I had a most bizarre experience last night.  I went to go see Vaudeville Vanya and I didn't know a single person in the audience.  Of a SOLD-OUT SHOW!  I know, I know this may not seem bizaarre to you, but I go see a lot of theatre and I know a lot of people who see and do theatre, and I almost always run into at least one of them at shows.  Or I at least recognize people.  Last night I recognized exactly 3 people out of the 70-something that were there.  Although I almost didn't recognize Jason Neulander because of his new Starsky and Hutch moustache.  Where are these people hiding?  Are they all St. Ed's people and they only go to shows involving St. Ed's actors?  Strange.

Stranger still, I was waiting for the bathroom, I thought someone was in it, and some bitch just breezed past me and went right in!  I was floored!  Is this how kids today behave?  She came out and saw me staring death at her and said, "sorry."  I said, "that's okay." icily.  But it wasn't!  Then she cut in front of me again for the line at intermission, and then let two bitches in front of her.  Seriously, if I had not had to pee so bad I would have started some shit.  Grr.

Maybe it was invitation only or something.  People did keep staring at me like I had two heads.  So I was alone.  I mean, come on people, watching theatre is an activity conducted quietly in the dark, it's the perfect thing to watch by yourself! 

So Brandon issued a challenge to Erin and I:  complete a first draft of a full-length play by the end of 2006.  Woah.  He basically called us out on the fact that we just write these little 15 minute scenes every 2 years for Slapdash and we need to be doing it all the time.  So he, Erin and I have committed to having plays finished by 1/7/07, when we will gather those we trust and have a reading.  I'm excited because it's something that's been needing to happen, but also scared to death.  What will I write about?  How will I sustain something past about 20 pages?  That's the longest thing I've written since, gulp, college.  Damn!  But it has to be done.  It will take discipline and more time spent writing scenes than writing and reading blogs and all the other crap I fill my time with.  Wish me luck. 

So Slapdash 3 is over and it was a HUGE success!  We nearly sold out Arts on Real and the audience gave us much love.  When I walked out to deliver the curtain speech, a roar of excitement went up from the crowd that brought tears to my eyes.  It felt wonderful to finally have Slapdash get the attention it deserved.  This was due in no small part to Tim's tireless efforts to get out the word through publicity, especially since they left us out of the Chronicle AND ACOT, and our actors making sure their friends showed up and supported them.

On to my experience of Slapdash.  The sacred circle rocked this year.  We had Brandon, Paul, Tim, Erin, me, plus Skipper, who was an absolutely awesome addition to the circle.  I think we all really enjoyed the process, and having Brandon back was just icing on the cake.  The only thing missing was Travis, but hopefully he'll come back next year!  Sacred Circle rocks!  As usual, my assigned opening line really started the wheels turning.  My first line was from Paul and was, "Those legs have been together longer than the Smothers Brothers!", which instantly made me start thinking of an old-time vaudevillian.  My ending line (which I wrote, of course), was "Watch out for that heavy-", which, within the vaudevillian idea, made me think of something falling from the rafters.  To create drama, I decided the something falling from the rafters had to be purposely dropped to kill someone.  I had a cast of 2 women and one men, which led me to think that the 2 women had an act and were managed by the man.  Making the women twin sisters I thought would create a bit of humor because I was almost guaranteed that my two actresses would look nothing alike.  Hey folks, you gotta' look for the funnies where you can find them!  My first thought was that the sister who tried to kill the other sister wound up getting killed herself, but where does the guy come in?  Oh, I should mention at this point that I never plot any of this stuff out before I begin writing.  I just start typing and the plot details develop and change as I go along.  I was helped out by the fact that I had to pump at about 11:45, which gave me 15 minutes to really think about my script.  I came out with 4 ounces of milk and my entire plot.  Two sisters love the same man, their manager.  They both separately tell their man about the plot they each concocted to kill their sister.  They wind up accidentally killing their man.  Along the way they banter in that sharp-witted way that I've loved in classic movies since I was a child.  I mean, hopefully it was sharp-witted:)  It was an idea that really could only sustain 10 pages. I kept going back over the script after it was finished to fine tune and punch stuff up, but I certainly couldn't add anymore.  I was a bit jealous of the folks who came out with 15 pages and had to chip away.  But I started out fighting the scene because it wasn't what I "wanted" to write.  Luckily, Erin reminded me there's no time to fight it when you have to finish a script in just a few hours, and I kept going.  I was really happy with my finished product, then I got even luckier and had Brandon direct it and Travis, Mariana and Emily in the scene.  They really picked up that scene and ran with it.  They were incredible!  I watched them completely getting it, and taking the characters in directions I hadn't even thought of, and thinking "This is the same thing I wrote last night?  No way!"

I only wrote this year and did box because of Stella, but I loved it, what fun!  All the scenes were fantastic, it was just a huge high, I can't wait for next year!