Originally posted on www.doesthisfontmakemelookfat.com on July 9, 2012
Laura and I had our second “notes” meeting last Friday with Tim Weigand and Cecile (Cece) Davis from the Avalon Theatre. They had more perceptive suggestions about layering depth into the dialogue and suggesting physical actions that show the audience something about the character. When you write a screenplay you give an occasional suggestion about how a character reacts, but anything that smacks of telling the director what to do is a big No, No. You only put notes in when it is absolutely imperative that the director keep that piece of business. In writing this play, we are being encouraged to state the way we see action unfolding. I think they want to keep our vision. We’re not prima donnas. We’re happy to have Tim, as director, add his own vision to the production, but we’d love to sit in on the casting sessions.
At one point Tim and Cece jumped out of their chairs and started acting out one of the scenes, adding chunks of improv dialogue. What a treat. We couldn’t write their ad libbed lines down fast enough. They weren’t just doing a table read, they were in character. This made the script come alive. Laura commented later that although we have gotten excellent reviews for our novel (Big Skye Ranch), hearing someone say the lines in our play was a new, thrilling experience. It actually gave me goosebumps.
On Saturday we worked on revisions for five hours. Laura must have had a lot of coffee because we were in some sort of weird humor zone and ended up laughing until we were wiping our eyes. I reread that part this morning. Not sure if it works or not. Dog with an eyepatch – you’ll have to see the show! But we’ll probably leave it in and see what Tim and Cece think. It’s incredible to work with such talented people.
This is so much fun, but the icing on the cake is that we realized once the play is produced we can add “Produced Playwright” to our resumes. That’s pretty cool! Laura is already a “Produced Screenwriter” but neither one of us has done a play before. This afternoon we’ll make a few more tweaks and then email it off to Tim and Cece at the Avalon Theater. I’m sure they’ll have more terrific suggestions. The script gets better with each pass.
The Santa Diaries Project 