I feel like Rodion Raskolnikov in a Russian brothel, y'know?
Welcome to the New Year.
This past year was a socially turbulent one. I made a lot of mistakes and carry a lot of regret with me, but with this New Year comes a chance to rectify past blunders and improve myself. If I were to make one resolution this year, it would be to make fewer mistakes than I made the year before. Scratch that. I resolve to make the same number of mistakes, but more of the good kind, and fewer of the bad kind. The good mistakes are the ones you learn something from and ultimately make you a better person, and the bad ones are the kind that just make you worse for wear and don’t really help you grow in any way. An example of this would be riding a seatless bicycle down an escalator. Bad mistake. I also resolve to make a joke about Dostoyevsky in casual conversation that convincingly creates the false impression that I am familiar with his work.
Creatively, this past year was equally turbulent but much more rewarding. I haven’t written an update about Brick by Brick in a while, but I can now officially announce that it will receive a full production in the Spring semester. It’s being directed by the second year graduate student Layla Ebtehadj. She blew Nehemiah and I away at her interview and I know she’s going to do a fantastic job. As for all of you who wrote e-mails to John Dillon, urging him to seriously consider the musical, thank you. When Kevin Confoy informed Nehemiah and I that the show was being produced, one of the first things he mentioned was the inundation of e-mails they received from our friends. It means a lot.
In the past two-and-half weeks that I’ve been home, I’ve made a tremendous amount of progress. As of last night, the second draft of Brick by Brick has been completed. In addition to extensive revisions of the book, I have written new lyrics for three songs as well an entirely new song. “Damn the Beast”, which was sung by Leonard, Maillard and Lenore, has been replaced by “Shackles of the Heart”, a solo vehicle for Leonard. There were a number of reasons for this. “Damn the Beast” took place in a flashback, and since Act One, Scene Three now takes place in the present, “Damn the Beast” became irrelevant and out of touch with Leonard’s desires. Leonard also really needed his own song in the First Act. Additionally, I felt that Maillard, who sings prominently in the number, was overpowering the show. Before the revisions, she sang more than both Raven and Rowena, who are much more important characters to the story. As a result, the roles of Raven and Rowena were also expanded. The role of Dupin was subsequently reduced, emphasizing her function as a storyteller in the show and decreasing her function as an active character in the narrative. I wouldn’t say her role is smaller now, but its purpose is definitely different.
Well, that’s all I really have to report for now. Nehemiah and I are getting together this weekend to start working on the new material. He’s been tooling and retooling some songs, and I can’t wait to hear what he’s done with some of them. I’ve also got to start working on writing my episode for Downstage’s “For Your Listening Pleasure” radio series. It’s going to take place on a schooner and is currently titled “Succubus”!
And now, I will bring my post full-circle with this:
bad mistake.
This past year was a socially turbulent one. I made a lot of mistakes and carry a lot of regret with me, but with this New Year comes a chance to rectify past blunders and improve myself. If I were to make one resolution this year, it would be to make fewer mistakes than I made the year before. Scratch that. I resolve to make the same number of mistakes, but more of the good kind, and fewer of the bad kind. The good mistakes are the ones you learn something from and ultimately make you a better person, and the bad ones are the kind that just make you worse for wear and don’t really help you grow in any way. An example of this would be riding a seatless bicycle down an escalator. Bad mistake. I also resolve to make a joke about Dostoyevsky in casual conversation that convincingly creates the false impression that I am familiar with his work.
Creatively, this past year was equally turbulent but much more rewarding. I haven’t written an update about Brick by Brick in a while, but I can now officially announce that it will receive a full production in the Spring semester. It’s being directed by the second year graduate student Layla Ebtehadj. She blew Nehemiah and I away at her interview and I know she’s going to do a fantastic job. As for all of you who wrote e-mails to John Dillon, urging him to seriously consider the musical, thank you. When Kevin Confoy informed Nehemiah and I that the show was being produced, one of the first things he mentioned was the inundation of e-mails they received from our friends. It means a lot.
In the past two-and-half weeks that I’ve been home, I’ve made a tremendous amount of progress. As of last night, the second draft of Brick by Brick has been completed. In addition to extensive revisions of the book, I have written new lyrics for three songs as well an entirely new song. “Damn the Beast”, which was sung by Leonard, Maillard and Lenore, has been replaced by “Shackles of the Heart”, a solo vehicle for Leonard. There were a number of reasons for this. “Damn the Beast” took place in a flashback, and since Act One, Scene Three now takes place in the present, “Damn the Beast” became irrelevant and out of touch with Leonard’s desires. Leonard also really needed his own song in the First Act. Additionally, I felt that Maillard, who sings prominently in the number, was overpowering the show. Before the revisions, she sang more than both Raven and Rowena, who are much more important characters to the story. As a result, the roles of Raven and Rowena were also expanded. The role of Dupin was subsequently reduced, emphasizing her function as a storyteller in the show and decreasing her function as an active character in the narrative. I wouldn’t say her role is smaller now, but its purpose is definitely different.
Well, that’s all I really have to report for now. Nehemiah and I are getting together this weekend to start working on the new material. He’s been tooling and retooling some songs, and I can’t wait to hear what he’s done with some of them. I’ve also got to start working on writing my episode for Downstage’s “For Your Listening Pleasure” radio series. It’s going to take place on a schooner and is currently titled “Succubus”!
And now, I will bring my post full-circle with this:
bad mistake.