Hashtag Designers Rock!

Maggie Lee was out on the last run for the designers while dinner was being served. And to make sure she doesn't miss out on the yummy food, they saved her a plate! How amazing are our designers!?

Maggie shows off the armor that protected her food.
Photo: Agastya Kohli

Maggie Lee's Shopping List

"Look at it - it's so boring! The only semi-exciting thing on this list is dry ice!"

Maggie Lee's shopping list
Photo: Agastya Kohli

Maggie Lee - one of the three runners for today's designers is looking for a bigger challenge.

getting off high atop a ladder (and a couch)

Dear Diary,

I just finished lunch and I'm back here in the coolness of the theater.  With the taste of vegan salad with peanut sauce still in my mouth, I sit here marveling at the sensual experience of this theatre experience.  I can hear the box office crew chatting and busily preparing for the show that is going to be starting in less than four hours.  The band is sounding so phenomenal, they are distracting me.  So much talent!

The sounds of hammers pounding, drills drilling and saws buzzing are adding their own texture to the music.   Maggie Lee, one of our sound directors...

(More distraction:  Get Off by Prince is up in the house as I type this..."23 positions in a one night stand..."  squirrel!)

...where was I?  Oh yes.  Maggie asks me to stand in a particular spot on the stage so she could adjust the lights.  While I was standing there, I asked the guy drilling what he was doing.

"Making a couch," he replied nonchalantly.  

"Like you do," I said, remembering the portal of shower-curtain like glittery awesomeness that I mentioned earlier.  Turns out his name is Banton and he's no virgin.  He's been banging away on the design team for quite some time.

While I was chatting with him, Maggie was atop a high ladder, helping me find my light.  I think that's what everyone at 14/48 does best:  Help each other find their light.  It's fucking beautiful.

From the land of 1000 crushes and deflowering,

Kymber

PS, If you're stalking me and peeping into my diary, you should totally come to the shows tonight at 8:00 or 10:30.  You will be altered in the most wonderful way.

Designer Story of the Day

The designers just got back from their rounds of discussing requirements with directors. Today promises to be a more challenging day than yesterday.

Designer pow wow.
Photo: Agastya Kohli

One of the challenges of the day is a 12 feet diameter eyrie (that's a nest of a bird of prey as an eagle or a hawk) for Jonah Von Spreecken's play The Eyrie at the End of the Lane. There is talk of collecting as may bare sticks and twigs and assembling the nest, or using a large basket. Lots of brain storming going on.

The second challenge is the aforementioned tentacles from Maggie Lee's The Unknowable (henceforth nick named Maggie's monster play). Every time I've checked in with the designers, they seem to be talking about tentacles, and how they will appear from backstage to reach the actor on stage. There is so much tentacle talk, Teri says "Teri is tired of the tentacles".

Lighting challenge of the day is a TV that needs to sit on the edge of the stage, and have screen glow projected on the actor's face. David is thinking of running a cable under the platform and controlling it from the board.

In other par-for-the-course 1448 design discussion, we need a set of nun-chucks and some empty beer cans. The only outstanding question for now is "who's playing the armadillo?" Like I said, par for the course.

Day 2 - Writers and Directors

Everyone looks surprisingly perky.  It's going to be fun.

Oooo - I'm eavesdropping on the director/playwright meetings.  So fun to listen to Tina LaPlant (playwright) and Tim Hyland (director) reading her play aloud and discussing - so intense.  I think I heard her say "Sister Pig."

Maggie Lee, The Picture of Inspiration, Suzanne Cohen

Moving on to Suzanne Cohen and Maggie Lee who are doing drawings of the space.  Suzanne looking for guidance from coffee drinking Maggie who has a picture - oh I must get a picture of that picture.  I got a picture of the picture - well kind of - where's that awesome photographer.  Maggie says the picture is "inspiration."  I don't know what it is.  Maggie says, "Does that sound crazy?  I know it's crazy?"  She is giggly when exhausted and says, "Michael Mowery is going to be mad at me."  In other news, it's weird that she has a picture of a pig on her t-shirt.  What's going on with pigs in my morning.

Peggy and Brendan.  "Everything is lies!" says Peggy.  Mr. Healy has those sexy man bedroom eyes which are brought to us by sleep deprivation - ohhhhhh bring on the hot hot hot playwright love. Talking it up with a big Diet Coke.  Peggy says, "I don't know how I feel about that now that it came out of my mouth." Yet Brendan responds, " Uh yeah - I see what you mean but I think it will work either way.  Being the chief ham that I am I think it should say..... " (OH MY GOD!  Another pig reference!)  I'm outta here.

Jose Amador and Teri Lazzara
Photo by Teri Lazzara

Wisdom from Big Cheese Belyea as he peeks in on Peggy and Brendan, "The writer can imagine it to be a certain thing but the director has to make it real and make the experience for the audience." Brendan adds, "and for your mom."  (I'll be his momma.)  As Tim Hyland approaches, Shawn Belyea adds, "Mazen award winners - I think you know sh&*%t!."

Continuing the eavesdropping with my boyfriend (let's make out!) Jose Amador.  Crickets.  Where is his playwright Jim Moran?  I can report that Jose is very quiet and writing things on paper.  He looks intense and maybe a little crabby but definitely dreamy.

I plant myself under a cafe table where director Paul Budraitis and playwright Matt Smith are intensely discussing Matt's play.  Paul says, "There's a cat under the table."  Golly, I would meow at him any time.  Hot director in the room!  Woot!   Matt Smith heating up the room next to him.  I love the collaboration at the beginning between the director and playwright.  This is fun.  The playwrights are surprisingly communicative about what their dreams and aspirations for final production are.  Matt says, "Exactly, exactly" and "I see what you mean!" in response to Paul's suggestions, requests for clarification and questions.  Matt:  "I think that what is important to this is THIS.  Getting the idea from HERE."  He's pointing at the script so I don't know what they're talking about but probably because I'm distracted by their cute shoes.  Gotta go.  There's a film crew surrounding me and I should be doing something to distract them from my cleavage which is HUGE today.

Uh oh - I neglected my new boyfriend Manny Cawaling.  He's already completed his playwright collaboration.  He confirmed that he was excited about his conversation with Eric Lane Barnes.  "We talked about his script and he gave me license to add new dimensions (no details of course we don't want to give anything away) which excites me.  Balancing the telling of the story to serve the playwright yet adding my creativity to it."   I ask, "Will there be balls?"  "There are always balls, Teri, always."  Excellent!

I left out the collaboration of Jonah Von Spreecken (playwright) and Stan Shields (director).  Stan got locked outside and therefore I missed talking to him prior to the draw.  Jonah just came by and indicated that he is thrilled with the casting - see separate post for cast info.  And I would like to meow around with both Jonah and Stan.

But will they all have pigs?  What's with the pigs?

Maggie Lee Update

This is an update to my post yesterday about Maggie Lee's process of selecting a topic for her play. (http://1448fest.blogspot.com/2013/01/im-not-going-to-write-about-games.html)

Maggie Lee, Saturday morning.
Photo: Agastya Kohli

After the 8:00PM show Friday night, when the theme for Saturday had been selected, Maggie walked over to me and said, "So it's Over the Edge?"

"Yes it is!" I said... "from back to square one, we now go over the edge!"

"I'm not staying up all night", Maggie said, "and I'm not writing about knives!"

As all of us regular Maggie watchers could have predicted, Maggie did stay up all night. But she tells me there are no knives in her play. There are tentacles and pyramids and an unnameable, unknown horror. But no knives.

Well done Maggie Lee.

Back in the Shop Area

Gerard Menendez is in the process of making some chess pieces. Knights, bishops, kings and pawns!

"I'm Not Going to Write About Games"

Last night after the meet-n-greet at 14/48, I gave Maggie Lee (a veteran playwright) a ride home. As we walked out of ACT Theatre, Maggie was already thinking of the theme "Back to Square One" and bouncing ideas around for her play.

"Do you think everyone will write about games? May be I shouldn't write about games."

"Why do you think everyone will write about games?" I asked.

"I don't know - with a theme like that... I don't want to write the same thing that everyone else is writing."

Maggie Lee, with no sleep.

"I don't think you can predict what others will do Maggie!"

"I know. But I don't think I want to write about games. And I'm not going to stay up all night. I did that last time I did 14/48. And I'm not going to do it again. Knock it out in a couple of hours, and get some rest."

Sounded to me like Maggie had a plan.

As we walked through Freeway Park towards my car, turning left and right through a labyrinth of stairs and ramps, Maggie looked a little disoriented.

"I would get lost walking through here", she said.

"I just follow the stairs upwards. Just keep going up!"

"Hey, may be this is my play. Walk through the Freeway Park", Maggie had another idea.

"Oh sure, that'll work - back to square one!" I agreed. "You're welcome to use our conversation in your play as well if you'd like."

"Sure. I'll owe you a coke", she negotiated the contract.

By the time we reached her apartment, Maggie was contemplating a show about square dancing.

"With a cast of 4, I could do it. I just don't want to write about a game, and I sure as hell don't want to stay up all night!"

If Maggie's facebook status is to be believed, apparently she was up all night, and she turned in a play titled "The White Queen" this morning. Something tells me it's about a game that has to do with squares, but I can't be sure.

Hey, anyone wanna play some chess later today?

Veteran Interview: Opal Peachey (DIRECTOR)

During lunch, I had the opportunity to briefly chat with 14/48 Festival veteran, Opal Peachey. Today she is directing Maggie Lee's play, The Guitar Case. While she scarfed her soup and skipped from song to song on Pandora looking for appropriately jazzy music for the band to play, she had the following to say about working with writers.

OP: "I wasn't familiar with Maggie as a writer before, but I'm so tickled when a playwright writes in a different style than they did the night before. It's really fun to see them shake it up a bit."

Based on Peachey's comment, I'm predicting we can expect in The Guitar Case a little more serious tone than we saw in Maggie Lee's Day 1 play, The Female of the Species.

In terms of progress on the piece, Opal seems confident. She said the overall level of stress at the festival always seems less on the second day. She also said that since The Guitar Case will be first to tech and first to perform tonight (they go into tech in less than an hour and a half!) the design team has made the show a priority and has already provided the actors with everything they need.

Jordan

Virgin Update: Maggie Lee (WRITER)

Over breakfast this morning, I had a chance to chat with the only virgin writer at this weekend's 14/48 Festival, Maggie Lee, whose Day 1 play, The Female of the Species was a huge comic success. (Everybody loved the aliens.) It seems her background in writing sketch comedy has served her well.

When asked what she thought of the festival thus far, Lee said it was "overwhelming." Maggie also said that writing for two men and two women (her Day 2 assignment) was far "less challenging" than writing for three men (her Day 1 assignment), because there were more opportunities. (Apparently the only situation Maggie could imagine involving three men was an alien mating ritual?)

I'm sitting in on the rehearsal for Maggie's Day 2 play, The Guitar Case and so far, it sounds intriguing. Did I hear something about guns, Nazis, and mobsters? I'll check back a little later. I promised Maggie I would keep an eye on Opal Peachey (DIRECTOR) and The Guitar Case for her. However, from what we saw of Opal's work last night with Celene Ramadan's Cafeteria Blossoms, I'm guessing Maggie's play is in very capable hands.

Jordan