Forbidden Phoenix - Day 1
Just arrived at the Banff Centre for the fifth workshop of The Forbidden Phoenix. I can't believe that it's been nearly six years worth of development on the script. When I started the process, this play was just supposed to be a simple naturalistic play about a Chinatown burning down. Since then, it has blown up into an epic allegory done in the style of Chinese opera meets musical theatre.
I'm excited about tomorrow's readthrough, but anxious as well. I know there will be some things to look at, namely the consistency of the character voices throughout the script. There might also be a structural concern that my director raised. He's still not sure about it, but he thinks that the second act started stronger with Malau (formerly Monkey King and Sun Wukong) singing tomorrow... so we get the sense of the aftermath of what he thinks he has done (he thinks he's killed his son). Right now, the second act starts with an action section... we go from end of first act that has a big fight to the start of the second act with another big fight. I'm willing to entertain a rejig so that the second act begins with Malau, but I'll hold off any changes until I hear the actors read the play tomorrow morning.
The work begins again. I'm also going to try to upload photos from the workshop as a new experiment for my blog. Hopefully, I won't crash the system.