Supported generously by the City of Vancouver, Twenty-Something Theatre recently presented a staged reading of my new one-act play “Us & Everything We Own” at the Carousel Theatre on Granville Island in Vancouver.

I wasn’t sure what to expect; with Prodigals, we went straight into a workshop production after a year and a half of development.

Dramaturg/Director Sabrina Evertt and I have been digging into this project since last summer, pulling together a cast towards the end of the year. I only really started to understand the story I wanted to tell earlier this winter when I made a number of big revisions. The play follows four characters in their late-twenties, all trying to establish themselves as successful in their own ways.

These characters continued to evolve throughout a three-day weekend workshop at the beginning of this month. The staged reading capped it all off, drawing in about 50 friends, fans, and interested theatre folks – many of whom stayed after to engage in an incredibly helpful debate over what this play is and isn’t, and most importantly, what it could be. I must’ve jotted down about four pages of barely legible notes. (If you were there – thanks!)

Now I’ve got to make sense of everything all over again, and that’s pretty exciting. We’re still aiming for a Spring 2013 production, so there’s lots more work to be done in a year!

Keep checking in to see where and when “Us & Everything We Own” will hit the Vancouver stage.

While most giant media entities are trying to tighten their collective grip on content (as demonstrated through failed legislative clustercusses like SOPA), it’s great to see some actually view the future as full of opportunities rather than threats.

News broke this week detailing Warner Bros’ plans to make produced screenplays available as $10 eBooks. I’m guessing this will mostly apply to scripts for “classic” films that have already been wrung dry of every dime possible — which is fine, as there always will be a hunger to learn about how great movies are made.

This is good news for aspiring screenwriters who have been vilified (and, at times, prosecuted) for trying to study their craft. There’s definitely an untapped market here, and depending how this plays out, this could potentially lead to a greater interest in the general reading of unproduced screenplays. (You never know, right?)

These developments offer a stark contrast to the hazards in recent years faced by those who have tried to read and share screenplays that were still in the development or production pipeline. It was just two years ago when FOX launched a lawsuit against an amateur screenwriter who was (allegedly) illegally distributing a script that had yet to be produced.

Would I buy a screenplay eBook? Maybe. I really like this direction and would absolutely be interested in getting a digital copy of a screenplay I loved. Say, The Verdict?

via GalleyCat

My time this month is split between frantically packing/selling/setting fire to everything in my apartment (I’m leaving Vancouver!), wrapping up my work in Vancouver Film School’s Marketing Department, and revising my new play Us & Everything We Own in advance of a live staged reading at Granville Island’s Carousel Theatre on May 7, 2012.

What to expect:
- Actors on a stage holding scripts and performing a one-act play
- Me wandering in and out of the studio while sweating profusely
- Sarcastic humour and twenty-something characters in tough, relevant situations
- Unicorns (you never know?)
- Audience feedback forms

That last point is the most important to me. As a young-ish writer  – 30 is young still, right? — I’m pretty susceptible to insightful feedback from audience members and have yet to fall into a comfortable creative groove. Everything I do at this point in my career is malleable, so your note about a character or plot device may not only affect this production, but it could also influence how I look at dealing with those problems in future plays.

Your notes couldn’t be more important than right now, when I’m starting to get my legs as a playwright. We’ll be taking any and all audience responses into account as the development process continues toward a World Premiere production in May 2013.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to invite you to hang out at the Carousel Theatre for a couple of hours on a Monday night.

What: Staged Reading of Us & Everything We Own
When: Monday, May 7, 2012 at 7:30pm
Where: Carousel Theatre, Granville Island (map)
Who: You!

If you have any questions, you can reach me at minogue dot sean at gmail dot com.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how a physical book (!) is created. Shot and edited by Glen Milner, this is a reminder of the craft behind making a stack of bound pages that are worth owning. Of course, it says nothing about the ridiculous number of hours this book’s writer probably spent slamming her head into a desk to fill in plot holes.

The print industry is looking worse all the time, but I think it’s mostly affecting the big business model. Small presses are all over, and “financial trouble” is a natural part of their existence. As a writer, I’d be more than happy to see a small run of something I’ve written come from a press that cares about their product.

via Devour:
“A short vignette following the printing of Suzanne St Albans’ Mango and Mimosa, using the traditional book-binding methods of the England-based Smith-Settle Printers.”

I’ve been studying, working, and living in Vancouver, BC for the past eight years. Adjusting to life here was challenging, as I was coming from a pretty earnest town like Ottawa. I knew no one when I arrived, but I desperately wanted to launch a writing career that wasn’t stuck in academia or high-brow “Literature”.

During my time in Vancouver I’ve been involved in all kinds of writing: film, TV, animation, journalism, copywriting, playwriting, and yes, some slam poetry too. I’ve grown more than I could’ve possibly imagined when I first drove my sputtering ’93 Festiva (purchased for $450) through Granville and Broadway towards the mountains.

Vancouver has been exciting, frustrating, promising, and depressing all at once. Despite an unfortunate tendency for provincial-mindedness under the surface of a great arts scene – which is equally a Canadian concern as much as it is a West Coast one – there’s a lot I love about this city and I’m sad to be leaving it. I doubt I’ll ever move to another place in Canada and meet as many people who write, paint, play music, or otherwise colour outside the lines as a way to make sense of life.

I can’t remember which writer it was, but someone described Los Angeles as the place where all those who weren’t nailed down elsewhere in the US eventually found themselves, as if North America was regularly tipped to the West to free its cities of their weirdos.

Vancouver is definitely Canada’s answer to that concept; few people are actually from here, and many share the experience of not fitting in where they came from. Not surprisingly, when you put us all together, you don’t get a heck of a lot of cohesiveness. Weirdos and outcasts are always going to be weirdos and outcasts, even around their own kind. Many people in Vancouver have one eye on LA or Toronto or Spain or Phuket. The city has a summer romance feel to it: things are probably going to end, so let’s not get too committed, okay?

And despite all that, people find work, plays are performed, films are shot, art is created… with no regard to a growing public and political indifference. I love that about this city. Everyone is well aware of the problems we’re facing, but “what else are you going to do?”

In a little over a month, I’ll be drugging my cat and throwing it on a plane to join my girlfriend in Toronto, where she’s taken a new job within her company. I’d like to think that if it weren’t for this development, we’d stay put and I’d slug it out in the industry here. However, I’m not upset with the prospect of reconnecting with my Ontario roots and charging full-steam into the writing scene there. It’s an exciting time, and I’m up for the challenge.

I suppose I’m not alone in trading the mountains for better career prospects back East, either. From Ontario, I’ll be watching to see if Vancouver and BC can make some meaningful attempts to rebuild the shrinking arts community here. There’s a lot to love, and even more worth saving.

For me, though – it’s on to Ontario!

I posted a rant in December about how those in the Vancouver arts scene need to rethink their approach to getting an audience’s attention. In a nutshell, I said it’s about attitude: don’t beg audiences for their “support”; demand their attention and deliver the goods.

However, in light of the continuous stream of bad news about the BC arts and culture scene – capped significantly by the closing doors of the Vancouver Playhouse – it seems like “attention” is not enough. Now it’s a dogfight to survive.

But I don’t think that means ranting about the great “Harper conspiracy”  in online comment threads or otherwise encouraging an “us vs them” mindset. While I believe protests and viral campaigns are totally worth supporting, I’d like to make another suggestion on top of that: learn to speak Conservative.

It sucks to admit it, but we’ve lost the tug-of-war. It doesn’t matter how talented the artist, how heart-rending the performance, how persuasive the pitch, Conservative-minded politicians aren’t hearing us. So how about trying to speak to them on their terms? All the stories of how the arts have changed our lives are just ways to reaffirm our own choice to get into the arts in the first place – they aren’t convincing to someone who holds a totally opposing point of view. We’re talking to people who may not have had the same kind of epiphany at any point in their lives.

So, onto Plan B.

Forget the fact that it’s “us and them”. No one has evil intentions, just different priorities. It makes sense to some people to spend tens of millions of public dollars on an unnecessary renovation to a football stadium roof while letting a not-so-profitable playhouse drown for lack of $1 million. I don’t agree with that, but I have yet to be given the privilege to dunk the heads of those in power. (Some day…)

I think we have to irrefutably prove, over and over, the economic and tangible value of the arts. Forget the dramatics. They don’t work. Devote whatever time necessary to researching and tracking any and all numbers beyond what a production costs. What are the benefits through a Conservative’s eyes? The oft-quoted numbers on how many millions of dollars the arts contribute to the Canadian economy are too big to digest. What kind of data, on a local scale, can we put together on a company-by-company basis that would support the ever-increasing calls for financial assistance from the arts sector?

I think the more we can see our own industry from the perspective of people who don’t understand or care about it, the more we’ll be able to convince governments that each dollar spent on the arts is a vote for a community worth bragging about. 

This was making the rounds a little while ago, but it’s totally worth posting because of Vonnegut’s simple, straightforward approach to explaining how stories should work. Screenwriters, generally, know this stuff inside-out… though executing on what you know isn’t always the easiest thing.

Wheels are turning on this new play o’ mine. I first drafted something back in mid-summer 2011 for Sabrina at Twenty-Something Theatre. We brought together some actor friends and had a few informal table reads, which was enough to show me where the big holes were in the concept, characters, and plot.

I took a few more cracks at it and slowly discovered what it was that I needed to get out of my head. Fast-forward to this past December. Twenty-Something held general auditions and we put together a team of talented actors to help workshop this play in the lead up to its first big milestone this May: a staged public reading (more details to come on that later!).

The new team — which includes Julie McIsaac, Adam Lolacher, Mack Gordon, and Pippa Mackie — came together early last week for our first “official” table read. For me, these early workshops can be a bit painful because it’s like… well… it’s like I’ve been building a fort in a dark room for a few months, and then a group of people come in, flick on the lights and ask for a tour. Of course, being a neurotic writer-type, I can’t help myself from explaining that the Tower of Banishment made out of couch cushions still needs to be reinforced and that the upside-down coffee table is only a temporary drawbridge… “but you get the gist, right?” Right.

(I’ll definitely be writing a post in the future about how writers should never apologize for anything in a workshop; just accept whatever nonsense you put on the page and rebuild your “fort” later — or whatever weird thing you’re spending your free time on.)

Thankfully, we’re all trying to make the best fort so that takes the edge off a lot. I’ll be revising this project a few more times before we invite you and everyone you know to come take a look!

I just backed this project on Kickstarter. Can’t wait to see how these guys deliver on such a lofty promise. I think it’s a worthy fight, so I’m sharing this video. I’d suggest contributing if you feel the same way.

Only 29 days to go until their funding deadline!

I never get tired of daydreaming about getting a place like this someday: small, lots of woodgrain, self-contained, and space to take a nap!

courtesy of Jeremy Levine Design