Out of Ink, which included my ten-minute play Small Steps closed last night. This is my second time doing it, and I continue to be impressed with the organization. The ten-minute play festival starts with a bake-off in November, where playwrights scribble short things over a weekend. A handful are selected for production, and months later, we’re developing the pieces in rehearsal. And then it’s up for two weeks.
Small Steps opens with Skip Powers saying, “When I realized no one would ever love me, I volunteered to go to Mars. And those fuckers said, ‘Yes!'”
And that, essentially, is what the play is about. I’m working on expanding it to a full length.
Or rather, I will soon return to working on it. I’m in the heavy part of my project bringing the junior high / LGBT version of Romeo and Juliet to Skybridge Academy into life. Most of the words are mine or the students’ — we stole fewer than you’d think from The Bard, but it’s still a hefty play for middle school students.
I have an article or two coming out soon that I’ll be sharing. Meditations on the process, you know, which has been quite special. I marvel at the fact that we’re not only doing a gay version of Romeo and Juliet with junior high students, but that the students made the choice to do this themselves. In some ways, this show will be like any other junior high show — kids will forget their lines and my blocking isn’t professional or anything — but in other ways, this will be unlike anything else out there.
Brave New World, you know.
Briandaniel Oglesby 