Shannon Writes...

"The Vicar, or, Hesitancy" Opens

In November of 2006, I fell in love with someone who didn't love me back. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me that until March of 2007. You can build a lot of dreams in five months. Once I knew the truth, I did a lot of things to mend my broken heart: crying, telling lots of people about how I felt, throwing things, staring off into space, crying some more, knitting, telling more people about how I felt, crying yet some more, and trying to have semblance of a normal life basically filled up that time. It wasn't a good time, for sure, and I suspect that most of my friends and family look back on it even more bleakly than I do. However, a couple of good things came out of the experience. One of those good things was my short play, "The Vicar, or, Hesitancy." The play isn't what happened to me, but it is a reflection of the wonderful, awful, ambiguous way I felt during that time period, and it's pretty funny, to boot.

It opens tomorrow at Theatre Three, as part of their 12th Annual New Works Festival. Theatre Three is a small but feisty theatre, doing good work on a limited budget with talented folks. If you are in or near Port Jefferson, NY, please try to see it!

Grover's Corners

My favorite play is Our Town. Granted, I am one of those people who decided about 10 years ago to just choose favorite everythings so I didn't have to agonize over being asked any more (Movie: Field of Dreams. Book: Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. Song: "One" by U2. etc.). This has proved to be practical -- I can breeze through a myspace survey in a matter of minutes (it's also helpful that I don't drink or do dumb things, btw. That gets me a lot of "no"s for answers.) -- but sometimes I think really remarkable media that I've consumed gets forgotten because it doesn't become a "favorite" for me. Having said that, however, I do love that movie, that book and that song, and Our Town is a gem. It's beautiful written, it's wonderfully evocative, it's deep, it's sad, it's funny, it's totally theatrical and completely real, and, I don't know, it just squirrels itself into some particular place in my abdomen, tightening me up with tears of love and longing. I've never been it, but I know the play almost line for line.

I've directed two productions of Our Town, but haven't ever seen it in a professional production. Frankly, I was afraid to do so. I know it is considered over-sentimentalized horse twaddle by many people and the glimpses I've seen convinced me that it is usually done in a very down-home kinda way. Down home, like Cracker Barrell down home, not down home like Mavis Staples singing "Will the Cirle Be Unbroken?" I don't think there's anything sentimental or down homey about a play that features a woman ripping herself away from the beauty of her Earthly life, whilst being told by a Godly figure that neither she, nor anyone else, ever, ever got it. "It" being the blessed beauty of life.

So I went with some trepidation and a lot of hope to see the production of Our Town with my friend Mark. It's playing at Barrow Street Theatre right now. If you can, go. It's so good. So, so, so, so good. Raw and naturalistic and honest and funny. I think a lot has been written about the "surprise" of the third act (and it's a humdinger, one that literally  made me gasp) but the power and, yes, the beauty of it came from the director's and actors' trust that the writing and their honest protrayal of Thornton Wilder's characters, was enough. It really was. Forgive me for sounding like a third-rate theatre critic, but there's not going to be another production like this of this play for a long time. Run, don't walk, to see it.

Interview Link

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm going to be spending my day taking a standardized Content Specialty Test in Theatre, in hopes of getting my Theatre Certification. It'd be nice to have, as I already teach Theatre. : ) So I will be traversing, somewhat grumpily, across Brooklyn's nether parts this morning and afternoon. But then this evening, I will be going to see Kathy Griffin at Madison Square Garden with Roo and Corey! So there is a carrot at the end of the CSTest stick!

For those of you who might be interested, I did an interview with Bradley from the cool Red Bubble site. Here is a link to the interview. If you followed the link to this site from that interview, welcome! I hope you'll scroll down and find something of interest. 

Happy Saturday!  

They all have hands.

In the shower a few minutes ago, the Kids In the Hall sketch/song "The Daves I Know I Know" popped into my head. Love that skit. There is something really, truly funny to me about it, something that summarizes what I find the most funny. I think it's a combination of musical humor, randomness, a little topping off at the end (e.g. Dave Foley appearing as one of the Daves he knows  he knows) and just the deadly seriousness with which its all presented. It's a good sign when something like this pops into my head. It usually is a warning shot across the brow of my subsconsious that writing is going to be happening soon!

Don't listen to me overanalyzing it, though. Just enjoy! : )

Things I Love, the Conclusion

I'm typing this at 8 AM on a Sunday morning before I head out to Pennsylvania to see my folks, so we'll see how together it comes out...

36) I love getting off the train in PA, spotting my parents before they spot me and seeing my mom's face light up when she finally sees me.

37) I love editing. Someone asked me to do this on Friday, and I realized that I truly do love making peoples' writing more efficient and better.

38) I love buying a new calendar right after Christmas, when they're suddenly 50%. I think beautiful photographic calendars are one of the great unsung strengths of American democracy.

39) I love Friday nights with Roo.

40) I love having an unexpected talent, or finding out that someone else has one. I heard one of my colleagues start singing to himself this week and he's really good! That was cool. The only unexpected talent I can think of for myself is that I have surprisingly good hand-eye coordination and can usually catch something thrown to me.

41) I love that at about 11 pm, just when I started to get a little bummed about spending not just Valentine's Day but a Saturday night alone (having refused plans so that I could write, I might add), I fell asleep.

42) I love vacations.

43) I love new markers and new crayons.

44) I love the first stitch in a new embroidery project.

45) I love looking at yarn with Kiri.

46) I love that Victor Garber works so widely and often, so I can make jokes about GODSPELL all the time.

47) I love The Secret Life of Bees. Good book!

48) I love a perfectly temperatured shower.

49) I love chocolate pudding for breakfast (I never have it anymore, but I am so glad my grandmother used to make it for me).

50) I love you. Have a good week.

More Things Shannon Loves.

Part of the continuing quest to not hate Valentine's Day:

16) I love when my students get confused and think that I'm hooking up with someone I am not (most certainly  not) hooking up with. This makes me laugh.

17) I love dark chocolate bars with a smear of peanut butter. The bars should be hoity-toity, the peanut butter not.

18) I love playing Rock Band with Roo, especially for those precious few seconds when I get into a groove of some kind and I just play the drums without too much angst. Happens rarely.

19) I love every single episode of "Arrested Development."

20) I love being absolutely sure, at all times, whether I should use "its" or "it's."

21) I love blogging.

22) I love U2's "One."

23) I love glasses of ice water at any time of the year.

24) I love making fun of modern dance with Duck and Gordon.

25) I love the apron Kiri made me (and I want it back!!!).

26) I love sitting in the back of the theatre when one of my plays is being read or performed and hearing people laugh.

27) I love my mom's curiousity and how she always wants to learn more.

28) I love my GirlBerry. (That's what I call my phone).

29) I love that when I mentioned to a colleague that I brought something he didn't to the table, he said, "Yes, that starts with a B and ends with --oobs."

30) I love R.E.M.'s "Untitled."

31) I love new issues of "Interweave Knits."

32) I love when Gordon gives Buffy comics to Roo and then he gives them to me and then I send them to Mel.

33) I love Cola, SC, even its Strom Thurmond statue.

34) I love watching the person my brother is becoming.

35) I love that I don't miss my younger days.

Facing Valentine's Day.

I really, really, really, really hate Valentine's Day. I've certainly had several decent Valentine's Days. And it's not like, you know, my fiancee' left me at the altar on Valentine's Day, 2003. But I hate anything that makes me feel left out (you know, like the Yale Club, or the mens' sauna at the Y...) and V Day always makes me feel left out. It's great to celebrate all kinds of love and I certainly appreciate the cards and little gifts from my family, friends and students but true romantic love (at least in mid-February) has consistently eluded me in this life so far. So I feel left out. Not sad, exactly, because, as I keep saying to Roo, if I can't think of who I might like to be married to, it's good not to be married.

I thought I might help myself through this depressing and annoying holiday by listing some of the things, people, places and ideas I love over the next couple of days. The nouns of my love, so to speak.

The only qualification here is that I must truly feel love deep in my heart for the noun, and I would also note that I'm not listing people, as that would be quite dull for you, dear reader.

1) I love texting. I think it is the best thing, since, say, forever. I do it hundreds of times a day and I deeply, deeply love it.

2) I love fresh salsa, made with lots of cilantro.

3) I love Roo's baking, especially his apple pie and his crazy good chocolate brownies.

4) I love when someone who is Irish, British or Bermudian says my name.

5) I love small, good theatres, like Theatre Three in Port Jefferson, NY, and the Villagers Theatre in Somerset, NJ.

6) I love my Stella girls, and I miss them, but I am so happy when they keep in touch with me!

7) I love the book Capture the Castle which Vic gave to me.

8) I love my cowl-necked grey sweater.

9) I love that there are stores on Flatbush Avenue named the Farmer in the Deli, Scoops, OK Meat Place and Meat House.

10) I love hole punchers of all kinds.

11) I love a new issue of Interweave Knits.

12) I love coming out of the tunnel and suddenly seeing Pittsburgh, when driving from the Pittsburgh airport to Johnstown.

13) I love it when people give me clothes and jewelry, because then I feel like they are near me whenever I wear what they gave me.

14) I love getting new photos of Avery and Susan Faith.

15) I love fist bumping my students in the hall.

Reading Tomorrow Night!

This is late notice, sorry, but if you happen to be in the New Jersey area tomorrow night, and think to yourself, "What I would like to do right now at 8 pm is listen to a few one-act plays," please head over to the Villagers Theatre in Somerset. They will be reading four one-acts, including my Horatio & Ismene.  I'll be there!