Staged Readings Week

It’s been a crazy week. Not only were the readings of my classmates running every night, but classes are also winding down, which as every college student knows means that there are final projects all over the place. I know I’m only in two classes, but when you add a full-time job on top of that, craziness abounds.

My reading last week went really well. My director was wonderful and enthusiastic about the play, and the cast was absolutely spot-on; to the point where if it were ever produced I’d love to see those exact actors in the roles. The audience was full of familiar faces—my classmates and family, some coworkers and friends, and my friend and fellow HC alum Christine Radice ’95, whom I met one summer in college when I worked at her company and discovered that she was an HC grad. But there were also people I didn’t know there, which was really cool because it was the first time ever that total strangers heard my work. I got some helpful feedback from the talkback session, as well as a lot of positive comments. I was so nervous, but it was a really good night. I’ve gotten so much more comfortable with hearing my work read out loud over the years. When my undergrad thesis had a staged reading at Holy Cross, I was shaking the entire time and had to keep fighting the urge to block my ears because hearing my words out loud was so scary and painful. But last week, I was actually able to settle in and enjoy the actors’ performances instead of obsessing over every word. It’s still not easy to hear my work performed, but I’ve at least become a lot more used to it.

The article based on the interview I mentioned previously also came out in the Somerville News this past week. It took me a good two or three days after receiving the link to feel brave enough to click on it and read it. It was such a nice article though. I’m going to have to pick up the print issue and save it. It’s the first time I made one of the local papers for something other than the Somerville Recreation activities I used to take part in as a kid or making the honor roll in high school.

I’ve been going to my classmates’ readings every night this week. The final one is tonight. I’ve really been impressed by every one of them, even though it’s all been work I’ve seen in progress throughout the year. The plays have all really come together in these latest revisions. I’ve just been a little worn out from going into the theater every night (even though it’s definitely worth it). Tuesday was a particularly long day. Class met for an extra-long time (12–6) and then my classmate Genevieve’s reading was at 7:00. Our class was so long because we started performing the one-acts from everyone’s “evening of theater” final project. The one-acts range from about a half-hour to an hour, so performing and then discussing all of them will take awhile. My evening of theater revolves around the “scenes from an office” theme I mentioned in an earlier entry. I decided to use my ten-minute play about the disgruntled Disney employee, and so far I’ve also written a short one-act (currently 25 minutes, but once I revise it will be more like 30–40) that’s also a crazy comedy about the minutia of office life. I have three more ten-minute plays to write by Monday, so I’ll be busy this weekend. Tuesday we ended up getting through two one-hour plays and then my office play. We’re meeting next Monday instead of Tuesday from 12–6 to go through the remaining final projects, and then I’m going to the reading that night too because the play is written by someone from last year’s playwriting class. So I’ll have a lot of writing to do this weekend followed by another marathon day at the theater on Monday. But the semester is almost over, and then I’ll have a couple weeks of a much more normal schedule before summer classes start. Right now, I’m just looking forward to the fact that tomorrow is Saturday and I don’t have to wake up and start work at 8 in the morning.

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