dim sum diaries

We're halfway through the second day of rehearsal, and things are going great. Yesterday, we read the play and then spent the afternoon working with William Lau on Peking Opera movements. The cast looks amazing. I'm really impressed with all of them, even from just the cold read at the start of the day. Shannon, the actor playing Laosan is hilarious and so very cool. We also have a fanastic percussionist (Peter) who worked on my show, Mom, Dad, I'm Living with a White Girl. He's great.

This morning, the cast started working on the first song of the show and everyone sounds pretty awesome. My composer (Robert) said he was very impressed with everyone's voices and range.

The only sad thing about this experience is that this is probably the last full day I can spend at rehearsal. Tomorrow, my school visit season begins. I'm going to become at tourist at my own play. Sigh. My two loves (theatre and kids fiction) are clashing.

The big news I'd like to share with everyone is the Citadel Theatre is hosting an opening house this Saturday afternoon, and William Lau has agreed to do a Peking Opera demonstration for the public. If you're interested in seeing this demo, give the Citadel a shout. Admission is free and I think it all starts at 2:00 pm. This is a great chance to see what inspired the style of The Forbidden Phoenix. Hope to see you there.

Posted by marty at 02:29 PM | Permalink

At last, here is the first chapter of The Edmonton Journal's serial novel, The Forbidden Phoenix. Apologies for the delay. Hope you enjoy the story.

Posted by marty at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Grow out the mullets and pull out the parachute pants. Here's my 80's article which ran in today's Edmonton Journal. Hope you enjoy the article.

Posted by marty at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Check out the City Section of today's Edmonton Journal. Chapter one of the serialized novel, The Forbidden Phoenix, starts today and runs every Thursday for five weeks. If you like the story, you can see the play of the same name at the Citadel Theatre. The play opens October 25 and runs public performances on the weekends only. Weekdays are for school matinees.

I'll try to track down the link for the serial story, but I haven't found it yet. In the meantime, pick up a paper and give the story a read. The illustrations were done by Spyder Yardley Jones.

Have a great day!

Posted by marty at 01:29 PM | Permalink

I hope everyone in Edmonton bought a paper today. The proceeds go to help literacy programs in the city, including Story Avenue, an inner city young authors conference put on by the Young Alberta Book Society.

I wrote an article about literacy, which showed up in today's Raise a Reader supplement. If you can't get to the paper, here's the electronic version. If you do read it, please consider donating money to the Edmonton Journal's Raise a Reader fund. It's a great cause!

Here's the article.

Posted by marty at 06:21 PM | Permalink

Okay, the latest on the casting issue is that a friend of Allen Keng, one of our amazing chorus members is going to join the team. Allen is the total kung fu package, and if he vouches for someone, you'd better believe that guy is going to be amazing. Yay!

Side note about Allen Keng... he worked for Jackie Chan!!! I have to pick his brain and find out how on earth he got the gig and what Jackie Chan is like.

My stage manager and director are meeting tonight about what needs to happen in rehearsals... very strange process on this one. The director, Ron Jenkins, is directing another show at the same time as our show, so he won't be at some of the rehearsals. Thankfully, we have an assistant director and we have tons of choreography and songs to learn in Ron's absence, so we should be able to stay productive. However, this is not the regular way a show gets rehearsed. If I had my druthers, I'd rather all the team members be around from start to finish.

Anyway, it's a small complaint. I can't wait for the first day read through. That's the only time when I get to shine as the playwright. After that, it's all about the production.

Posted by marty at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Okay, the train is starting to leave the station. This is the first day of prep for the production crew. Lots of meetings to arrange rehearsal schedules and figure out what set and prop elements are needed in rehearsal. My wife is stage manager on the play, so I'll get all the juicy information from the production end of things.

Wrinkle number 1: One of our chorus members pulled out of the show a few weeks ago, and the director had to look for a replacement. There are options from the people who worked on the previous workshops.

Fun and games: The Citadel has an open house on October 4, and the general public will have a chance to pop in and see our rehearsal. I think it's Saturday, October 4. Anyway, if you're around and have time to kill, drop on by and see the work in progress. Hopefully, there will be some rough fight stuff to show or some songs to hear.

Posted by marty at 11:03 AM | Permalink

Okay, it's all seeming far too real now. There's a week to go before the Edmonton Journal starts to run the serialized version of The Forbidden Phoenix, and next week, is prep week for the play. The train is leaving the station and there is no stopping it. Am I worried? You bet!!! I'm going through the usual anxiety. Will people like the play? Will they understand the play? Is this play going to kill my career. The usual neurotic stuff.

I'm pretty sure the story starts on Wednesday, September 24, which would coincide with the Journal's Raise a Reader campaign. Everyone buy a paper next week. The proceeds go to literacy programs!

I'm going to the first day of rehearsal to meet the cast and reconnect with the crew, but I have a ton of school visits in October, so my chances of being at rehearsal every day are not good. I'll miss being a part of this process, but I've been with this play for 7 years; I think I can sit this one out.

I'll do my best to blog updates about the rehearsal and give everyone an insider's view of what happens during a production. If I write "it was a wild ride today," that's my code for disastrous day!

Posted by marty at 02:01 PM | Permalink

Test drove the manuscript and sketches at Dovercourt school this afternoon. Lots of great feedback. Most kids love the cover. A few were disappointed that there wasn't more on the cover, but I did try to explain to everyone that this was just an early sketch. One student didn't care for the cover at all because the cats looked to cartoonish. The student was very nice and apologized for not liking the cover. I'm glad that he was willing to express his honest opinion even if it was something negative. The fact that he offered the criticism with an apology showed to me that he was sincere, and I totally appreciated that. Thanks so much for all the feedback.

Not all the feedback will wind its way into the book, but a good writer and artist considers what works and what doesn't. They then make the choice to either listen to the feedback or not. The smart ones at least listen to the feedback and try to figure out if the comment is going to help tell their story or help tell someone else's story. After that, it's pretty easy to figure out what to use and what to use.

Now I have to sort out the business end of the book and start pulling together the copyright page and the contracts for the artist and graphic designer. It's a lot of work, but boy am I having fun working on this project.

Posted by marty at 04:11 PM | Permalink

Is it me? Another editor has taken over the Life features at the Edmonton Journal. The former editor, Janet Vlieg, will still be editing at the Journal, but the new editor for Life is Kerry Powell. I'm sad I won't be able to pitch to Janet any longer, but I'm looking forward to working with Kerry. I think she used to edit the Culture section a few years back.

As I get older, I realize that the cliche about the only thing that is constant is change itself is true. So much has changed in just a few years. New editors. New passions. New aches and pains. New bills to pay.

Anyway, I have one more article to deliver to Janet (a Raise a Reader article), and then I start pitching to Kerry. Hopefully, she liked like my articles.

Posted by marty at 01:50 PM | Permalink

Hi, all.

If you're feeling blue about the start of the school year, here's a little article to brighten your day. It's my back to school article from the Edmonton Journal. Hope you enjoy.

Posted by marty at 08:58 AM | Permalink

PHew! I'm back in Edmonton after two action-packed days with some very enthusiastic students at Ralph McCall School in Airdrie. The students were awesome. The school is focussing on a strong writing program, and they wanted me to kick things off with the lying game and the cheat code... hmmm... in hindsight, I wonder if the teachers regret asking me to come in to their school to teach their kids to lie and cheat.

Anyway, every session was awesome. Some of the teachers had used my writing tricks last year, and I was so impressed that the kids remembered them. I was even more impressed with how excited the younger students were about sharing their own stories. I have to send a huge thank you to Mr. Jackson for bringing me to the school. He's enthusiastic about teaching, and it showed in how the students responded to him.

Thanks to all the students and staff at Ralph McCall! Have a great school year.

Posted by marty at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apologies, but life got in the way of blogging... although, isn't blogging my life. Hmm.

Anyway, things have been hectic. I had to prep for some school visits and speaking engagements (namely Arts Day in Calgary), so I was a bit of a wreck. Hard to believe that only a few months ago, I was doing school visits almost every week and feeling like an old pro, and now I'm freaking out. I'm totally afraid that I'll forget what I need to say or mess up a joke. Yikes. Insecure. A little! No, a lot!

I'm feeling a bit better now that I've prepped for my two days of writing workshops in Airdrie, but the prep came at the expense of working on my writing projects. Sigh. I wish I had the energy of a 20 year old. No, I wish I had a 20 year old to be my assistant.

On the writing front, I pitched two article ideas to the Edmonton Journal Life editor. One is about email woes and how I can never clear out my inbox. The other one is a Halloween-themed article about staging a live version of Friday the 13th and finding out that drunk teenagers can't be scared. I just sent off the email article, but I have to put the Halloween article on hold while I work on another article for the Journal. The editor asked me to do an article about reading habits for their Raise-A-Reader issue.

If all goes well, I should clear out that article early next week. And if I have the energy for it, I should be able to finish the revisions to A Close Shave soon as well. I just need to buy some time to focus on the project. Still have to do some work on The Forbidden Phoenix graphic novel, but that's a lower priority.

I almost forgot... the picture book! True Story. My illustrator is back on the job and working hard to get me some sketches. She made some adjusts to the storyboard, and is now doing larger versions of the pages with more detail. If I approve of those, she moves on to colour versions. I hope to take some of the sketches to schools and get some feedback from kids. If you see me at your school, don't forget to ask about the sketeches.

That's all for now. Have to hit the road. Long drive ahead and I'm wiped. Hope I can stay awake.

Later.

Posted by marty at 05:08 PM | Permalink

Apologies to everyone, but I'm temporarily shutting down my comments section. Thanks to a Spambot, my site has been pestered with nasty ads from many different sites. Like my flu, I'm hoping this will pass. I'll keep posting blog entries... mostly about how I hate Spam!!!!

Posted by marty at 11:32 PM | Permalink

Phew! Sometimes that play never seems to want to stay down. It's like a bad cowlick that you can't comb out. I cycled through the script and polished the dialogue. Mainly, I just looked for places where I thought I was overstating the obvious and getting repetitious. I think the voices are pretty distinct, but I won't know for sure until the actors start handling the material. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with where the script is at. The major beats are there and the structure is intact.

As a fellow playwright and friend once pointed out, the draft he is most proud of is the one just before he goes into rehearsal. That draft he controlled. After that, the changes to the script are to accommodate the realities of production and the various actors and creative people involved. But no matter what happens in the rehearsal, he will always have the draft just before the madness began.

I have a few more weeks before rehearsals start, so I'm going to take the time to get ahead on my Edmonton Journal articles and finish off the Bigfoot novel. Now, if only my finger would stop hurting. Sigh.

Posted by marty at 03:47 PM | Permalink