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... to Dan, Isaac, and Catherine T!
AIR GUITAR has closed, and I am very, very tired.
You know what I am psyched about now? Watching plays. Going to see plays that I had nothing to do with. I went and saw a gripping little number at the Fringe called The Revenants and remembered that not only do I make theater, I'm also a fan.
--SlowLearner
I haven't posted a short play here in a while. This is my piece Karla Says, which I wrote for the 24 Hour Plays last year and which will be re-presented tonight (Thursday) as part of their "24 Is 10" series in the Fringe Festival.
I've always found you have the most success with these things if you focus on writing for the actors you've been given rather than some external idea. I usually use the actors' names for their characters, if possible, as I did with Karla Says. What I knew about Karla was that she was the host of a children's show on The Discovery Channel for a while. I knew that Chris preferred not to sing in the play if possible, and that Kelley wanted to act like a zombie at some point. So I went from there.
Happily, the whole cast and Eli Gonda, the director, remain the same from last time. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
--SlowLearner
KARLA SAYS
By Mac Rogers
KARLA
CHRIS
KELLEY
KARLA: (to the audience) Hi, boys and girls! Welcome to another episode of "Karla Says!" I’m Karla, and today we’re gonna talk about How To Have An Extramarital Affair. Now, the first thing to remember when you’re having an extramarital affair is to put your cell phone on vibrate. You see, you’re already gonna jump every time the phone rings. The key is to keep your spouse from guessing what’s making you jump.
CHRIS (to KARLA): Do you have two minutes?
KARLA: Um… In two minutes I have two minutes.
CHRIS: Just eighteen bars. I just wanna know what you think.
KARLA: Honey I’m not a casting agent, I think everything you do is great. Don’t ask me.
CHRIS : I picked this piece ‘cause it’s musical theater but it’s still Bogart, you know, cool? I feel like I have like three more years as a leading man,
CHRIS & KARLA: four years tops.
CHRIS: I value your opinion.
KARLA: Let’s hear it. (CHRIS opens his mouth to sing; KARLA realizes her phone is buzzing.) Hang on a second, sweetie, I’m sorry.
CHRIS: Jumpy.
KARLA: He’s right in front of me.
KELLEY: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!
(Now KELLEY and KARLA are somewhere public together.)
KARLA: Just think, that’s all!
KELLEY: How do I know when he’s around?
KARLA: Use your common sense! Eleven to twelve is roughly the hour before couples go to bed!
KELLEY: I thought like he’d be taking a shower, or –
KARLA: No, we read together, we talk.
KELLEY: You do?
KARLA: Yes, we do. What?
KELLEY: It just seems really comfortable.
KARLA: Comfortable?
KELLEY: For someone you’re planning to leave. It just seems like a comfortable ritual.
KARLA: I’m gonna leave him. I said I was, and I’m going to.
KELLEY: That little girl over there’s about to figure out you’re Nickelodeon’s Karla Says, so get your face on.
KARLA: When can I see you?
KELLEY:Here she comes.
KARLA (to the audience): Now, when you’re having an extramarital affair, you’re gonna feel like never mentioning the person you’re having the affair with. But that’s the wrong impulse. Karla Says, if you’re fucking someone you shouldn’t be fucking, and you don’t want anyone to know, talk about them all the time.
CHRIS (to KELLEY, a little drunk): Chris. I’m the husband.
KELLEY: Kelley. I’m the um…
KARLA :The other woman.
CHRIS: She talks about you all the time.
KELLEY: Really?
CHRIS: It’s true. She does. You may not be aware of this, but you and my wife are having a love affair.
KELLEY: We are?
KARLA: Kelley, I’m sorry, this is one of Chris’s pet theories.
CHRIS: See, originally when we met, Karla was the newbie and I was the seasoned older man, I was the sexy mentor, I was showing her, you know, those things.
KELLEY: The ropes?
CHRIS: The ropes, precisely. But as you’ve probably noticed, in show business, things change. Her tenth audition – her tenth audition ever, mind you – and now she’s Karla from Nickelodeon’s "Karla Says," beloved by ten-year-old girls all over the world, and now I’m the faintly ridiculous aging gigolo.
KARLA: Chris thinks I haven’t paid my dues.
CHRIS: Well, you pay my rent, so you might as well save on the dues. (to KELLEY) Karla and I can never fall in love again. That’s not possible, we already did that once, it’s like chicken pox. So what married people do is, we have all these little sexless love affairs throughout our lives, through work, through… however you meet people. These delerious, ecstatic friendships that feel exactly like falling in love, except without any of the consequences. That’s what’s happening between you and my wife.
KELLEY: Oh.
CHRIS: You’re a line producer, right?
KELLEY: Casting agent.
CHRIS: Shit. Casting agent. Hey, you aren’t hiring on "Karla Says," are you?
KELLEY: I don’t know, I’m on something else now.
CHRIS: Now why would you leave such a seminal piece of television?
KELLEY: Well like you said, Karla and I are having an affair.
CHRIS: Very professional of you.
KARLA: All right, guys, enough.
CHRIS: What are you on now?
KELLEY: Zombie movie.
CHRIS: Do they need anybody who can sing?
KELLEY: Really just zombies.
KARLA (to the audience): Karla Says, don’t send your mistress out and then follow her fifteen minutes later. Everyone knows that move. Leave with her. Walk her out. Put your arm around her, even. The more brazenly you reveal yourself, the more everyone will assume you’re just kidding. (to CHRIS) I’m gonna walk out with Kelley, is that okay? We need to go kiss and go down on each other, you know how it is.
CHRIS: Just take a lot of notes.
(KELLEY and KARLA are alone. They embrace.)
KARLA: Oh god.
KELLEY: We’re terrible. He’s terrible. This is terrible.
KARLA: I’m gonna leave him. Kelley, baby, I’m gonna leave him.
KELLEY: When? When is this happening?
KARLA: When it’s right.
KELLEY: When will it be right?
KARLA: I need to know that he’ll be okay.
KELLEY: What about you being okay? He’s ordinary, Karla. He’s always gonna be ordinary. You never will be. You’ll always be carrying him. You wouldn’t have to carry me. What? What, baby?
KARLA: I love you, Kelley.
KELLEY: Oh, Karla…
KARLA: Just don’t give up on me.
CHRIS: Zombies. What about singing zombies? You think they need singing zombies? You wanna hear me sing like a zombie? (KARLA doesn’t acknowledge him.) Fair enough.
KARLA (to the audience, putting on a chicken hat): Karla Says, you can wear your chicken-hat all day long if you want to, but before you go to bed at night, make sure you always put it back in the same special chicken-hat place so you know where to find it when you wake up in the morning! That’s called Being Organized, and life is a lot more fun when you’re organized! Right guys? (changes tone) Fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh my god.
(KELLEY lurches up behind her, groaning like a zombie. It’s kind of scary. She touches KARLA and KARLA jumps.)
KELLEY: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!
KARLA: Fuck, Kelley!
KELLEY: I’ve just been watching people do that all day, I’m sorry! What is that?
KARLA: A chicken hat.
KELLEY: Of course.
KARLA: I’m not going to leave him, Kelley.
KELLEY: What?
KARLA: I’m not gonna leave him. He won’t survive without me.
KELLEY: Karla, even if that’s true –
KARLA: Keep seeing me anyway. (Pause.)
KELLEY: Think what you’re asking me. Think what you’re asking me to be. (Pause.) You could have not told me you loved me. You might’ve restrained yourself from saying that. (KELLEY leaves.)
KARLA: (To the audience) Karla Says, if you want to start an extramarital affair, pretend to be reluctant. Pretend like you’re torn. Pretend like you’re not sure that what you want is what you want. (We go back in time. To KELLEY.) I mean, let’s say we know we’re renewed by March. That means… What?
KELLEY: We’re still goodbyein’.
KARLA: Goodbyein’?
KELLEY (singing): "The fire is slowly dyin’, and my dear, we’re still, good-byein’…" We’ve been saying good-by for an hour now. (She sees KARLA look at her phone.) Important call?
KARLA: My husband.
KELLEY: Really?
KARLA: Yeah.
KELLEY: Huh. Wouldn’t’ve guessed. Okay, so... (She’s leaving.)
KARLA: Kelley wait.
KELLEY: Yeah?
KARLA: No, you should go.
KELLEY: Well, which?
KARLA: I’m being a shithead.
KELLEY: Well don’t be. It’s easy to not be a shit-head.
KARLA: No it’s not. (They look at each other. They’re about to fall in love. CHRIS breaks the moment.)
CHRIS: You know what was stupid about that movie?
KARLA: Karla Says, if your spouse figures out you’re having an extramarital affair, don’t rush to defend yourself or ask for forgiveness. Let them talk for a while. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, they’ll play out the whole scene for you. (KARLA and CHRIS are coming home from a movie, maybe walking, maybe on a train.)
CHRIS: The stupid thing is that he told her. That movie would’ve been like forty minutes shorter if he hadn’t told her.
KARLA: You think it’s wrong that he told her?
CHRIS: I think… I think if you’re doing something like that, you should just stop. You don’t confess. You just stop, and you get your shit together. Nobody wants you to confess. Confessing makes everything worse. Confessing makes the other person have to react. If there’s no confessing, nobody has to react. Everyone can just go on like they were before.
KARLA: People can do that?
CHRIS: The mind is a powerful thing. Wanna hear my solo?
END OF PLAY
As Mike Mariano points out in comments, Micah Bucey is indeed in the hospital recovering from a collapsed lung. He is in the thoughts of a great many people right now, including me.
**************
I feel I should amend something I wrote yesterday, though the critic in question (Lauren Snyder) hasn't complained. I shouldn't say she's "one of the good guys" just because she gave one of my shows a good review. Ms. Snyder is one of the good guys because she calls shows like she sees 'em and brings real insight to her writing. That's what makes a critic one of the good guys.
**************
The show was indeed audible last night, much to the relief of all of us.
Mac
So, opening night of AIR GUITAR was a little harrowing. We had a number of technical issues with our sound that caused many of the lyrics to be inaudible. Given that significant disadvantage, I was surprised how much fun the audience seemed to be having.
There are two reviews so far, and awesome rave here and a more mixed review here (however, Lauren Snyder will always be one of the good guys in my book 'cause she had Nervous Boy's back).
We've brought a bunch of fixes to bear on our sound problems, so with any luck we'll be able to feature actual lyrics in tonight's show. I'll report further tomorrow.
--SlowLearner
PS - Nice to see you, Mike Mariano!
The closest Slowlearner ever got to causing controversy was this entry from two years ago about the New York International Fringe Festival. That post was written as a three-time Fringe reject. Then the next year we submitted FLEET WEEK, and everything changed. Suddenly we were one of the hyped shows. We sold out the run and won Outstanding Musical. We went from being rejects to being an institution. And I pretty much looked like an ass for making fun of shows in the Fringe with silly titles.
We had a pretty good idea that we could get accepted again this year, based on our track record, so over the last eight months we wrote a new musical, a rock musical called AIR GUITAR. For a fuller description of AIR GUITAR, go here and scroll down. You'll see from the description that this has been a bit of a risky proposition. FLEET WEEK was more surefire, so we wanted to try something harder this time. A hard rock musical about aging as an artist and balancing out your responsibilities? Do the themes and the style go together? We'll find out tonight.
Our back-up band, Gods of Fire, is an actual heavy metal band, and they will be visibly in the rear of the stage, shredding the whole time behind the dramatic action. Our tech was highly problematic because the live music world and the musical theater world are quite different in method and practice, and fusing them is proving to be a challenge. Will it work? We'll find out tonight. It definitely won't be boring.
But as I'm sure a slew of Fringe Previews are going to appear tomorrow, I thought I'd supply my own, based not so much on hype or big names as on Off-Off Broadway artists I've known and worked with, whose work I always look forward to. If this kind of looks like "Mac plugs his friends," well... it is. In my defense, I became friends with these people through working with them on shows and admiring their work. It's basically the only way I meet people anymore.
These are in no particular order:
1. Fitz and Walloughs Get It In The End - Well, Micah Bucey needs no help from me. He's a Fringe Festival legend for his show two years ago, The Only Thing Straight Is My Jacket, and last year he was a major asset to FLEET WEEK. He's reunited with his Jacket colleagues (director Paul Mazza, writer Paul Hagen, and co-star Drew Edwards). You kind of have to see Micah in action to know what I'm talking about. It's a one of a kind experience.
2.Tea In The Afternoon - Vanessa Shealy is one of my favorite Off-Off actors. I've seen her in multiple Catherine Trieschmann plays and a couple of years ago she delivered a virtuoso one-woman show by Steven Christopher Yockey called Medusa that left the audience I was sitting with stunned. I had the good luck to direct her in a short play I wrote called V. Now she's written her first play, and she's acting in it as well.
3. The Inconstant Infection - Ed Malin has the strangest, most unique voice of any playwright I personally know. His plays are highly intellectual, highly scatological constructions of wordplay, usually built around stories of misfits with strange fetishes. An Inconstant Infection is in verse, is directed by Ed's lovely wife Kristina Leath, and stars another of my favorite actors, Julie Finefrock (who was in my play Hail Satan).
4. Don't Spit The Water - I haven't personally seen Sasha and the Noob in action, but close friends of mine in Chicago swear by them, and their website even has clips of people laughing at their shows. One of the performers, Steve Gadlin (I don't know if he's Sasha or the Noob) sat next to me at a wedding reception once and kept me in stitches for like an hour, so I know they've got the goods.
5. The Pumpkin Pie Show - Now, I don't actually know Clay McLeod Chapman all that well. I chatted with him a little bit in the course of Rapid Response Team rehearsals, but that's about it. But I know he's a strikingly talented writer from Rapid Response and from his play volume of smoke that Isaac directed. Pumpkin Pie has been an institution for six years now, and I missed their most recent installment, so I think it's time for me to catch up.
6. 24 Is 10 - The 24 Hour Plays are the ingenious brainchild of Tina Fallon. The process works like this: A group of writers, directors, and actors show up at a theater space at 10pm. Everyone brings a prop or a costume piece. A Polaroid is taken of each actor, and then they go home, along with the directors. The writers bargain over the actors they want, and then write a ten-minute piece for those actors. They remain in the theater space until 6AM, by which time they must have finished their piece. At 6 AM the directors arrive, read the scripts, bargain over which ones they want, and then at 8AM the actors arrive. The directors rehearse with the actors and the actors work furiously to memorize their lines until 5 or 5:30, at which point tech begins. Each play is teched until 7:30, when it's time to open the house. Since there are only five or six plays in each program, the performance is over by 10PM. The entire event has taken place in 24 Hours.
Over the years, various theater companies have created interesting variations on this formula. Manhattantheatresource has Spontaneous Combustion, wherein plays are created over a weekend. The A-Train Plays involve shorts written over the course of a train ride. (Josh James describes his experience with the A-Train Plays here.) I've always loved these exercises as a playwright, because they provide an opportunity to make a bold choice without thinking much about it and then see the results.
The 24 Hour Play Company is presenting a program of its 25 favorite ten-minute plays from the past ten years. Many of the writers are big names like Teresa Rebeck, Christopher Shinn, and David Lindsay-Abaire, but the ones I can personally vouch for are the ones I saw when they first went up, including:
- K, X, Z, and V by Ian Williams, about a long night in the life of a focus group, playing August 26.
- The Rumor, by Dan Kois, about a world-famous baseball player trying to defend himself from the career-threatening rumor that he is left-handed, playing August 22.
- Sizable Town, by Mike Doughty, which I don't even know how to describe, but we went nuts for it when I saw it in... my god, 1999? Playing August 23.
- And, if you haven't had enough of me, my short play Karla Says, about a Nickelodeon children's show host who has some helpful tips about how to properly conduct an extramarital affair, plays August 24th.
Full schdule info is here.
So that's my Fringe Preview! Best of luck, theater-goers. If you see a very, very tired man wandering around downtown Manhattan over the next couple of months...
... that's either me or one of a thousand other people putting on shows in the Fringe.
--SlowLearner
... or face this guy's WRATH!
(Photo by Aaron Epstein.)
Full information at the Air Guitar website.
--SlowLearner
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