In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – A Pre-Post-Mortem

Charles Lewis III, getting a head start on the recap.

“La Serenata” by George Yepes

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
– JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

It’s safe to say that death is not everyone’s favorite subject. It’s one thing to think of endings – fads end, stories end, meals end – but quite another to actually put it in terms of death. Death means that you end. All of your opinions fads, stories, and meals will merely vanish as your consciousness slips away into a void of permanent darkness.

Okay… now that I’ve started off on such a cheery note, I should probably tell you that I don’t intend for this to be a downer; if you want that, there’s no shortage of it in the news (particularly as it relates to recent deaths). In fact, I should say that I get it and I empathize: the sudden appearance of death (at least if it’s not your own) can be a rude awakening from the complacency of life. It’s the one thing in life about which we aren’t entirely certain; or maybe we are certain and just like the fairy tale as a way of thinking that it could only get better from here. These questions wake me up at night, too.

It’s only natural that these questions would come up in the midst of a theatre festival based on a mythology with no shortage of prominent figures who tried to cheat death. The twist is that they often found that eternal could be much worse than life ending (eternal life without eternal youth; permanently pushing a boulder up a hill; etc.). Is the end of life really more terrifying than the idea of an unchanged life that never ends?

During the opening speeches for this year’s festival, founder Stuart Bousel has frequently mentioned something that a few of us have known for some time: that the SF Olympians Festival is a 12-year experiment, making this (its sixth year) the halfway point. Last night’s shark-themed “Waterlogue” was from the point of view of someone who realizes that they’re dying. It was a funny piece, but a sobering reminder that this festival we all love will one day end, as all things do.

The thing to remember is that art doesn’t die. Artists die, artwork can be destroyed, but the affect that a work of art can have is something that can’t be measured so tangibly. What’s more, advances in technology have made it easier to both preserve art for future generations and restore works thought lost forever. For the Olympians Fest, many of the readings are recorded and photographed (I’ve often done the latter from an awkward front row seat), letting the playwrights, actors, and even those who weren’t there experience the readings as often as they’d like.

But let’s not forget the point of the festival itself. As Stuart has frequently stated: the festival is meant to be part of the development process of the, not the end. All playwrights retain full ownership of their scripts and are allowed to alter and submit them as they see fit. Productions such as Juno en Victoria, Pleiades, You’re Going to Bleed, and the upcoming The Horse’s Ass and Friends! all started as Olympians readings with their writers in the audience nervously listening to the reactions of the audience around them. From there, each writer decided “I would love to see this on its feet” and put the gears in motion to make it happen. The festival is part of the trip, it’s not the destination.

I wrote earlier this year how I wasn’t all that fond of my Year 3 script about Atlas – Do a Good Turn Daily – until the years-later feedback of others made me reconsider it. I haven’t heard a lot of feedback about this year’s Poseidon script, The Adventures of Neptune: In Color!, but the audience reaction was pretty good from where I sat. Sure, as writer/director I can nitpick 1,001 things I’d change, but that script is something I’m proud of. So proud, in fact, that I’ve resolved to expand it from a one-act to a full-length. I can’t say for certain what future these scripts will have, but it’s been a trip to bring them this far. They didn’t die at the festival.

Since this is officially the festival’s mid-life, perhaps a contemplation of the end is appropriate. Not in the morbid “Oh God, I’m gonna die, but I never went to Bora Bora!” way, but in the author-of-a-great-series-starts-pondering-the-perfect-resolutions-for-his/her-characters-so-the-story-can-end-correctly-and-not-go-on-indefinitely way. You see it coming and you prepare for the single best send-off ever. Death will certainly play an important role in next year’s festival, “Harvest of Mysteries”. In addition to plays about such Greek myth staples as Hades and Tartarus, Year 7 will also shake things up by including figures from Egyptian mythology – and those mofos were all about death!

This is probably the end of the “Of Olympic Proportions” feature on this site. It’s possible that it could pop up again and you can bet that ‘Pub writers will continue to talk about the Olympians Fest, but as I said in my first entry: I saw this as a one-year sporadically-scheduled look at one of the most popular theatre festivals on the West Coast. Having been with it since the beginning, it was my pleasure to give people a resource into what goes into said festival, from the moment a writer is accepted to the post-show drinks. Hopefully, most of the questions people have had can now be answered by clicking the “SF Olympians”, “San Francisco Olympians Festival”, and “Of Olympic Proportions” tags below.

And hey, don’t forget that this is not the end! Not for the festival (which still has six exciting years ahead of it), not for my participation in it (I’ll be writing the script for the Opening Night party), or even for this year’s festival. It continues tonight, tomorrow night, and concludes on Saturday. So come on down and raise a glass to the Wine Dark Sea, and enjoy every sip as if it were your last!

Charles Lewis III finds it hilarious that he started this feature thinking he’d never be part of the festival again. As usual, tix and info can be found as www.SFOlympians.com.

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – My Twitter-fied Script

“Right side and with intensity, okay?”
“Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.”
– Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation

There’s no way I’ll be able to top yesterday’s anecdote about Meryl Streep dreams, but I empathize with the plight of my fellow ‘Pub columnist. As you read these words, I’m mere hours away from the first rehearsal for my Poseidon-based script, The Adventures of Neptune: In Color! It’s one of the few things I’ve written for which I’ve felt genuine optimism once it was done. And I think that’s earned, considering I spent several marathon sessions over the past five days trying to edit the damn thing.

My play was selected to be a one-act, which I’ve written for the festival before and had every confidence I could do so again. Then I started researching. A lot. I never stopped researching, but once I began putting words into these characters’ mouths, I couldn’t make them shut up. To further complicate matters, the post-audition casting process resulted in me getting a truly kick-ass roster of Bay Area actors. So naturally I wanted to write material specifically for each of them.

The result could easily be the length of Once Upon a Time in America, but all I need is a “GoodFeathers” sketch. Realizing that my way-too-long story would require a bit of pruning, I found inspiration in a rather unlikely source: Twitter.

I remember years back when the late Roger Ebert joined Twitter. In fact, I remember years before when he specifically said he would NEVER join Twitter. He already had his regular long-form blog and implied that Twitter’s truncated form made real discourse all but impossible. He wasn’t entirely wrong: at its worst, Twitter is the medium for the sort of oversimplified opinions and patronizing platitudes formerly reserved for bumper stickers, fortune cookies, and novelty t-shirts.

When he finally joined in 2009, he would say months later, “Twitter for me performs the function of a running conversation. For someone who cannot speak, it allows a way to unload my zingers and one-liners.” That stuck with me. I forget what year I joined Twitter, but there was a period of months – maybe even a full year – where I just forgot about it and didn’t use it. (It’s this non-desire to “keep up with the Joneses” that has kept me from joining Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, etc.) But since I was a teenager, I’ve always held an appreciation for the democratic way the internet gives everyone a voice, even those with which I do not agree. If I was going to be on Twitter, I’d try to follow Ebert’s example and try to put some thought into what I typed. Short thoughts, but thoughts nonetheless.

This has proven an invaluable practice when editing scripts. Not every line needs to be “The Aristocrats,” some can just be dirty limericks on bathroom walls. Still, my biggest fear is that when the edited version is read aloud it makes no sense, but I can always say I planned it like that.

It takes me longer than others to finish a script because I usually write on a typewriter. I bought on a whim in college in 2000 and have gotten great mileage out of it since. Obviously it has a few disadvantages – no SpellCheck, errors have to be corrected manually, people in other rooms complain of the noise – but I feel those pale in comparison to the advantages I’ve gained from it – I’ve become a better speller, I predict and stop grammatical errors, and when I don’t hear the noise, then I know I’m not writing when I should be. I also can’t just take out a single line or page at my whim, because typed pages don’t self-edit. If I want to change something, you’ll likely have to change the entire script.

I’m reminded of a quote by John Milius, a writer I’ve always admired. In a 2003 interview, when asked about writing new drafts, he said that he “look[s] at a script like a gunstock [..] it has to be shaped right, and the finish has to be right, and you have to bring out all the qualities that are in the wood.” I agree with that. When I rewrite, I don’t think of it as replacing one LEGO piece with another, I think of it as playing Jenga or moving one ace without bringing down the entire house of cards.

I won’t know until this evening whether or not I’ve succeeded, and I’ll still have one more rehearsal and an actual reading left. For now, I’ll just finish hole-punching these 280 FedEx-copied pages whilst all you good people do the right thing and blow up the hashtag #SFOlympians6.

Charles Lewis III deprived himself of food and sleep to edit his script, so you should all come see it on Saturday – Nov. 7. To pre-order tickets and find out more info, please visit www.SFOlympians.com

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – Can you Macarena?

Charles Lewis III, lining it up.

All men, mostly White – this is the LEAST likely line-up for Olympians auditions.

“Give [the audience] pleasure – the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.”
– Alfred Hitchcock, Asbury Park NJ Press (13 August 1974)

Home stretch, folks. After nearly a year of plotting, outlining, fundraising, and writers burning pages from our own scripts before we tear out our hair and shout to the heavens in futility, we’re now kicking into gear. This past Monday was the final pre-festival meeting of writers and directors (“The White Council”), so from this point on you can consider the gears officially in motion. The SF Olympians Fest draws nigh.

So what does that mean for you good folks? Well, if you’re patron of the arts, fan of Greek mythos, on the lookout for cheap SF theatre, or just someone with strong opinions about dolphins, Miley Cyrus, the name “Jason”, or pumpkin-spiced… anything, then you’re in for a real treat.

But if you’re an actor, then you’re in for the wildest ride of all. This coming Sunday and Monday will see the return of the hilarious chorus line known as the Olympians auditions.

As one of this year’s writers and directors, I originally followed the above statement with a maniacal laugh. Then I took a moment to think about it and remembered the truth about the Olympians auditions: the actors are the ones with the advantage.

First off, you should all read Ashley’s spot-on Olympians auditions advice column from two years ago. Not only is it a great read, it’ll put a lot of the following into context.

Now that you’ve done that, here are a few things I know from having been on both ends of this festival’s audition process. Many folks think being an auditor is easy because all you have to do is plant your ass in a chair for several hours whilst an endless parade of pretty faces beg for your approval by reciting Neil LaBute and 32 bars from Seussical. That’s true, to an extent, but it’s also true that we can be just as terrified watching as you are of auditioning. I’m terrified that you folks will be so goddamned talented that the work on which I’ve spent a full year will seem mediocre when spoken by someone other than the voices in my head. I’m scared that all of the Bay Area actors of color who constantly seek out opportunities won’t even consider coming to this audition. I’m afraid that I’ll find the absolutely pitch-perfect roster – they look the parts, they read with conviction, all of their schedules sync up perfectly – only to be told I can’t use them because they’ve already said “Yes” to another Olympians piece. (As a rule, actors are allowed to be cast in any number of plays throughout the festival, but not on the same weekend.)

And make no mistake, folks: we will fight over you. Every year there are those actors who bring it so hard in auditions, that you can feel it in the room. As soon as one of them leaves, every writer and director underlines their name and puts stars and hearts around it like a middle school love note. And it’s not as if it’s just a handful, oh no. Olympians auditions are an embarrassment of riches: actors you haven’t seen in years; youngsters fresh out of (or still in) school; adult newbies who always loved performing and are trying this for the first time. All those people whom critics claim don’t exist in the Bay Area theatre scene – they all come out of the shadow.

And we auditors sit dumfounded, asking ourselves “Where have you been all my life?”

So if I had any advice for actors auditioning next week, it would be “You have all the power. Use it.” You don’t need to prepare anything, you don’t need to worry, you don’t need any preconceived notions – just be you. And if you’re curious as to whether we still had spots available, you read the info here and send a query to the e-mail provided. In fact, you can even try getting a walk-up slot, if one’s available. Just bring a headshot, a resume, and a love of performance.

Other than that, there’s a room full indie theatre’s best waiting to hear you totally own your randomly-selected monologue.

Now do it with a Scottish accent.

Charles Lewis III is writing and directing this year’s Poseidon play, which requires a cast of various ethnicities and genders. He can’t wait to see who shows up.

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – The Direct Approach

Charles Lewis III, on directing for the SF Olympians Festival.

Pre-show layout for “Hydra” by Tonya Narvaez

“Cut! That’s a print. Now get that bastard off my set!”
– John Frankenheimer

The quote above from the late film director was reportedly spoken on the set of his 1996 film The Island of Dr. Moreau. Adapted from the HG Wells book of the same name, the ’96 production is one of Hollywood’s most infamous: Frankenheimer replaced the original director, actors shot footage only to be replaced, the weather was hell, the make-up didn’t come out right, the budget and shooting schedule both expanded, the script was being rewritten every half-hour, and Marlon Brando was… Marlon Brando. But it was working with Val Kilmer that drove Frankenheimer to the breaking point. By some reports, the director is said to have gotten so fed up with Kilmer’s diva antics that two came close to a fistfight at one point. So when it came to shoot Kilmer’s final scene, Frankenheimer is said to have followed the last take with the quote above.

Every director, if they make a career out of it, has at least one or two actors whose very names drive the director into a blind rage. I know I do. I started to think of one in particular during last week’s Olympians Fest directors meeting (which was followed by the writers meeting this week). I’d gotten the chance to direct a great script by a great writer, but we weren’t able to get our No. 1 or 2 choices for a key role because they were both in another reading that same weekend (actors may only be cast in one reading per week of the festival). I tried my diplomatic best to work with the actor we got, but he was determined to do the opposite of every direction I gave him. It was a script meant to be read at a snappy pace, but he would drag… out… every… line. His character was meant to focus one way, but he would try to keep the focus on him. In a staged reading, he kept moving so much that he obviously kept losing his place in his script, and I gave the other actors movements in an attempt to appear as if there were any kind of cohesion with what he was doing. It was a shit show and to this day, whenever I see the author, my first instinct is to say “I’m sorry for that reading.”

After five years, 78 writers, 57 directors, some 290, believe me when I say that there are many such stories connected with the festival. On that same note, there are just as many – if not more – stories of festival collaborators who clicked so well that they immediately got together again on their next project. In fact, if you were to survey the Olympians alumni whose work went on to full production, I’m sure at least part of that could be attributed to the chemistry that was developed during the original reading. Having taken part in the festival every year since its inception, and having taken part in every creative role except illustrator (I’ve taken up finger-painting, so it’ll happen eventually), I know there are far more people I’d love to work with than those I wouldn’t.

It ain’t gonna happen.

The role of Olympians director has always been a tricky one because it’s always been the one that’s been hardest to define. It’s a writers festival first and foremost, so the two most necessary elements are writers to create the scripts and actors to read them. In a festival of staged readings, the emphasis will always be on the “reading” portion. So why is a director necessary at all? There isn’t a lot of work that goes into putting a bunch of people on stage to read a script; what’s the point of being a director if you’re not there to inject some stylistic flourish? Quite a lot, actually.

I first directed for the festival in Year 3 and the first thing I remember was how strongly the writers were discouraged from directing their own scripts. As my own script developed, I began to see why finding someone else to direct was so strongly recommended. Writing is a solitary process. Doing it means spending a great deal of time bumping around in your own head. The problem is that the voice in your head will lie to you. A lot. Having the perspective of an additional artistic point of view will enlighten you to aspects of your script not even you had considered.

The problem comes when directors try to make it less about the writer’s words and more about what the audience will see. The impulse is understandable, but it’s also wrong. Those of us who have been with the festival long enough know why there are now rules about there being only 3-5 rehearsals before a reading, why you should never force an actor to do something with which they’re uncomfortable, and why you should never, ever wait until the day of a reading to fully stage a physical assault scene requiring the actors to both move and read while their scripts are in-hand. There’s at least one of those readings every year. We’ve all seen it. Some of us have actually been in it.

If I wrote a list of banned Olympians directors, this guy would be at the top.

“Well then,” you might ask, what can a director do to help out when the emphasis is meant to be all about the words coming out of the actors’ mouths?” Easy: help them understand those words. They’re still actors, after all. They want character motivation and a better understanding of the person or persons they’ll be portraying. Perhaps the more esoteric moments in the script immediately made sense to you and the writer, but an actor will need something more. These are stories based on ancient mythological beings with fantastic abilities. The script is how it makes sense to the writer, the director makes sense of the script for the actors, and the actors translate that for an audience.

And that doesn’t require a lot of bells and whistles. The most common staged reading direction of planting folks in front of music stands is used as often as it is because it works. It allows the actors to always have eyes on their scripts, but still turn and react to their fellow actors. Wanna shake it up a bit? You can do like Stuart Bousel often does and eschew with the music stands all together, arranging the actors in the form of an orchestra. You can define the characters through costume (which, like direction, should be simple, but can still be eye-catching). You can take full advantage of the fact that there’s nothing on stage but the actors. Last year’s Hydra by Tonya Narvaez was one of the most memorable because of the atmospheric way Tonya staged it. She wrote a paranormal thriller and set the mood by having the actors lit only by the lights on their music stands (see the photo at the top). Needless to say, we were still talking about that one days afterward.

Simplicity, it makes all the difference.

I had a list of about twelve people whom I’d considered for directing my Year 3 script about Atlas. The one I chose wound up not being on the list at all and she was the one who encouraged me to direct it myself. After I picked her, she wound up having a busier year than she’d expected, so I relieved her of directing duties to make things easier. After failing to find another director whose schedule would fit, I reluctantly agreed to direct it myself – something I hadn’t done since I was in school. I did direct, it went off okay, and I have since directed so much that I actually should put a director’s resume together one of these days.

I’ve also seen my scripts directed by others, but in the festival and out. It’s given me a pretty clear perspective as to what function directors serve in a festival of staged readings: we’re conductors. That’s probably why Stuart prefers the orchestra-style approach to readings, because it makes clear just how everyone fits into the symphony. The writer composes, the actors sing (sometimes literally – again, happens every year), and the directors is there to make sure every single not is pitch perfect for the welcome audience.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I think I hear the downbeat…

Charles Lewis is writing and directing this year’s Poseidon play. The music he’s been listening to that which plays when Kirk fights Gorn… it’ll make sense when you see the play. For more information about the SF Olympians Festival, please visit SFOlympians.com

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – The Script you Love to Hate

Charles Lewis III is revisiting old demons.

“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

About a week or so back, our esteemed Executive Director Stuart Bousel mentioned on Facebook that he’d recently come across an old script he’d written. From the way he described it, he’d put the script aside after a particularly disastrous reading and hadn’t thought much of it since. However, after stumbling upon it again and looking it over, he was relieved to find that the problem wasn’t with the script, but with the way it was read. It was one of those pleasant scenarios that artists hope for happens only upon reflection: to find out that your work wasn’t nearly as bad as you’d thought and that problem was how it was presented.

I’ve been thinking of that a lot the past few months, the idea of revisiting old work of mine that I’d initially brushed off as terrible. I’ve been particularly thinking of it as it relates to my 2012 Olympians play, Do a Good Turn Daily. Earlier this year I’d been offered an opportunity (which I can’t publicly speak of in specifics just yet) to revisit the script and give it an extended life, so to speak. As wonderful an opportunity as this was, it also meant that I would have to swallow my pride and look back at this particular script. And in the time since reading of this particular script, I’d kinda learned to hate it. A lot.

It’s not that surprising for Olympians scripts to have a life beyond the festival. In fact, that’s kinda the whole point of the festival: it’s developmental. It’s still the embryonic stage of the script’s life cycle. Hell, those of us with long-time Olympians experience instantly roll our eyes at the thought of past participants who have treated what-is-clearly-defined-as-a-staged-reading-festival as if it were opening night on Broadway – full of bells and whistles, pomp and circumstance. But every writer selected hopefully imagines that their script will be one of the illustrious alumni that go on to fully-staged productions for which people gladly pay admission. (Look up Stuart’s Juno en Victoria, Marissa Skudlarek’s Pleiades, and Megan Cohen’s Totally Epic Odyssey for just a few examples.)
I had no such illusions regarding my 2012 entry about Atlas. Of all the proposals I’d submitted the year prior, the one for Atlas was the one for which I may have been the least enthusiastic. I wanted to get picked for one of my more exciting proposals; the ones that you’d read and instantly imagine having a poster drawn by Drew Struzan. Instead I got picked to develop a script that I’d refer to as “my Jim Jarmusch play”: it’s set in the mid-‘90s and it’s just three people sitting and talking, accentuated by an eclectic collection of music both old and new.

Then again, I’ve always liked Jim Jarmusch’s work. Plus, what this proposal lacked in (perceived) marketability, it made up for in its personal nature. One of the characters, the 14-year-old Herc, is loosely based on myself in 1995. So while the other proposals, if chosen, would have seen my Id run wild, this one would require me to open a vein. Atlas it was.

I actually did have a director attached at one point, but as enthusiastic as she was, I saw that I was just adding to her already-busy schedule and took her advice to direct it myself. I wrote most of it longhand during an Olympian writers get-together at the Café La Boheme in The Mission. I did a drastic full rewrite the Saturday before our first rehearsal, causing me to miss one that day’s Iapetus vs. Hermes “matinee”. I was still cutting massive chunks of it backstage before the reading, and as I stood in the back of the theatre, I felt I should have cut more. Even as a one-act that clocked in at 53 min., it still felt too goddamn long. I was actually relieved to lose to Claire’s play, because I couldn’t imagine any method of torture as bad as reading (what I imagined to be) the worst play ever written.

Sure, people complimented me afterward, but I freely admit that I’m the worst when it comes to compliments. I’m not as bad as I used to be, so I’m improving. Still, I have a habit of treating every compliment, no matter how sincere, as I would my grandmother telling me I’m handsome: I politely nod, say “Okay” (never “Thank you”), and try put it out of my mind immediately. I’m that hypothetical actor Mamet talks about in True and False, the one who treats every compliment as a slap to the face, so they respond by slapping back with “It wasn’t as good as it could have been.” Criticisms I’ll repeat to myself ad nauseum, but compliments? Those are the greatest insult.

In fact, it was that very self-improvement that finally allowed me to take the Atlas compliments at face value. I’ve actually gotten quite a few of them in the intervening years. The pessimist in me would chalk it up to the fact that I’m more known for acting than writing, so maybe it was the only written thing of mine they could remember (hell, most thought it was the first thing I’d ever written in my life, when I’ve been writing and directing since high school). But they did remember. It was nearly one year ago exactly when one of my co-stars in The Crucible told me how much she’d enjoyed it and wondered why I hadn’t done anything more with it.

So I bit the bullet and finally decided to take a look at it again. It didn’t go well at first. I’ve kept personal journals of some kind since my teens, and on the occasions I dared to look through them, I usually cringe at the obnoxious son-of-a-bitch I used to be. So too did I cringe looking back over my Atlas script, as I nitpicked the bits of bad dialogue and lamented that I wasn’t more creative with my staging.

But as I kept reading through it, a funny thing happened: I didn’t hate it. At all. I could still see where the rough edges were, but that’s because I had the benefit of analytical hindsight with a script I’d written and rewritten in several passionate creative bursts. I have a bit of an obsession with the Freudian model of the psyche – it’s the reason the play has three characters – and this play was definitely fueled by my Id. And once my Super-Ego was done poring every line, word, and punctuation, my Ego was finally able to decide “This was nearly the piece of shit I told myself it was.”

When the aforementioned opportunity to revisit the play presented itself earlier this year, the first question I asked was how much leeway I’d have with rewriting it. I was told that the play could be “touched up”, but couldn’t be drastically different (eg. fewer or additional characters, new scenes, radical restructuring, etc.) than the draft that was that read at the festival. After pondering that for a little while, I agreed. I’ve come to think of this script like an abandoned family heirloom: I no longer want to throw it in the fire, but I think it could use a good polish.

As I sit here putting the finishing touches on this entry, I glanced at my bookshelf and saw Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, given to me by a fellow ‘Pub writer and Olympians alumnus. A few years back I was in a bookstore and read his “new” version of Noises Off. It really isn’t all that different from the original version he wrote in ’82, but what really stuck with me was the intro at the start of the book. I can’t quote it word-for-word, but it was Frayn speaking to the necessity of a writer to revisit old work to look at it out of its original context. That doesn’t necessarily mean rewriting everything, but to not just outright dismiss the person (and artist) you were, because it’s what led you to become the one you are.

I’m not an impulsive person. Hell, just this past Saturday night I did something uncharacteristically impulsive (and stupid) and have been beating myself up for it every day since. But I am reflective. I like looking at all of my scars because they remind me of exactly how not to get cut next time. The play Do a Good Turn Daily wasn’t explicitly autobiographical, nor would I really call it a “roman à clef” per se, but it was definitely me reflecting on a time that I recall as one of great transition – for the world, for the times, and yes, for me. I like to think of as akin to Jean-Luc Picard at the end of the Next Generation episode “Tapestry”; I just didn’t need a six-inch serrated blade shoved through my chest.

I never approve of an artist outright destroying or radically changing older work once it’s been established in their canon. If they feel an older work is truly deserving of some alteration, then I hope they’d at least keep the original available in some accessible for the very purpose of comparing them (I’m lookin’ at you, George Lucas). At the risk of sounding overly sentimental and really damn pretentious, I think destroying old art is destroying part of the artist and that’s akin purposely throwing away puzzle pieces.

Whereas film and television are media – specifically photographs – captured forever, we theatre folk have the privilege of working in an art form that has the tendency to change every single night, whether we notice it or not. Acknowledge the change, embrace the change, learn from the change. Hell, it was yet another ‘Pub writer/Olympians alumnus who used to paraphrase Paul Valery and say: “Good plays are never finished, only abandoned.” And look what happened with her play.

Charles Lewis III can only imagine how he’ll beat himself up next year, following his Poseidon entry for this year’s festival. As always, if you want to know more about the SF Olympians Festival, visit the official site at http://www.sfolympians.com

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – With a li’l Help from your Friends

Charles Lewis III checking in from the most recent Olympians meeting.

For last year’s fest Steve wore a dog collar. What has he got planned THIS time?

“I had been alone more than I could have been, had I gone by myself.”
– The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

In all of the year’s I’ve been involved in the active production of the Olympians Fest (Years 3, 4, and now 6), I think I’ve only ever missed a single meeting. I believe it was during Year 4. I actually had planned on attending, but as the day wore on, I got so ridiculously sick that I eventually expected a CDC “Quarantine” tent to go up over the house. I’m pretty sure that once one agrees to write for the festival, the only excuse for missing a meeting is to be dead – at least that’s the impression we get from Jeremy’s e-mails. He’ll only accept actual death because being “on the brink of death” means you’re still alive and therefore should be at the meeting.

Granted, the folks who missed out on the most recent meeting had pretty good reasons: one was rehearsing his new show; one was acting, producing, and hosting this month’s Theater Pub; and one was actually having a baby. I… guess those are valid-sounding reasons, what do you think?

So as we all settle in, stuff our faces, and gossip about actors who have burned too many bridges, I really begin to notice that the meetings for this year’s fest carry a significance that wasn’t there in meetings for previous years. I don’t just mean the fact that Rachel Kessinger’s veggie lasagna has raised the bar on the food we bring, or that an entire cantaloupe-sized bottle of wine was finished off before the meeting proper even started. No, what I’m noticing is that this year’s meetings really do point toward a shift in the way that the festival is put together. There are fewer meetings this year than there were in previous years. As such, a lot has been packed into each one, so if you miss it, you’re missing something significant about how this year’s festival will differ from the last five.

Someone actual wrote on blue pages. What sorcery is this?

We cover the normal bases: stating how much of the play has been written so far, if at all; mentioning how the premise has changed from the original pitch, if at all; finding a director, if you haven’t yet; and the reading of pages from the script-in-progress. As before, I pass my pages off to other writers in the room, tilt my head to the side, and try to just listen. I hear flaws, lots of them. Not in the way it’s read, per se, but the readings give the characters a different interpretations that what I’d conceived. One joke I wrote crashes and burns like the toilet seat of a Russian space station, so I know it’s not likely to be in the next draft. I will say that the back-and-forth aspect I wrote for this scene sounds better spoken than it did as I wrote it, so that’s good. All in all, I’m not entirely pleased, but I have an idea of what to work on.

That was a major topic of the meeting. Not my shitty pages, but the topic of collaboration. The simultaneous gift and curse of writing is its solitary nature: it often requires you to block out the white noise of the outside world so as to let your Id run free, but doing intentionally requires cutting yourself off from those to whom you look for support, solace, or even a few quick laughs. Writing means translating billions of mental synapses into finger movements that will somehow paint a verbal picture meant to be interpreted by someone other than you. But although the writing process can be solitary, it doesn’t mean that means to get the wheels moving have to be.

This meeting was about asking everyone in the room “What do you need?” and trying our best to make sure they got it. Maybe they have writer’s block, maybe they forgot the dates, maybe they wrote for a specific actor whom they now know they won’t get (FYI: pre-casting in the festival is frowned upon, and with damn good reason). As such, we threw out not only our frustrations, but also our solutions – particularly those of us who have done the festival before. A lot of emphasis is put on the importance of having the scripts read aloud. You might think this was a no-brainer – what with it being the entire point of the festival – but it’s how past entries that were meant to 10-15 min. shorts wound up being around 30 min. or more; it’s how a festival that starts every night at 8pm and expects to be out by 10pm (if not earlier) winds up having nights that go as late as 11:30pm. To this conversation I contribute “Just remember that it’ll always sound different out loud than it does in your head, ‘cause the voice in your head will lie to you. Every. Single. Time.”

Suggestions are thrown out for setting up writing sessions and readings. It reminds me of when I went to such a meeting with fellow Olympians writers during Year 3. I wrote the first full draft of my one-act about Atlas longhand in that café. I wound up drastically rewriting it when I finally typed it up, but that session in the café really got the ball rolling.

See that bottle on the floor? That was the SECOND one of those opened.

Before we conclude for the evening, we touch on the other major necessary evil of art: funding. The fundraising template for the festival will be one of the most notable changes from years past. It’s a bit too early to say what it will be exactly, but it seems assured that it won’t resemble the campaigns from previous years. Of course, once your fundraiser video features creepy photo-bombing by Allison Page – 9:35 in the video – where else is there to go with it?

But the one thing of which we are sure is that it will require the effort of every single person who was in the room that night, as well as many more who weren’t there. If there was an overall message of this last meeting, it was that it only works when all of the pieces are in sync. Those of us who have been part of it from the beginning (in one capacity or another) know this to be absolutely true. Writers must communicate with directors, directors with actors, everyone with friends and family to see this new work and others like it. Once someone gets in their head that their way – and ONLY their way – is what will happen… well, there’s a reason each year’s festival has That One Play. Hell, it’s usually not even one – I tend to count two or three, depending on the year. It’s the play or plays that clearly had a communication breakdown and wind up being complete and utter train wrecks. Not even the good kind with some redeeming element of camp; no, they’re the ones that make audiences want to chew off their own limbs in an attempt to escape. There’s at least one every year. I sure as hell hope it isn’t mine.

So as we began to leave for the evening, encouraging all present to see this month’s ‘Pub show (that includes you reading this, it runs again this coming Monday and Tuesday), I dare say the one word on everyone’s lips is “collaboration”. That and Rachel’s lasagna.

Charles Lewis III is planning to once again direct his own Olympians piece on Poseidon this year. As to how that’s still collaborative, he plans to elaborate in the next “Of Olympic Proportions” entry. To read his and every writer’s proposal, and to learn more about the festival’s past and present, please visit the official SF Olympians Fest website.

In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – The End is the Beginning is The End

“My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
That is not often vouch’d, while ’tis a-making,
‘Tis given with welcome; to feed were best at home;
From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.”
– Lady MacBeth, MacBeth Act III Sc. 4, William Shakespeare

For all of us who have been there, it’s no surprise that Stuart’s apartment is often referred to as “The White Tower”. I honestly can’t recall what color the exterior really is, but I do know how exhausting it is to hike up those stone steps from one street to another, followed by another two flights of steps once you get inside – all for the sake of looking out over his balcony at one of the most enviable views of the San Francisco skyline without riding in a helicopter. Of course it’s The White Tower. What else would we expect from a self-proclaimed “Tolkien-nerd” who produces a festival based around ancient Greek mythology?

There’s a special something in the air for the first writers meeting of the annual SF Olympians Festival. If you’ve worked in the previous year’s festival, you’ve (hopefully) had time to decompress from that madness and have replaced your anxiety with excitement for the new fest, which is a good whole year away. If you’re new to the game, you probably have a walking-on-eggshells feeling of not wanting to look ridiculous in front of a bunch of folks who put on a festival where last year The Judgment of Paris was made to resemble RuPaul’s Drag Race. Don’t worry about it: before the night is over, you’ll be so stuffed with wine, cheese, and chocolate that you won’t think your idea is ridiculous – you’ll wonder if it’s ridiculous enough.

A typical Olympians meeting usually starts with a round of introductions, in which we all clumsily try to remember our names, our subjects, and our proposals for this coming festival. Even without alcohol, that’s a lot harder than you think – we didn’t become writers so that we’d have to, y’know, talk.

We then explain the logistics and mechanics of the festival. Again, those of us who have been through it before know that it’s nothing to be taken for granted, especially as the festival continues to expand – both in size and influence – with each successive year. There are going to be some major changes to the festival, come 2015. The fundamentals will remain the same, but the necessity for streamlining has presented itself. For all the new achievements, there’s also been the accumulation of a lot of dead weight that has slowed down what-should-be a rather expeditious process. That dead weight will have to be cut loose. The only folks likely to complain are those who have been letting others do their work anyway.

Which leads the meeting to another touchy subject: communication. It’s importance cannot be over-stressed. There were problems that sprung up in the last festival (and a few festivals before) that were the result of people not properly communicating with one another. As such, some of those people have become persona non grata with the festival. It’s not something anyone likes to do, but when people ignore repeated warnings, then action has to be taken. We want to be invitational, not exclusive. The idea of anyone feeling like they don’t belong is something we won’t tolerate.

So… after we’ve discussed scheduling, fundraising, and where to find cheap (or free) rehearsal venues all over the Bay Area, we finally come around to the main event of the evening: the writing samples. Every writer is (barring unforeseen circumstances) expected to attend every meeting, and every writer in attendance is expected to bring along two sample pages of their script as proof they’ve actually been, y’know, writing it. It’s not uncommon for pages to be written the day of the meeting (God knows I’ve done it plenty of times). Hell, some folks will actually write them during a lull in the meeting. So long as you aren’t doing this once the festival is up and running, we’re just glad to hear a sample.

I love reading for everyone else’s samples, but hate hearing my own. I mean, I know Allison will bring pages to have us on the floor holding our sides, that Rachel’s will make us all envious of her fertile mind, and that Bridgette will somehow, someway find a way to work iambic pentameter into her dialogue. I’m nowhere near as reliable with my writing, but I will at least try my best not to butcher the words of the fellow writer whose words I’m reciting.

My subject this year is a one-act based on the myth of Poseidon. I’ve always had a soft spot for Poseidon because I think he’s entitled to nearly as much fame (or infamy) as his brother Zeus. I mean, both of them had the tendency to be complete dicks, but somehow Zeus is the more revered dick. My play, in short, is actually pretty timely. I submitted it months ago, but thanks to certain recent revelations about one “Mr. Cosby”, my play has become topical in a way even I didn’t expect. Whether it will remain so in the coming year, remains to be seen.

Stuart calls my subject. I pass my type-written pages off to Sunil and Tonya. I turn my head away, but tilt it in their direction so as to take in every word. I keep my eyes to the ground because I don’t wanna know what everyone else thinks of it – not yet. The two readers keep a good pace with my pages. Two of my jokes even elicit laughs from the room. There’s a chunk about the modern world needing myths more than ever. I genuinely feel that the gravitas of the moment is working. For once in my self-deprecating life, I allow myself think that maybe – just maybe – people actually like the stuff I write. In about two minutes it’s over. I take my pages back, fold them into my bag with my red pen (for adjustments), and consider my work done for the night. I can breathe again.

I’m not saying this is the poster for my play, but I’m not saying it isn’t.

After all the pages are read, most of the wine has been drunk, and Rachel’s mac ‘n cheese has been completely devoured, we’re all dismissed for the evening. It’s a slow and steady process: phone numbers and e-mails are exchanged, last-minute bites of food are taken, Lyfts are ordered, what-have you. One thing we all take away from this meeting is the fact that the festival is changing. It has to. Everything does. It’s just a question of whether that change is one of a relic falling into decay or an organism evolving with its time and environment. I definitely think the latter is occurring. As I’ve said before, what I love about this festival is that it never ceases to surprise me. It’s almost irrelevant to try to explain certain things to newcomers because there’s something new for all of us. Now we’ve officially begun our yearlong journey into the Wine Dark Sea. And, as the name implies, just sailing out into it is an adventure in and of itself.

Also there’s gonna be a lotta dolphin sex. I mean, a LOT. You don’t even know…

Charles Lewis III can’t wait to make a splash with the upcoming festival. For more information about the history of the festival and next year’s readings, please visit http://www.SFOlympians.com.