It's in our blood.

And now, my thoughts on a gorgeous theatrical beast: Blood/Sailing.

A note: Part of this post actually comes from some publicity paragraphs I wrote to help with marketing the show. Some of the post is new.

Another note: Some of this post may seem eerily similar to a post I wrote while I was in c.1993 at Annex (this post). But that's what I love about devising. In some ways, every collaborative experience is very much the same. In other ways, every collaborative experience is different than anything you have ever worked on before. That being said...

Sometime during college, I realized my passion (within theatre) is generative and collaborative work, or “devising.” Over the last five years or so, I’ve been involved in creating no less than six generative theatre pieces and am so pleased to add Blood/Sailing to the list. (Six may not be the right number. I've lost count. I like devising THAT much.) There’s nothing more satisfying than taking your art into your own hands while being lead by creative, intelligent, and talented ensemble such as Blood Ensemble.

I should explain what Blood/Sailing is. I think the Blood Ensemble ladies actually explain it best so I'm using their description of the show fromm their blog:

"Blood Ensemble and heavy metal band Smooth Sailing announce “Blood/Sailing,” a show that combines experimental theatre and live heavy metal music and performs July 12-28th at the boom! theatre space. Blood Ensemble and Smooth Sailing intensely collaborated to create this show that that will draw audiences from both Seattle’s music and theatre scene.

“Blood/Sailing” is a story of despair, violence and redemption. Mr. Clementine, an eerie skeleton man, runs a sweatshop buried deep in a volcano. The children that work there have never seen the sun and never learned how to play. Using songs from Smooth Sailing’s debut album XO as well as brand new music written for the show, the show is full of stunning visuals and face melting music."  

The concept for this show is uncharted territory for me. As a theatre artist and playwright, I usually rely heavily on the written and spoken word. This show relies on a collaboration with metal music before words. And I must admit I’m not very familiar with metal music. But, I am QUICKLY becoming a fan. Smooth Sailing’s music is great overall and perfect for this kind of work: full of tension, emotion, levels. Personally, I’m enjoying the challenge of creating of show based on stunning visual pictures set to a distinctive soundscape. Words come later. Words come only when necessary.

There is an incredible darkness to this piece that I think contemporary audiences are not used to. As an ensemble, we have not shied away from violence, despair, overwhelming tension, and high emotion. These are reality, real parts of life. And, in my opinion, we really need to explore them. I think often in theatre, we try to hide from these themes...or mask them. Sometimes that is necessary and makes a statement in and of itself. But we're going full throttle into the darkness. We're driving the bus straight to the gates of hell and frolicking all the way. 

This is like nothing else I’ve ever worked on. For audiences, I think it’ll be like nothing else they’ve ever experienced. It will be full of stunning visuals, moments of sadness, laughter, face-melting live music and genuine theatrical poignancy in an amazing venue. Blood/Sailing is an experience for this creative moment in time. A great one. There is some serious theatre going on here.

And you can tell we're invested. It's in our blood.

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Between April & May

Tidbit: I recently went to Bellingham for an event called Back2Bellingham. It's an annual alumni and family weekend at my alma mater, Western Washington University. One of the events during this weekend is a kegger in the library. Yes, a kegger in the library. It's a popular event and an opportunity to run into a lot of people you haven't seen in a long time. I happened to run into a former boss of mine. She asked me what I had been up to. I talked about work and training for a half-marathon. Then I sort of off-handed said I was doing shows and what not in my "free-time." The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Me: I'm pretty busy I guess.
KC: That's the way it's always been.
Me: (laughter) Yeah, I guess so.
That being said, I've been pretty busy. I've been working a lot. Probably nearly 50 hours a week a lot. It's a time of transitions for Book-It. We've had some shake-ups at work (good shake-ups, people getting great opportunities kind of shake-ups) and that has meant that there has been more work for everyone. I suddenly found myself responsible for way more stuff than I bargained for. Trial by fire. In the last three months, I have learned so much. Good news is, we're getting some new people in and my work-load should diminish...ever so slightly.

Not to worry though. Even with all the work, I've still kept myself busy on the artistic front as well:
1) I applied for my first grant recently. I'm trying to get in the habit of looking for funding and at least making an effort to get my work out there. Grants require a lot of planning, as I've learned from working in development. Applying for grants taught me a good lesson in the last couple of weeks: You have to say no to other people and take time for yourself and your work. Writing is often very solitary but applying for grants is even more so and you have to give yourself time to make it the best grant application you can. Saying no to periphery activities is an important lesson for anyone to learn.
2) I've been in rehearsal roughly three times a week for an upcoming show called Blood/Sailing. Later today, there will be a specific post about that experience.
3) It is reading time for NorthNorthwest. I haven't counted every entry specifically yet but I'm pretty sure we have over 500 ten-minute plays to read. Good news is, I have a bang-up team of readers helping me. Bad news is, I still will be reading every single ten-minute play myself. Since I am the senior editor, I feel it is my duty to know every play that has been submitted. Now to set aside the time to do that...
4) Grad school is on the near horizon. I'm ready to go back to school. I know I have so much more to learn about my writing, getting work produced, and myself. I plan to be applying this fall and hope to attend somewhere next fall. Regardless, I think it is time to see where my life takes me beyond Seattle. Damn. I need to sign up for the GRE.
5) One of the one-acts from my reading (There Were Butterflies) will be in the August NPA...next to a play by Allison Gregory. That's a little nerve-wracking. Anna Townes and I are going to be performing it, like we did in the reading, but this time I have asked Ashley Johnson to be our director. I "directed" all the pieces in the reading so I think it'll be nice to have a outside eyes on this one. There may be a few edits before then. We'll see.

There you go. That was the time between April & May.