two letters away

I forgot the best part! - when I was listing off some salient features of "Old Growth", I forgot the most exciting thing!

And here, let me stall for a moment to build suspense and say that I always give myself an impossible task when I work on a show. It keeps me sharp. In 2005, I taught myself to play accordion (poorly but seemingly entertainingly) for "Adieu, Friedrich Lips". In 2006, I was my own director for a show with chalk on the stage and water in a bucket and a BICYCLE there too ("WOOL"). In 2007 I decided I was going to play eleven characters, four at once ("The Fugue Code").

And now - and NOW - I have decided that Old Growth will contain...magic. Magic! It's two letters away from music, after all. Magic: some coin magic for sure, and probably magic with paper, gum, lights, and perhaps water. Why? My character is a hobby/busking magician among other things, and it will become more important to him as he comes to see himself as a kind of modern day, urban shaman.

Is this a new thing for me? Yes and no. My interest in magic goes back to childhood. My resolve to practice sleight of hand is about a year and a half old. But performing it for people - a very new venture. And a rather important one.

There was a tiny bit of legerdemain in "The Fugue Code" - but this is a much bigger undertaking for me. Since I am also planning a virtually paperless tour (whenever possible), I'm planning to use some walkaround magic (probably in character - and sometimes with flute accompaniment) as a way to entice audiences. I think what I do with this will evolve over the summer.

The tour is taking shape. It's WEIRD. More soon.

Growing a script from a metaphor that is like a seed

I'm writing! As of last Monday, I'm chipping away, day by day. What is it, now, 9 days later, and I've already gone through two complete cycles of planning-writing-excitement-euphoria-distraction-unconfidence-blockage-distractingmyselfwithcoinmagic-planning-writing. From the beginning - which began even during my 2007 "The Fugue Code" trans-Canadian Fringe tour - this has been a very different writing process. "Fugue" went through a lot of planning - a lot of planning - I think I had 5 drafts of *outlines* before I got into my ...14?...drafts of script? And the research period for "Old Growth" (not over by any means), while involving a lot of reading, has been much more about heart-research than head-research than last year. Working as a Greenpeace street canvasser was as much research as reading "Silent Spring".

Partly to my surprise, I'm getting into the Writing stage much sooner than I did last year. It's amazing. Until two weeks ago I was distracting myself with tangential "writing excercises" that only serve to block my writing flow. But Alison Williams (my director-dramaturge, same as the "The Fugue Code") came down to Toronto for a very useful three days of brainstorming and character work - and the next day, it flowed like a simile about a river.

I'm also *blogging* much sooner in the process. I don't even know how many readers this blog has, but I know for a fact that my 2007 tour blog was being followed closely by at least one newspaper theatre critic. I didn't start it until May/June '07, so I wonder how many more readers I'll have when the '08 tour comes around!

Speaking of which, "Old Growth" will be appearing at the Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Victoria and Vancouver fringes for certain this summer. Toronto and Edmonton are up in the air, but will hopefully be a go.

The script is still in early development - but I can certainly try to tantalize a few of you with the following factoids:

- It's a two-hander.
- We each play ONE character. Each. Not both playing one character. That would be cool too.
- My co-star is Aura Giles, a music Master's student at the University of Ottawa. I was once her T.A. in Edmonton (at U of Alberta). And now just look at us! Aura turns out to be a charismatic theatre performer as well as a versatile and talented flautist.
- Our characters have the same first names as us.
- I have to lose some weight (odd as it sounds) because my character is a scrawny 21-year-old. At some point I realised that he has a smaller butt than I ever could. You see the problems that naturalism creates?
- There is live music - lots of it - composed by me - for flute (Aura) and wooden hand percussion (me).
- The story is fictional, built around a true core. You can read a fantastic, award-winning account of the true story in "The Golden Spruce" by John Vaillant.
- The tone is dramatic, but sometimes humorous; the staging is naturalistic.
- Our set is minimal and mostly consists of on-stage light sources (think outdoors in a forest at dusk, with candles and lanterns).
- The hour-long show represents a single hour in real time, in a very specific place on B.C.'s Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). My challenge is to write a *naturalistic* show, set outdoors and in real-time, with live music in it.
- It's about trees! One tree in particular. Trees make Alex's math-brain tingle.
- And it's about Shamans, in a sense.
- It will be a clearer, more direct, more accessible and more wide-reaching show than "The Fugue Code".
- And above all, "Old Growth" is intended to deliver the strongest possible message about the necessity of taking action against Environmental destruction, in a way that is palatably painful, humorous but deadly serious, memorable, artful, accurate, and straight-talky without preaching. (I'm beginning to envision my press release...)

I've got work ahead of me on all fronts, but I promise profound awesomeness. 'til the next,

Writing while the Bathurst traffic stares,

Alex (Alex (Alex (Alex)))

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Read about the show HERE, and about me in general HERE...