Hijacked!

“Party Girls” is my first stage play, and it’s a real departure for me—a teen comedy/horror short. It was recently produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. and it got lots of laughs and a good review. So, why do I feel like the story was hijacked?

Here’s what happened: The director and actors ignored all my stage directions (and some of the dialog) and made the whole tone much cruder than I imagined. When the girls, zombies who talk (I’ve taken liberties with the genre), come out of their initial death trance they’re gagging. In the production when they gagged, they spit out disgusting cottage cheese with food coloring. It certainly looked like vomit, so they nailed the special effects. At the end, when the girl stabs the boy, it was done in full view and viciously and with a very realistic version of his disemboweled gut (more disgusting food). That’s the moment in the script where I’d indicated that they fall out of view and she stabs him accidentally. She says, “Oops.” I disliked the SHAUN OF THE DEAD tone. I’m pretty sure that, as produced, any of the subtle jokes were lost in the gore.

I really don’t like the current crop of zombie films or horror in general, and think that our culture has grown too fond of violence as entertainment. You and I are both wondering how I ended up contributing to the coarsening of our culture. At first I resented the fact that the others had hijacked my story and made it into this crude and violent piece. Then I had to accept the fact that I was the one who wrote “Hillary stabs Calvin” and no matter how accidental the actors might play the stabbing in the future, I’ve added one more to the body count.

SO, I’ve given considerable thought to what my character is really after. It’s NOT about revenge or the desire to eat human flesh. That’s just not interesting to me. I think I have a solution. However, the audience laughed at the crude version. So was my younger director more tuned into the audience and serving them? I don’t know if they’ll laugh or yawn when I rebuild the story with my retro sensibility.

Break Time

Two weeks ago I turned in a 143 page manuscript. The following weekend I watched my short play in a "world-premier" four-night run, making changes after every performance.

Last weekend I celebrated with a grand party our city puts on every year: The Lotus Festival -- world class music from all over the world, brought to our backyard. And I still need more playtime.

Back when I've refueled.