPS Studios in Dallas as a birthday present in 2009.

And tonight we’ll be using it to call “action” on one of our projects for the first time. Continue reading →

Always A Learning Experience

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One of my earliest experiences in the PrimaDonna universe (or could I say “PrimaDonniverse”?) was a table read for a film then known as Dream Healer (which ultimately premiered as Dream Healing).  It was a great experience, and looking back, the foreshadowing of the moment was so blatant only someone like me could have missed it, as I met so many people I’d ultimately come to know as friends and colleagues.

Among those actors (as the Dream Healer herself) was a girl by the name of Gabi Walker.  I was genuinely impressed by the talent she showed at that reading, and even more impressed with her poise and character.  So it was hardly a surprise to learn that she was one of Nikki’s students.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that working with kids was an important part of my PDP experience well before the beginning of it all.  And as you’ve probably figured out from recent posts, that continues today. Continue reading →

On Next Generations, or: Meanwhile…

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As you can likely see from my last couple of posts, the year to date has been one for expanding our creative horizons.  And while I’ve been working on building my résumé as a practicing screenwriter, my boss has also found a new venue for her passions and mission… Continue reading →

Me And Steven Moffat

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Writing is really, really, really difficult. Have I mentioned that recently? Difficult. There, I mentioned it again. DIFFICULT!!!

– given the post’s title, is it completely redundant of me to say this is from Steven Moffat?

It’s weird to see such a comment about writing coming from someone who’s so damn good at it.  But as a writer who still classifies himself as Aspiring and therefore can’t believe he shares a calling with the guy who gave us the likes of “Blink” and “The Big Bang”, I hope I understand where he’s coming from. Continue reading →

Epilogues And Prologues

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If you’re in San Antonio, it’s hard to think of a better place to spend New Year’s Eve than the roof of the Cameo Theatre.  You get a great show, and if there’s room for you up there, you get a fantastic view of the downtown fireworks.  Much as I loathe the term “bucket list”, seeing in a new year at the Cameo, alongside friends both old and new, really is one of those things you just have to do.

For me, standing on that roof last night, watching those fireworks unfurl, became a strange kind of meditative experience, much like staring into the candle.  That moment when the old year and the new meet is one of the few times when you can simultaneously look back and look forward.  And there was a lot to look back upon in 2010, just as I know there’ll be a lot to look forward to in 2011. Continue reading →