...AND WE HAVE A SHOW!!!!!

I have an announcement I have been ITCHING to make for about two months:
It's official - we have chosen a show. We have just finalized the agreement to do an adaptation of Mary Doria Russell's novel DREAMERS OF THE DAY!

This beautiful book is about a woman, Agnes Shanklin, who, after losing her family in the 1918 influenza epidemic, goes on the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and finds that her visit coincides with the 1921 Cairo Conference. "Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie, enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days,...invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan." As she says in the opening of the novel her "little story has become [our] history." And it's only through understanding her times, that we can start to get a grasp of our own.

What we're planning right now, is to adapt the novel into a one woman show. It is a story told completely from Agnes Shanklin's perspective so it's ripe for solo possibilities, but that could always change as we get into the meat of the adaptation - we'll see. We're planning to do a whole multi-media kind of thing with still and moving projections, music from the times, and hopefully some exciting, (but not too expensive) design elements to the set, costumes and props.


I have already begun work on the adaptation and there will probably be many posts of me fumbling around as I figure out how to make it work. You see, I've never done an adaptation of this nature. I'm excited (or as Little Red says "excited and scared") to jump into this challenge. I may have assistance in the adaptation and I may be throwing out questions here to get some help on specific issues that come up as I work - so as I post questions, if anyone's out there, I'd love to hear from you.

A word about Mary Doria Russell. If you have never read any of her novels - do so NOW! Hands down, she is one of the very best fiction writers out there right now. Though her books cross different genres and topics, they all share one very special trait, they are all beautifully, gracefully, movingly written. THE SPARROW, CHILDREN OF GOD, THREAD OF GRACE and DREAMERS OF THE DAY are 4 wonderful, amazing, powerful books and I am anxiously awaiting her next one. We are SO honored that Ms. Russell has given us permission to adapt her beautiful book - that she has trusted us with one of her babies. We will nurture it and care for Agnes' story as if it were our own and cannot wait to see the final product when we get it on its feet!

So, not so much a drive in...

Yup, the rain got us again. In fact, it rained all day on Friday, (and most of the night) so about 11am we decided to change the outdoor "drive-in" to an indoor "Tahiti Cinemas" night. We transformed the apartment into a little movie theater (15 seats to be exact - 6 on comfy couches). We hung up a screen (actually an old white sheet from my massage school days) and set up the back bedroom of our apartment as a concession stand. We ran Christmas lights along the "aisle" to the bathroom. And, just for the fun of it, I dressed in a whole 50's style to celebrate the heyday of the drive-in.

Unfortunately the rain and people's jobs kept the crowd small, but what the group lacked in size, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. It was great fun and definitely something we'll do again. It's nice to know that we can do it rain or shine. I think we're going to add the Movie night - whether outside or in - to our roster of Living Room Series Fundraisers. I do think that in the future we definitely need to find a way to insure that we get as close to the max number of people we can fit at these things as possible and that is something I'm still figuring out. But, I think the most important thing for us is to keep plugging away, not get discouraged and persevere. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was any theater company...

Drive In Fundraiser Countdown...

So, we're now within a week of the fundraiser and it's close enough to the date to check the 10 day report on weather.com. Right now it looks like we have clear skies until Friday, the day of the fundraiser, and then they're predicting a 30% chance of precipitation...It could be worse, and it's still early but if anyone out there has a special relationship with the weather gods, I'd appreciate you putting in a good word for GTTP and our attempts to bring in some funds for our next production.

Also, Steph and I had a meeting with this wonderful little restaurant/wine shop in the East Village and we're about 75% sure we're going to do our winetasting fundraiser on October 10th. If it works the way we're planning, it'll be a great afternoon. It will start around 2pm and there will be 8 or 9 wines to try, all with a selection of bread, cheese, meats and bruschetta/salads. John and I went to a winetasting fundraiser at this same place a year and a half ago and it was a great day all around. Hopefully the GTTP winetasting will be similarly great. As soon as the papers are signed and we're definitely a go, I'll send out emails/invitations/facebook posts...but in the meantime, keep October 10th free.

To Recap:

If the Drive-In goes well and the winetasting happens, we'll have about 20% of our next show's budget in the bank and we'll be heading in to the fall/winter in really good shape.

We are undaunted...

We have rescheduled the Drive-in night. Yay! It will be a week from Friday on the 11th and this time we're doing it rain or shine. When we first scheduled the event, I felt like I had pushed my luck with my last rain or shine event (my wedding). We had lucked out and had beautiful weather and didn't need to be in the tent, but I didn't want to push it again for the drive-in night...However, since I tried to play ball with the weather gods and the weather gods sent me Hurricane Bill, I've decided this time not to bother and just roll the dice. Don't get me wrong, I'm still hoping for a beautiful early fall evening...but, if the weather gods decide again not to smile on us...well then, inside we will go.

Once we decided to reschedule we had the whole, "which weekend should it be?" discussion and decided that since most people wouldn't be around for Labor Day Weekend, that was out. We didn't want to wait more than three weeks from the original date so that put us on the weekend of the 11th. We really wanted it to be on a Friday and though we had some reservations about doing it on September 11th, in the end we decided that it was better to offer a fun activity for people to go out to. Hopefully folks will want to come out and be with friends.

Now that we're doing it rain or shine, I'm starting to get really excited. The popcorn is still ready to be popped, we still have the beer, wine and soda and the movies are ready to go...I will admit that I may need to get some more candy (someone, who shall remain nameless, but looks exactly like the person writing this post, may have been dipping in to the tootsie roll and twix bar stash. Heh.) but other than that I think we're good to go.

Stupid Hurricane Bill!

Had to cancel the Drive-In movie night because of the threatening weather. What sucks the most, aside from the fact that I have a good 5 pounds of candy in the fridge, as well as cases of beer and soda, is that it's not ACTUALLY raining right now. Instead, weather.com is predicting an 85% chance of rain from 8pm on. So, because I think it would be worse to have people show up, pay their money, hustle them inside 30 minutes into the first movie and pray for the rain to stop rather than to just postpone the whole event altogether, postpone is what we decided to do. Hopefully, we can find a night in September that will work out better for us. On the flip side, because I'm all bummed, John has decided to take me out to a nice dinner to cheer me up, so, you know, that's kinda awesome. I'll keep everyone posted about the updated date as soon as it gets, um, updated. :)

Cross your fingers one and all

So, the popcorn and candy are ready for the concession stand, the projector and the movies are in my possession, the chairs are in the backyard and the intermission "movie" is on a dvd and good to go. In other words, we are ready to hold a kick ass drive-in fundraiser...if only hurricane bill can hold off hitting ny until 1 am Saturday morning, we'll be good to go!

Drive In Movie Night

Popcorn bags have been purchased! Now I just have to remember how to pop popcorn on a stovetop...I mean really, in today's day and age does anyone have popcorn that isn't made in the microwave? I'm missing the days of living with Terri - the best stovetop popcorn popper on the planet!!! I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I may have to email her to have her walk me through the process.

Once I solve the popcorn issues, we should be in pretty good shape. I am worried about rain - the weather report is not encouraging right now and in the dog days of summer, it's really hard to know when a thunderstorm will suddenly kick up...not that that's a problem...unless, of course, you're hoping to do the whole drive-in-movie-under-the-stars thing, which is the entire point of this fundraiser. But, I guess I just have to accept that there are things I can control and things that I 100% cannot and the weather is one of those things that falls into the latter category. I'll just have to hope for the best.