Hello everyone. I hope our technical difficulties are over. I'm so over them. Thanks again to Crazytown for allowing me to spew my rhetoric all over the place.
I have shameless self-promotion right now:
Two of my plays, English Only and Ice Cream Sisters were recently chosen to be a part of Protest Plays, which is kinda self-explanatory.
You can find English Only on here. And Ice Cream Sisters here.
Anyways, continuing with the theme of the unreal, I just wrote a play about syllables.
syl·la·ble
ˈsiləb(ə)l/
noun
A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; e.g., there are two syllables in water and three in inferno.
The internet gods (Google) provided said definition. Now, there are many, many syllables to choose from. Anyways, I chose one that exists in multiple languages: ya.
In Korean it is written as 야 and can be used as an attention-getter like "hey." Ex) 야, 바보야! "Hey, stupid!"
I don't know why he takes nearly 4 minutes to explain this. Nor do I know who his coke/meth supplier is.
Now this brings us to Dutchja, pronounced the same as the others. This, as in many Germanic languages means "yes." Ex) Q: Ga je naar huis? Q: Are you going home? A: Ja, ik gaa. A: Yes, I'm going. See? Simple.
I think the Dutch are using the opposite of cocaine/meth. And they're not nearly as popular.
For a more restricted and subtle ya, one must venture into Spanish. There it has several meanings, but for the play it means "already" or "now." Ex) Ya estoy aquí. = I'm already here. Needless to say, Spanish ya doesn't say much in the play.
See? Jose can explain FOUR uses of "ya" in Spanish in the same amount of time it took Justin to explain "hey."
Now, Indonesianya ventures in. It also means "yes." How imaginative. Ex) Ya, aku mengerti. Yes, I understand. I've given the Indonesian ya character the benefit of being a deity. Keeps things interesting.
If Victor can say "yes" in Indonesian, so can you.
The idea was to have them fight - via a stressed-out translator. Let's see if that works. The play can be read here.
Tell me what you think.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo isavailable here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December 2015 as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe last summer.
10 minute plays Hera and Juno Go Shooting and Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing were performed at Grass Valley, California's Nugget Fringe Theatre Festival in January.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
Hi everyone! Welcome to my guest blog. Today's post may be shorter than most. Though maybe not shorter than Don Most. recently I came to the grave realization that perhaps my plays are too realistic - well, some of them. I thought about the plays that have had real (not Fringe or Utah) success.
First off, I received an email from a publisher asking specifically for non-realistic plays. He also complained that he received too many realistic ones.
Back to success or not - these are the plays that have done well...
Now compare this to masterpieces like "You Can Cry When You're Dead" By the way, I lost a friend yesterday because of that play. her review turned into an argument (yes, I know it takes two to argue, so I stopped...she didn't). Sigh.
On one level, the reality of a poor Korean woman having potential fathers of her child from three countries was probably nil. Yet it gets rejected all the time. Meanwhile, brine shrimp with squirt guns gets published.
Even the poster art was realistic.
So this suggests that perhaps I should go in the "un-real" direction. Well, I already have. I wrote something called Death of a Chocolate Bar on Good Friday. Guess what it's about?
Can chocolate bars get depressed? Of course they can. Can their have horrid, torrid affairs with clingy ice cubes.
Did you know "ice cube" in Indonesian is "ice stone"?
No actual ice cubes or chocolate bars were melted in the writing of this play.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo isavailable here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December 2015 as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe last summer.
10 minute plays Hera and Juno Go Shooting and Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing were performed at Grass Valley, California's Nugget Fringe Theatre Festival in January.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
Hello world. I've been so stressed out these days. Still, I will be able to post something here. Again, thanks to Crazytown for the opportunity.
Today's lesson is about adaptations. Last December I attended a night of short plays put on by "ANDTheatre" (앤드씨어터) in beautiful Incheon, Korea. This set of plays impressed me very much. They were based on Korean short stories of the 1930s. Well, one of them started with "Rum and Coca Cola" and ended with "Creep." Neither one of these songs are from the 1930s.
Told you it was in December.
I saw a very eclectic approach to adaptation I'd never seen before. They did a superb job. And now for a tangentially related video:
Koreans covering Creep. Welcome to Korean parody comedy. I feel your pain. Trust me, ANDTheatre was much better.
So, armed with a new influence, i.e. "you can still do anything you want and make it cool" for adaptation, I occasionally get inspired. A few weeks ago (I think) I remembered Washington Irving's The German Student.
I googled "Washington Irving memes"
He said "tool" and "constant use." Cue Beavis & Butthead. #tongue
If you don't know the story, I'll summarize:
Nerdboy lives in Paris during the Terror. He meets a nice girl - literally in his dreams. He then meets the same girl crying on the street. He takes her home. They instantly fall in love. He goes out in the morning - gotta buy furniture for the love nest - comes back. She's dead, minus a head. Turns out she was a victim of the Terror. But at the very end, the narrator says he heard the story from an asylum inmate - just giving the thing a skewed unreliable narrator thing.
I originally set out to adapt the thing in the era it was set: French Revolution Block Party. It really didn't lend itself to that, or rather maybe I didn't know what I was doing.
But something did hit me: we will be having our own little Reign of Terror - it will give new meaning to the phrase "White Terror" - I decided to set this play in the near future where president Trump is busy executing drug dealers, Hispanics, LGBT folks and anyone else he hates.
Even though the French Revolution is always a badass setting, putting this story in the near future makes it more immediate.
My theory about the French Revolution being a badass setting...let's put "during the Reign of Terror" or "in the French Revolution" after the titles of some well-known plays:
The Pirates of Penzance in the French Revolution.
August: Osage County during the Reign of Terror.
The Piano Lesson in the French Revolution.
Hamilton during the Reign of Terror.
Dracula in the French Revolution.
And so on. Now the play is set close to our time. The guillotine serves to inspire terror....let's look at a real one from 1794 briefly.
Now to the meat of the story - I decided that this German student would be a woman and she'd be lesbian (that's like two awesome things in one or something). There are multiple reasons for this:
More female actors than male actors.
Sometimes you get "LGBT"-themed calls for scripts.
Trump can be a scary beast when it comes to LGBT rights.
In the story, our German heroine, Friede, could quite possibly be a victim of his Imperial Basketball/fish-faced hatred. She needs to lay low.
I'm also working on outside vs. inside. Do the lights go down? Does she say "it's so cold outside." Any suggestions will help.
Ah, Wilderness! Just kidding. Ah, Headlessness! Now that I think about it, this Irving fella likes decapitation. Anyhow, how do we show a headless girl at the end? Chutes and ladders? I thought about hiding the actress' head with blankets. I asked my wunderkind buddy Ardon Smith for some ideas. Right now blankets it is (or are). Also, anyone with suggestions, please toss them my way.
I should link you to the play. It is unfinished. This bothers me. That audiobook version of the Adventures of the German Student is longer than my play. Cry. Here it is.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo isavailable here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December 2015 as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe last summer.
10 minute plays Hera and Juno Go Shooting and Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing were performed at Grass Valley, California's Nugget Fringe Theatre Festival in January.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
Pleasure having everyone read this week's post. Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Crazytown for the opportunity. When I started doing this back in June, I had no idea I'd still be at it in February. Also, the writing of this blog has gone everywhere from Vancouver to Incheon to Jakarta. Have you ever heard the theory that all big cities are the same except they're in different locations? Just wondering.
I figure most people reading this blog know what minimalism is, so I won't dwell on it too much.
A 62 year-old man painted this. A minimalist "masterpiece," it hangs in the National Gallery in Ottawa, where I actually saw it with my friend Bharati Auglay. For "minimalism" it sure used a lot of paint.
Back to the story. I was thinking about theatre and how cheap everyone seems. Don't believe me? See how many theatres don't pay royalties, like these folks in Tucson.
Most plays I write already have a "minimalist" set, so I figured why not do more? Or less? I'm confused.
Here you've got two characters - every line consists of one word. It ain't pretty, but maybe someone digs it. Have a read. Feel free to comment.
Actually, I'm intrigued enough by this I think I'll do the same in Korean.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo isavailable here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe in the summer.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
I'm back. You're back. We're all back. Welcome to Crazytown. I always want to thank the people who allow me to write this wee blog.
Now I may have touched upon this before, so please forgive me if I go into overload. I like me some 10 minute plays. Actually, I love writing them. I have nearly 50 ready to go (I think).
Now a few weeks ago, before my brush with food poisoning, I volunteered to be part of a Fringe activity where I'd write a play in the space of 2 hours and that play would be performed later that night. I did this long distance.
I googled "long distance." I hate you, Internet. Via here.
Basically, a playwriting group I belong to received frantic calls for help to be a part of said Fringe program. There would be no pay but the plays would definitely be staged. It's been a while since my work has been on stage.
"I was waiting for Bryan's next play when the weirdest thing happened: I died and all my flesh fell off." Here.
Well, like the dumbass that I am, I agreed to write a play based on a prompt. 10 minute play. No problem. Right? The prompt was unwanted change. I asked for and received demographic information about the players.
I ended up writing a masterpiece entitled Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing. It could've been worse - Rudi and Azalea Go Fisting
The unwanted change was that Rudi had to adjust to fly fishing - because Rudi - goofball Rudi - lost the last worm in the county. He drops it. The fishers (nice word) learn that the creek is where an old dirty, dirty mill used to be.
Just when Rudi gets the hang of fly fishing, something terrible involving a mutant worm happens. It's a comedy. Read it here.
Like a triple dumbass, I agreed to write a second play. The artistic director sent me the prompt two hours later than agreed. Sigh. This time the prompt was the rather unwieldy too many balls in the air.
Above ^^ What happens when you google "Too many balls in the air"? - a woman dies. Via this place.
Yeah. So I took that and ran with it. Hera and Juno's Shooting Party was the result. Basically Greco-Roman goddesses Hera and Juno go target shooting. Shooting planets. You can read it here.
Not shotguns. Google, you have failed me for the last time. Via here.
So I wrote these two plays - and had the following exchange with the artistic director. I had previously asked him to somehow document the performances.
"What was the audience response to the plays I wrote? And the actors? Any feedback?"
"Honestly, the whole thing was a whirlwind. Shows were generally well received. Thank you so much for participating."
Uh, you're welcome totally. For giving me a chance at a performance I have no proof exists.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo isavailable here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe in the summer.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
What does one do when rejection hits? Well you could do a google search. This post isn't about that. If you want to be in arts/theatre/acting/writing/cowboying you should deal with rejection.
I wasn't sure where this was headed, but I'll unload a year's worth of rejection on this post. Maybe it'll be cathartic for me to relive past rejections. Maybe it will inspire someone to keep on going. Maybe none of the above.
I'm still dealing with food poisoning and haven't really contributed much to the written word in over 10 days. Yuck.
Anyways, I've noticed a lot of wannabe or newbie writers have terribly thin skins. That's fine. Go quit and cry in the corner. Please.
Your script sucks ass AND you're a horrible person.
So, in semi-order, here are screenshots of a year's (9 Feb '16 - now) worth of rejection screenshots. Bear in mind these are the ones who actually answered me or sent rejection emails. Countless others didn't because they were busy bathing in the blood of dead writers.
Eminem, artistic director.
And now for the rejections:
I know some of these writers. Good for them.
And that, children, concludes a year's worth of literary rejections. I'm sure I missed a few - not as eagle-eyed as I used to be. Maybe I should share my OKCupid inbox next week.
Anyways, have a great week -
Bryan
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo available here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe in the summer.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus.
Hello every folks. I'm here recovering from food poisoning. I do have enough strength to carry on, thank God. Albright in a sucky sometimes I wish I were dead sort of way.
I know our hero has been kind of a dick lately, but I didn't feel inclined to write about him. I did write emails to my congressmen. Not that they care.
So we've got one topic today (and a new script).
Feedback
I wrote a play - just for the Hell of it entitled "The Liberation and Sexual Satisfaction of a Wadded Up Piece of Paper" - my life had taken some rather absurd twists and I figured I should write something absurd as well. It's a dumb play. It's supposed to be silly because it's about a wadded up piece of paper and a broken cup.
Anyways, you should read the play. It's totally about a piece of paper stuck in a waste basket being liberated by a broken cup.
It's Uncle Bryan back with more salivating adventures from the land of playwriting. I always like to thank the folks at Crazytown who run this blog for being so supportive. Recently I learned I can write whatever I like here and this week will be rant-time. Because who doesn't love ranting?
Today's rant has to do with those "24 Hour Theatre" festivals or shorter. I'm talking about places that perform plays that were written and memorized and supposedly rehearsed within 24 hours.
My first taste of this was in November '14 I believe - I signed up for one in Chicago. I wasn't getting paid. That's my own damn fault. Anyhow, I had to write a play based on the prompt "silver linings" - as well as particulars of the actors. In fact, one actor emailed me saying she'd seen "Silver Linings Playbook" - which didn't matter to me because I was writing a play about silver linings in general, not a movie.
Yes, I wrote a play about a dead Chihuahua. Via here.
And of course the next day I was told --- hmm I think I can copy and paste the email here.
"Dear Bryan,
I regret to inform you that several actors dropped this morning and we are unable to produce your script at this time. I would like to keep Pedro's Dead in our archives for future use if that is OK with you? I truly apologize for this but circumstances were out of my control.
Thank you for your contribution,"
Several actors? There were only two to start with.
Flash forward to last weekend. Some goober-ball in California needed playwrights to do 3 HOUR PLAYS - OMG let's write a play in an hour and see what happens when we perform it two hours later.
Well, I told this gentleman that the times didn't work for me because I was in a place called "not-California" - he was flexible - gave me different times, I still had to complete the script within the allotted time like everybody else. Yay.
First script went swimmingly. My prompt was "unwanted change." I wrote about a worm fisherman dealt with the struggles using a fly. And battled a giant worm. It's a lovely play and may be read here.
Yeah I wrote a play about fishing and a mutated worm. Via here.
Okay fine. He needed another play. The next morning I was ready to go. Except he was two hours late in sending it to me. That was dumb. His prompt this time was "too many balls in the air." - yeah, good luck with that. I wrote about Hera and Juno planet-hunting. It's awesome. You can discover it here.
I wasn't paid for these plays. I know that. Just wanted to write and have my work performed. I asked for any documentation of the plays - you know, photos, vide, any playbills. Of course none were forthcoming.
So we had this exchange via text:
What was the audience response to the plays I wrote? And the actors? Any feedback?
He gave a non-answer:
Honestly, the whole thing was a whirlwind. Shows were generally well-received. Thank you so much for participating.
Like I filled out a fucking survey.
This blasé experience pushed me into pursuing my short stories and novels. I help a guy out and he can't even be bothered to let me know how the went. Bollocks.
Hello everyone. Again, I want to thank Crazytown for supporting me and my rambling madness. This week I had to find a new place to live. I found it yesterday and I will move in later today. All is mostly well in the world. But this blog may end up being shorter than normal. I hope that's okay with everyone.
For starters, I have good news. My play made it to the finalists - top 60 out of over 500. I'm so gosh darn proud I'm pasting the announcement below:
Dear Playwright,
The Parish Players Producers and Play Festival Reading Committee thank you for your submission to the Ten Minute Play Festival for 2017. We enjoyed reviewing more than 500 entries. The selection of 60 finalists was a challenging task, indeed.
The committee is pleased to inform you that your entry was placed amongst the finalists. The plays that will be produced this year will be selected from the finalist list by directors. Even if not chosen for production this year, these works are re-entered in the finalist category for re-consideration in future festivals.
If your play is to be produced this year, you will be notified by email and the Parish Players website will list your piece on this year’s program: http://parishplayers.org/
Congratulations on being a finalist!
Isn't that cool? All my fans in Vermont can see it. Maybe Bernie will be there. I don't think my true love Huma Abedin will be there. It's not like she has anywhere else to be. And fuck this guy.
Back to this week's play - here we've got it all - in a scii-fi.
Exploitation in mines - women miners are routinely sexually harassed. And they get very, very sick. And it's not only in South Africa, but in other countries, too. In the sci-fi, the workers are selected to be miners at a young age.
Drug abuse - the substance the Earthlings crave and the Uranians mine - orgasmic lube - has all the markings of addiction. This should be very straightforward. We see this in the relationship between the US and Mexico. The US consumes the drugs and pays for it - Mexico grows the drugs and then the US expects Mexico to fight a bloody war not to grow and supply drugs.
Of course, keeping your workers drugged (i.e. the pink leaf) makes it so they can't really fight back. The truth about zombies is less "Walking Dead" and more "MacDonald's worker." And I don't mean James Franco.
Ripe for revolt? And Italian, too. Fascisti! Via here.
Occasionally workers get pissed off and revolt. One of my favorite unions is the IWW.
If only the Dramatists Guild was that tough. By the way, after my play's reading in December 2015, our local Guild rep stopped talking to me. Good times, right?
I'm noticing this post isn't full of glamorous photos or sexy videos. All the sexiness is in the play, which you can read here: Chew the Pink Leaf
Thanks again for reading. Will have something better next week.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo available here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe in the summer.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published later this year by Smith & Kraus.
Welcome back to America's favorite gameshow and pastime, Dumb Political Theatre. As always, I'm indebted to Crazytown for being so supportive and awesome the six months (!) I've been here. So shocked, so loved.
This post still comes within the realm of politics. I'm awfully tired of Trumpgasm Trumpapalooza Trumpageddon. This week won't feature his imperial majestyfascistic wanker President-elect Trump. Yeah, yeah don't cry a boner, okay? I promise next week will be 100% more Nazi-riffic Trumptatstic, okay?
This post can help those who wonder about the so-called "creative process" when it comes to writing. I say so-called because it is arguably neither of those things - but anyways....welcome to my life, amigos.
Several days ago I learned about a call for submissions [note: here is where I lost my original post because I didn't save]
Anyhow, this call for submissions required that 1. Drugs be used in the play and 2. Someone die in space.
I've never taken any drugs nor have I ever died. I figured it was a perfect match for me.
"The Runaways Lab Theatre is accepting play submissions for 2017’s Doing Drugs And Dying In Space Short Play Festival.
The rules for submission are as follows: 1. The play must involve characters on or offstage engaging with mind altering substances 2. The play must involve characters dying in space (ie: on the space station, on another planet, floating in the void; anywhere but Earth) 3. The play must be at longest 10 pages long. For thematic reference, please consult: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=MoZ_Lg21b14"
Excellent. I knew this would be fun. And it grew on me. I was in a city that rhymes with Bakarta and was checking out their interesting coffee shops. They seem to have a touch of nostalgia going on for pre-independence days, or Tempo Dulu...
Did I mention they were dicks? No. Well, I just did. So, we've established a few things:
The Dutch were horrible governors who forced Indonesians to grow coffee, inadvertently creating a strong coffee culture with some awesome coffee shops in the process.
The Dutch were horrible governors who established a monopoly on opium and other drugs and sold them to Indonesians. Indonesia still has a serious drug problem.
What's an Indonesian to do? In two previous posts (here and here) I studied the Indonesian Revolution - sounds like time for a revolution, right?
Enter our two heroines, Mindah and Hermawati. Nice, middle-class colonial ladies who hang out at the coffee shop, circa 1928. They talk about weather and family. Only one is interested in politics.
That is until they are kicked out because some snotty European wants in. Then the rage, hatred and addiction takes over. They kick the gong around.
Well, not sure Cab Calloway was in Batavia, but whatever.
So our gals smoke opium and this sends them straight into outer space....where a Dutch person will die.
BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Virginia Beach Incest Time Machine was recently published here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe in the summer.
Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published later this year by Smith & Kraus.
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