Grinder's Grumblings

Do I have time to tap the maple trees this year? And we’re off! Rehearsals for The Dark Lady of the Sonnets are now underway, and what an experience it has been so far. Yes, I love being in rehearsal, but it’s been a long time since I worked on a play like this. Shaw’s scripts demand that both actors and directors bring their brains with them to rehearsals, and that’s exactly what this ensemble is doing. We’re talking about meaning, character, even philosophy, on a level that I haven’t done in quite a while. That’s the downside of doing my own plays, I suppose - I’m no George Bernard Shaw, and I tend to hit the audience over the head with my syntax, rather than carefully crafting subtle messages in metaphors and mythology. There’s just not all that much to discuss in my plays (and anyone who tries usually misses the point), but this play, on the other hand, has more layers of meaning than one could get to in a lifetime of rehearsing.  I think that shows like this are good for the ...

Don't cry, Beulah Belle! We’re in a much better place than we were a year ago. That’s cold comfort on this January night, but it is comforting nonetheless. We are not in a lockdown, we are not under a bevy of public health restrictions, we are not in the same miserable place that we were a year ago.  That’s not to say everything is rosier now than it was 365 days ago - remember that little war that’s going on and on and on? Last year at this time it hadn’t even started yet. And I know full well that the pandemic nightmare still rages in a lot of places, mostly where, to quote Thorton Wilder “they don’t speak English, and don’t even want to.” I know all that, and more. I know about all the bad that exists in the world, all the sadness, all the hate, all the bitterness and division that has engulfed humanity in the past few years. Don’t you ever just wish you could go back in time and change things so that none of it ever happened? It was in such a spirit of despair that I first penn...

Happy New Year! It is with great pleasure that I announce today the threee projects that will make up the Grinder Productions season this year. Each project is outlined below, along with how it makes use of "my 25" - the name I've given to the group of people who will make up the Grinder ensemble in 2023.  Project #1: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets Okay, so this one isn't  technically  a Grinder show, but I'm including it here anyways, since it's going to take up a large chunk of my time, and I'll be bringing in company members to work on this project with me. The play, written by George Bernard Shaw, is an imagined conversation between William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, one night in 1599, about the pressing need to establish a National Theatre in England. We will be presenting it at the Fergus Grand on Monday, March 27th, as part of a larger event to mark World Theatre Day.   This project will require the first 9 of "my 25," four actors and ...

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...