A Santa Diaries Update

The Play…

Last week I met Laura at her office and we had a Skype session with our manager, Margie Farmer. On Monday night Margie met with fifteen people from the Liberty Showcase Theatre group who are in discussion with us about producing The Santa Diaries this Christmas.

We were supposed to Skype with Margie on Tuesday, but couldn’t get through to her. I was worried. Turns out she was at the chiropractor’s office and today was Skyping from a recliner, her back on ice. When you Skype the video isn’t always synced with the audio, but being able to see the person you are talking to is so much better than a phone conversation.

Margie said she enjoyed meeting the theater team and we are all hoping it will work out. They are community theater all the way – sponsored by the Owings Mills Recreation and Parks Council of the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks.

This summer they performed Godspell.

Since our play is about the community created by community theater, Laura and I love the idea that this could be a true community production and collaboration.

For many years our manager, Margie Farmer, was the head of the Music Department at Baltimore’s St. Paul’s School for Girls. In that capacity she worked on and produced many plays. She has a wealth of experience that will help us. For example, she suggested we prepare a Director’s Book which has the script, cast lists, music, staging suggestions, prop lists, and on and on. In future we can sell this to the people producing the play. She said she always bought the most complete Director’s Book available for any show she was doing and is going to send us examples.

After our Skype session Laura and I spent time on line where we found the same Marley dog costume the Avalon purchased for their production. This information will go in the Director’s Book. We liked the iconic look of the Dalmatian dog costume. It was big and bold on stage and the costume was only $125. Even a small theater can afford that.

The Movie…

Our movie script for The Santa Diaries has been revised using all the terrific suggestions we got from our script consultant Dara Marks during out four hour phone consultation last month. Next week it goes back to Dara again and on August 14th we have our final consultation. Then we spend more time tweaking. In the meantime Laura has been researching where and how to send the script. The Santa Diaries will live on.