Author: briandanieloglesby

Dogfuckers

Or, “the one with the dogs”

by Briandaniel Oglesby

Presented as a staged reading at UTNT (UT New Theatre) on March 1 and 8. 

@ The Lab Theatre at the University of Texas

In a crappy house surrounded by a dead walnut orchard, brothers Boomer and Dirt struggle with each other, with themselves, and with their dog-breeding business. As their prized pregnant pooch swells, they seem on the way to strike it big. Their dreams are disrupted when Boomer brings home Marisol, who should be a one-night stand, and Dirt finds a boy who will never grow up.

Directed by Jeremy Lee Cudd

With Kevin Hippler as Dirt

Rocket Thrall as Boomer

Brad Rizzo as Boy

and Erica Ayala as Marisol

Stage Direction: Laura Rogers

Stage Manager: Kristian Wolf Piña

Today, THIRD STREET was read at the UIL Superconference at the University of Texas, Austin.  Approximately 600 high schoolers saw this reading. 

This happened from luck — I happened to be at a table when another conversation was happening, I overheard the need for a show, and I offered. They took me up on this and offered me a couple slots in the Lab Theatre, which is a student-driven theatre space on campus, and I scrambled to reassemble as much of the original cast as I could, and replace a few folks who were occupied or distant. Thanks to another last-minute cancellation, we were moved to a massive (500 seat) proscenium space. I’ll post a few pictures when I get them.

This play is built for high schoolers. In it, two lonely boys who disappear into different worlds find each other. 

I am working on plays titled She Gets Naked in the End and Dogf_ckers (Or, “the one about the dogs”). Most of my plays are full of curse words. I am attracted to marginal spaces, harrowing situations, people who are not on their best behavior — I write the things that make me uncomfortable to write. 

I’ll be the first to admit my unease of imagining young folks googling me and seeing the titles of the other works I’m working on. I worry about the pragmatics of course — how writing plays with these titles makes it less likely that Third Street will find homes (will Dogf-ckers become a Scarlet A?), but I also feel that this goes beyond the practical, that I owe an explanation to a young person who may google me:

So here it is: I like to work at the edge of my comfort level, to skitter across the blade of my ability, to risk falling and cutting and bleeding. A friend who is far smarter than I am once told me that I play a game of truth or dare, that I dare myself to write the things that I write. (This is true even about Third Street, for a number of reasons.)

There’s also this: I write about what happens when people reach their lowest point, when they eat dirt — how do they transcend? How do they connect? And this means going to dark places. In theatre, as Sherry Kramer says, hope is currency, and for a lot of my writing these days, it has a high price.

 

So this is my theatre company.

We do theatre in a barn.

(Hell, add us on facebook.)

We produce and develop new work. One of my major roles in the company is putting together The Nights of New Plays Festival for this purpose.

This summer, we’re also developing my play, She Gets Naked in the End. We’re presenting this as a workshop production. We want to see how it works on its feet, how we move through the story.

Alicia Hunt is directing, with Barnyard actors and tech folks. We’re producing it at The Grange Performing Arts Center in Sacramento. July 6 and July 7.

More info at the Barnyard website

In She Gets Naked,

Every night, an untouchable woman walks into the Copper Hog bar like she owns the place, but always leaves alone. Men fall over themselves trying to get her attention, but it’s a woman from her past who forces her to give up her secrets. She Gets Naked in the End will go through a weeklong rehearsal and design process, culminating in two staged performances.

We’ll be getting the publicity imagesout into the world soon. In the meantime, I’m posting the following picture.

 

Over the course of a semester, I developed THIRD STREET into a full-length play, which was recently produced as a staged or “enhanced” reading as part of the Cohen New Works Festival  at the University of Texas, Austin.

We approached the project through a non-traditional lens. Instead of bringing in pages to read and respond to, with a director and cast and stage manager, we generated gobs of material that I then fashioned into Third Street. Our project was to create a script-building process that was as important as the final product. The process, you see, could be used to create a play at a university or high school with a group of young actor folk.

The ensemble was key. Ben Hardin directed the process. We cast ten kickass actors. Because we were part of a 40-show Festival, we counted a billion lucky stars that we managed to get the exact cast that we wanted.

Because they put so much badass thought work and life into the play, any production of the play will be required to credit these folks in the program.

Methinks Third Street would likely be produced by or for high school or undergraduate theatre communities. Possibly middle school. Any place that needs a play for a large number of young folks, looking for something with sword fights, knights, dinosaurs, a dinosaur pinata, and lonely people looking to connect.

 

The Play:

I’m still figuring out the language to describe the play, but I think a quick, dirty summary of it goes like this: 

Shane trains for a Renaissance Faire in a crap-filled alley. The neighborhood tough guy, Otis, comes to him asking for help. He warns Shane that dinosaurs are attacking. Meanwhile, Shane’s younger sister Marie struggles to get into the Bracelets, the popular group.

Shane escapes into fantasy. Otis is pursued by his nightmares.