Grinder's Grumblings

It's been a relatively quiet few months on the playwriting front - just a couple of silly little plays that I don't really like, and that will probably never see the light of day, and one not-so-silly little play that I kind of like, and that probably won't see the light of day unless I decide to produce it myself. Much of the work that I've created in 2022 was in the first half of the year, in response to the "28 Plays Later" challenge in Februrary, which did yield some interesting material, and fired up my creative juices enough to pull together a series of shorts set in a single living room that I submitted (unsuccessfully, I presume) to a contest looking for multiple works in that particular location. But since then I've struggled with where I'd like to go next.  I'd definitely like to tackle something full-length. I know that I write way too many short plays (10 minutes or less) and more than enough plays in the 20-40 minute range. This is my ...

Another month, another late post - re-reading my last post it seems like not all that much has changed - still swamped with important things that are crowding out other important things. At least now I can chalk it up to the time of year - the last couple of months of each year are the busiest ones for me at work, just like many others in the creative economy.  But enough complaining, let's get to the good stuff. Plans are well underway for the 2023 season at Grinder Productions. I've chosen the plays that I want to, mostly. So what are they? Well, you'll have to tune into this blog on January 1st for the big announcement, but here's a "fun fact" about next season that I can share with you: I'm looking for 25 people.  25 people? How did I come up with that number? I counted. But I hadn't planned on arriving at 25, or at any number, but when I tallied up both the onstage and offstage roles for everything that I want to do next year it came to a grand to...

How I spent my Saturday Night - rockin' out at the SPARC Conference in Prince Edward County, Ontario with "That's What She Said" A few days ago I realized that I'd missed last month's posting window - I usually try to get something out around the middle of the month when I'm not in shows. So it's been a while since my last post, and it's been a while since I last actually wrote anything of any substance.  It's not that I haven't written - I have - just not as much and not with nearly the reckless abandon that produces some of my best work. I've been in a bit of lull since the summer, and the ideas haven't come as thick and fast as they usually do. Into the void has stepped, well, life, and I've been busier than ever doing a lot of things that are really important, but that don't always leave time or space for my own creativity. Time to change that, I suppose. I am pleased to report that ideas for t...

It's taken me a couple of days longer than it should have to write this post - I had intended to post this Sunday night, but the stifling heat had other plans, making things like sleeping, eating, and thinking in complete sentences very difficult. Today the heat finally broke, and with the cooler temperatures my ability to be productive, however tenous, has returned once again.   Regular readers of this blog will recall that when I started this year's journey we were in yet another lockdown. I hated those days, as I'm sure many of you did too, but the one thing I had too look forward to, naively so or not, was the chance to get back to making some theatre this summer.  Preparing for an event that you aren't sure is going to go ahead has become a soul-destroying leap of faith for people in our industry, but this summer many things that were planned to happen actually happened, and you could almost hear the sigh of relief coming from producers as patrons arrived. Yes, the...

It's been a lonely couple of weeks in the rehearsal hall since the end of my last play. Devoid of actors, sets, etc, I've been playing to the barn cats (who are the most fickle of critics) as I try to do something I've never done before. It's been an interesting process to say the least, not simply due to being alone in what is usually a collaborative space. This show is all about digging up bones.  I knew this might happen when I wrote this play. For all my ability to look back now and laugh at all of the stupid things that I've done over the years, and laugh at myself about all the things that I thought were so important, it has still meant disturbing a lot of things that were buried in my past: shamings, regrets, missed opportunities, and times when I simply failed at life. And it's not just the stuff that's in the play that tortures my mind - there's some doozies that actually didn't make the cut, things that will only ever come out in the "...

Ennotville 2022 is a wrap! We had a great summer at the Library - just what I needed. Thank-you to everyone who came out, actors and audiences alike, for helping me bring a little magic back into my life. Last summer it was just about doing what we could, in spite of the pandemic. This summer it was about moving on, and setting the stage for the future. I'm not quite sure yet what shows I'd like to bring to the Ennotville stage in 2023, but whatever I do I will be starting from a better place, artistically, than I have been in a long time.  So my attention now fully turns to my solo project, "Have You Flogged Your Crew Today?"  I've just come in from a much lonelier, much hotter rehearsal hall than I've been used to, after an intensive night of turning the words on the page into words (and playable actions) in my head. That's right - even if you write the show you still have to memorize your own lines, and do the work to bring your own script to life. It...

We're almost there. This week, after eleven months of planning, pining, and pulling what's left of my hair out, we return to the good old Library for another installment of this... thing... that we do. The set is mostly finished, the props are mostly done (as is Jules' patience with them), the actors mostly know their lines (for whom Jules' patience is infinite, and unwaveringly creative). Even the audience is starting to fill up, so if you haven't gotten your seats already please let us know as soon as you can. Even Clementine seems to want us to get this show on the road: Even so, I still find myself running through nightmare scenarios in my head. There's the elephant in the room, of course - one positive rapid test and we're doomed. The 7th wave is now well underway - will mask mandates be back by Friday? Public health measures aside, there's also the weather - rain for the load-in is a problem, rain for the strike is a safety hazard, or a punishing h...

The summer of changing plans continues - if last year was all about the art of the possible when it came to my Ennotville shows, this year it's all about the art of the limitations. I know, I promised myself (and you) that from now on I was making theatre without limits. And I tried. But the thing about limits is that they're not all self-imposed. There are physical, structural, mathematical barriers in place that inhibit my ability to make limitless theatre.  So therefore, it is with a very heavy heart that I've been forced to cancel the second week of shows this summer at the Library, because I simply don't have the time, the money, or the actors that I need in order to pull it off.  My first week of shows remains unaffected - in fact rehearsals are going great...  ...even if some of the plays are coming into focus a little better than others... but as much as I wanted to do the second week of shows there's just no way that I can make them happen. I had attempted ...

  The rehearsal raccoon is back. Our old nemesis is helping himself to the garbage cans, opening the securely-fastened compost bin, and licking his lips as he peers into the pen of three week old chickens. So far the stellar acting (and the ever-on-guard cats) have kept him far enough away from rehearsals to be no more than a minor distraction, yet he remains, lurking in the background, ever-ready to throw a wrench into our methodical, carefully-timed plans.  It's been an excellent run of rehearsals to date, all furry critters considered. The cast are coming together well, and the five shows are starting to take on a life of their own, beyond simply what's written on the page, and it means that the actors are finding meaning in (and taking ownership of) their characters. I can hardly wait to see what they look like once the lines are down.  I, unfortunately (or fortunately?), have been the weak link so far. I've been fighting a bitter cold for most of the past week, and i...

Last night was our first rehearsal - five talented actors, the world's best stage manager, and two scene-stealing cats joined me on a partially-painted set in a cool-but-dry tin shed and together we brought five short plays to life, and began the process of seeing how they could coalesce into something special. There were lots of laughs, lots of smiles, and a few profound silences as we read through the plays. It was the first time in months that I'd been back in a rehearsal hall, and it felt great. I slept like one of those aforementioned scene-stealing cats:  This morning life struck back with a vengeance. I woke up with terrible headache that just wouldn't quit. My attempt at taking a day off work didn't pan out. Lots of technical issues mysteriously cropping up. And when I finally did get home I found out that one of our actors had a family member test positive for Covid, so no chance at a rehearsal tonight. All in all, you could say that this day got my goat: But I...

I'm a little late with this month's post. That's because every spare moment of my time in the past couple of weeks has been spent working on posts of a different sort - fence posts. Every spring the cows like to test the fence, and see if the grass truly is greener on the other side (which they invariably decide that it is). One close call with Claribell, pictured here, and farmer Jules and I agreed that the time for radical action was now due. So tonight's the first night in a long while that I've actually not been either at work or out in the pasture till all hours, pulling wire, shovelling dirt, or pinching my fingers. I'm still pretty tired and sore, but I'll give this a try, and see how it goes.  This past month was a very busy one, on the farm and off. The Wellington County Writer's Festival was a great success - I even sold one copy of my play - and I got to talk to a lot of great people. It's also where I had the pleasure of breaking out my n...

One of Canada's greatest playwrights is Dan Needles, author of the "Wingfield Farm" series of plays, made famous in thousands of performances by one of Canada's greatest stage actors, Rod Beattie. I was fortunate enough to see all seven plays during my years as a technician, and I count my experience with those plays as amoungst my most formative as a writer, director, and actor (not that I act all that often, but...) The second play in the series is called "Wingfield's Progress," and the third is called "Wingfield's Folly." They relate the further adventures of Walt Wingfield, a stockbroker-turned-farmer, after his tumultuous first year on the land. In "Progress" things go pretty well for Walt, but in "Folly" he lets the pressures of being a farmer get to him, which leads him to do some rather drastic things that he later regrets, and which very nearly cost him his farm, and everyone he holds dear. But since it's a ...

It's been a busy month since my last post - the cold persisted bitterly, and we only got around to tapping the trees yesterday. Looks like it's going to be a very short maple syrup season this year. I haven't had a chance to get anything done in the shop since early January. Otherwise, I'd be showing off pictures of my new Front-of-House display board that I just managed to get started on before the cold weather shut me down. Maybe next month.  And no, I still can't announce that mysterious 3rd project in the Grinder season - but I promise you that there is one! I'm really looking forward to it, so once I have the all-clear you're probably going to get sick of me going on about it.  I'm pleased to report that last month I successfully completed the "28 Plays Later" challenge, and did manage to write a play a day in February, however cringe-worthy some of them might have been. Most of these plays will never see the light of day, and I'm okay...

Will this bitter cold never end?  I have to confess that I'm not a big fan of winter. I really don't mind the cold and snow, until I'm knee-deep in it, trying to get my truck out of a snowbank during an extreme cold weather alert, after a long and exhausting day in the cold, and right before I desperately need a good night's sleep in order to get an early start on another long and exhausting day in the cold... but I digress.  Another month in and I still can't announce the third project in my Grinder 2022 season, but I promise that I will, as soon as I can. I've been working on the script for it little by little in my spare time, but it still needs some further rewrites before it's ready for to see the light of day, so maybe the enforced waiting to reveal it is actually a good thing.  For the plays that I have announced preparations are coming along well - prompt script is printed and bound, rehearsal schedules have been made (which are harder to make than y...

Now is truly the winter of our discontent. Shall we make it a "glorious summer," even without a "son of York" to lead the way? I certainly hope so. I had hoped to be in a position by now to announce the third project in the Grinder Productions season, but alas I still need to keep it under wraps for just a little longer. Despite that, and despite all the doom and gloom of a plague that just won't quit, this is actually going to be an optimistic post, where I talk about the plays that we're planning to do this summer. It's hard to find much to smile about right now, but looking foward to directing these plays definitely lifts my spirits and puts me in a better frame of mind. Theatre is truly good for the soul. This year I've rented the Ennotville Library for two weekends, and I plan to stage five thematically-linked 1-act plays each weekend, for a total of ten unique shows. I'd like to build a small acting ensemble for each week's production, ...

Happy New Year - I'm back!  It's been over a decade since my last post here on Grinder's Grumblings. I thought that my blogging days were behind me - I'd wasted enough time (and inflicted more than enough self-harm) trying to blog my way to fame and fortune, and had nothing to show for it. It was definitely time to hang things up and move on.  But a lot has changed in my life over the past decade - a steady income, a few dozen new plays, even a couple of productions by companies other than my own, and I'm still married to the world's greatest wife. I don't have everything I want out of life, obviously (and the pandemic has set us back more than most of our friends and family) but I'm a lot happier now than I was when I made my last post all those years ago.  I no longer try to make a living with Grinder Productions, or even try to make it a profitable side-hussle (ask me about the 200+ goats we've got for that). Now Grinder Productions is something t...