Do It Yourself: The Staged Reading

Once I concluded that my script for Total War was in such a condition that I could not really improve upon it by simply rereading it, I followed the advice of a few friends and decided to start submitting it to different theatre festivals, series, and workshops in order to get a staged reading.

A staged reading is not a full production. It is a stripped down affair in which actors simply read from scripts. It's an opportunity for the playwright to listen and determine if the written word translates well into the spoken word and solicit feedback from actors and audience members. The objective is to turn a work-in-progress into a stage-ready play.

While I have thus far, according to my spread sheet, submitted Total War to sixteen different venues just to be considered for a staged reading, I am still waiting to hear from fourteen of them: one rejected my script, and another received enthusiastic response from a staff member who, only a couple months later, was to suddenly leave her position (also leaving my play and me without a sponsor.) Even though I was actively researching opportunities, the fact that I was waiting on other people's judgments had made me feel passive.

What could I do? It's not as if Total War is a solo-piece like Arlecchino Am Ravenous which I can perform on my own in lieu of a poetry reading, or at some alternative art-space off of the theatre circuit, using the rehearsals and each performance as an opportunity to revise the script (as I submit it to festivals as well, possibly to be performed by other actors.) Total War is an ensemble piece, and a very ambitious one at that.

Finally it dawned on me: Why was I waiting on other people? When Cosmic Spelunker Theater was still active, I booked us anywhere I could, whether the space was a theatre, dance studio, art gallery, night club, or loft space. It was a lesson I had learned from punk rock: DIY (Do It Yourself.)

So I did it myself and booked a staged reading of Total War at Outpost 186 for Sunday, April 26th. It's entirely possible that someone will have said "Yes, we would like to hear your play" between now and then, but at least the play's fate is back in my hands.

Next on the agenda is finish the press release and recruit some actors.

Cosmic Spelunker Bootleg

Chad Parenteau, host of Stone Soup Poetry posted the following video of Cosmic Spelunker Theater's May 19th reunion show to YouTube:

The video was shot without a tripod using the video function of Chad's digital camera-- and covers nine minutes and thirty-three seconds close to the beginning of our show (some of our "Zanni stage management" is cut off.) Astute students of the history of mime will notice that James and I perform Étienne Decroux's figures of Drinking in Twenty-Six Moves and prisé et posé ("To Take and To Give") as Bill recites his poem, "Frail Dog."

Performing together as a trio for the first time in over five years was certainly and interesting experience, and it was interesting to see how well we gel as a troupe the moment we are confronted with an audience, even when performing in the cramped conditions of a venue that typically presents poetry. Indeed, the actual stage area that Out of the Blue afforded us was far less space than we rehearsed in. The entire second half of our show was barely rehearsed, and had a largely improvised feel, though it was based on segments from Waltzing to War a show that James and I had last performed together in 2005. Will there be more Cosmic Spelunker Theater in the future? Unknown as of yet. We will see.

It is interesting that I have yet to sit down and learn how to make active use of services like YouTube when such technology is an ideal distribution system for a performing artist such as myself. In 2001 and 2002 when Cosmic Spelunker was first taking form in a rehearsal space, I had been reading such histories of punk-rock as Steven Blush's American Hardcore: A Tribal History and Mark Andersen's and Mark Jenkins' Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk Rock in the Nation's Capital which had inspired me to think of Cosmic Spelunker as a punk rock band: If I didn't know how to talk to theatres, then I relentlessly found alternative venues for our performances, designed all of our posters, and posted them myself. Of course, given those tactics, rather than thinking of CST as a "power-trio" along the lines of Cream, I should have thought in terms of The Minutemen.