covid-19: Script reading of “Find the Miracle” on zoom

We’re starting to get the hang of this Zoom deal.

This script-reading brought together 7 actors and a stage manager – no easy feat! Across a few nights, with some availability and bandwidth problems, actors and the stage manager jumped around quite a bit, picking up the lines for different roles. They are so fantastic and I’ll link to their names.

The big take-aways from this reading:

1.     Is Helena Jozef’s 1st wife? 2nd? Does she die and he gets married a 3rd time?

2.     Abby comes from no where. Need to develop the relationship between Abby & Jodi; they should be more buddies than the script currently shows

What’s working:

            “Gold star” goes to the story with Jozef & Helena: Theirs is an epic love story

            “Need to see” goes to the story of the prisoners in the Nazi death camp: This story is adventurous, intense, compelling; it’s very visual, so some of the confusion in the reading may be cleared up on stage

            “The jury’s still out” goes to the current day story: some love the teenagers/some don’t see enough distinctions between the characters

My concerns:

a.     How do I make the current day story as compelling as the prisoner story?

b.     How do I weave the 3 stories as one play, showing 3 generations of 1 family?

This is 1 of 3 collage plays I’m developing. I have no blueprint, which makes this writing very exciting. The scenes are not flashbacks. Rather, the past informs the present as it unravels and forges ahead.

Great THANK YOU’s go to Star Banks, Jonathan Berry, Christian Carter, Jasmine Leonard, Tonya Lynn, Faye Miller, Nik Nemec, Shakira Stephens, Shakara Wright

The prisoner story and the love story from “Find the Miracle,” a script in progress.

The prisoner story and the love story from “Find the Miracle,” a script in progress.

“AIM” script-reading!

Thank you to Kaitlin Marie Cliber and Hannah Brizzi for bringing Eidel and Henda to life in "Aim"! and thank you to Lynnelle Goins for giving three-dimensions to the longest set of stage directions in one-act play history! This is at Pittsburgh New Work's New Play Reading Series.

March 2, 2020

(Left to right): Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel) and Hannah Brizzi (Henda) with Lynnelle Goins (Stage Manager)

(Left to right): Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel) and Hannah Brizzi (Henda) with Lynnelle Goins (Stage Manager)

(Left to right): Hannah Brizzi (Henda), Judy Meiksin (playwright), and Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel).

(Left to right): Hannah Brizzi (Henda), Judy Meiksin (playwright), and Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel).

covid-19: Haley Clancy writes us a poem

On our last weekend out on the town, poet Haley Clancy was working at the Strip District. She played music for my fiancée Edie & me to dance while she wrote us a poem:


So who knew, never did I think
it would be like this
us dancing in the Strip,
I plant you a kiss, because the
day has been scheduled
but you have always been
my date, right here,
I do feel safe
because I love you.
What a thing to say; it’s been
6 years,
but I will say I do,
I will say it for the rest
of my years.

     © 2020 Haley Clancy

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covid-19: Script reading of “Home Economics” on video call using facebook

The first script reading we set up on video call during the covid-19 quarantine was Home Economics, a biographical play about my great aunt Mali Spighel who founded AKIM in Jerusalem, an independent-living organization for intellectually-challenged adults. In one part of the play, Aunt Mali’s family is scattered, running away from Nazi Germany. This scene takes a special meaning during this time of “sheltering-in-place” – whether we’re miles away or just in the next block, we’re unable to get together with family.

Unlike Aunt Mali’s time, though, we have video calls on zoom, What’s App, Skype, fb….

Even so, when deaths from the virus began climbing in China, then Italy, and theaters were shutting down in London & nyc to promote social distancing, I found myself calling my daughter several times a day. She lives in the UK. 

More take-aways from the script reading:

1.     How does the history connect with Mali’s desire that her family remember her son Gabriel when she’s gone?

2.     What segues from the present to the past will make the transitions important to the audience?

3.     What is the purpose of the interaction between Gabriel and his cousin?

4.     What do I want the audience to know when they leave the play?

Kudos to Kim El – playwright | actor | director – for taking the lead with these questions after the reading.

Great THANK YOU’s go to Kim El and Cheryl El-Walker for splitting the roles of Mali Spighel and Ilana, to Jonathan Berry for reading Gabriel, Nik Nemec for reading Cousin, and playwright Faye Miller for reading Stage Manager.

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covid-19: Frankie's line about Newton from "Seeking Transparency" - a script in progress

FRANKIE: It’s frustrating because it’s impossible to finish by deadline. I mean, I can try every metal in the periodic table, but then there’s every possible configuration. How much of it, for how long. Like baking it, you know? If I grow it at different temperatures, they do different things. If I try out the combination of materials in different amounts, they do different things. I need to have all the time in the world, then I could get somewhere. The best part for Newton was when they had a plague and he had to leave school. He got to go away and work for like two years straight and came up with his greatest discoveries.

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