Tuesday 19 July 2011

Sit down, stand up, repeat

It's been raining a lot round my way.  Rather nice, when one is indoors.  I'd love to say I have been a storm of energy and excitement, that I've been beavering away at the next piece but that would be a lie.  Been reading, tidying and a bit more tidying.  The thing about the build up to a show is that all the little things get neglected.  So I get home and find everything in a pile.  Luckily post-show I'm in an odd state of exhausted restlessness.  Can't settle down but can't do too much.  So tidying occurs.  And I do my tax.  And I transcribe all the changes the script gained during the run to the master copy. 
Mostly with The Natural History of Trolls this involves cuts, minor little edits, the odd punctuation change and occasionally new material.  There is a joke that might get added involving the French Ambassador.  Might not.  I am undecided.  Once these changes are made I will put the script down for a month and come back to it actively looking to rewrite for the December run. 
I have to say that Trolls came out far better than I'd expected.  I didn't tell you, my dear readers from around the globe (Hello Australia!) about my doubts because... well, I didn't want to put you off.  The paranoia of the playwright is intensified with the monologue - you can usually tell if a play works, you can test it, but a monologue needs people, an audience, so you can set yourself up for a real fall. 
The nice thing about the way we staged Trolls was it was an open storyteller format.  The whole cast sat round and watched as well as performed the piece.  So I did get to watch 2/5s of the evening.  And was very pleased with how it went.  So Trolls goes down as a keeper.  That doesn't mean it's perfect.  There are lots of areas that need tightening still, little simplifications.  I know where these bits are because I couldn't remember them very well.  If you dry continually during a section I'm inclined to blame the author.  Talk about setting yourself up for a fall.  Luckily, as I was the author, I could always make something up to get out of it.
Which is cheating.
So next up - well in my still discombobulated state (yes, there is a pun there, sorry) I'm just writing notes for the next story The Ghosts of Lavenham, which will be the keystone to the GhoStoryteller show for October.  I'm generally dancing round the actual writing bit till I'm less exhausted.  This is the time to write notes and plan - so in a day or two I will announce the full schedule for Nov - Jan - all the blurb and dates decided.  I might change some of them, but only if there is a great public outcry.  And you wouldn't do that, I'm sure.

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