"Don't touch that! It's for the actors!"

Remember right before your parents' parties, where any time you reached your hand out to something in the 'fridge, your mom shouted, "Don't touch that -- it's for Company!" ?  (Man, I hated Company.  They got all the good stuff - howcome we never got confetti pasta salad, or little parfait puddings?)

Well, right now my 'fridge is full of Cheeses of Many Lands, and baby carrots, and hummous & baba & stuff like that.  And, deliasherman , DON'T TOUCH IT!!!

It's all going down to the Workmen's Circle building tomorrow, where we're assembling a cache of New York's Finest voice talent, to do a reading (with music by Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi) of the Feminist Shtetl Magic Realist Klezmer Musical Radio Play I've been writing with Yale & Elizabeth Schwartz, The Witches of Lublin.  It's a private reading, designed to let us writers hear the script done by Real Actors, and hear if it works.  We've invited some colleagues to critique us, as well.  We did the same thing almost a year ago today, and spent the year rewriting based on people's comments (and the things that had been brilliant on paper - and when we read them aloud in Y&E's backyard in San Diego - that suddenly rang like tin).  [That said - we've just moved into a bigger room, so if you really want to come listen tom'w, let me know.]

The whole thing started in June 2006, when we were moving into our apartment in NYC, and our dear friends Yale & Elizabeth were packing up to move to San Diego.  While we were hauling our unpacked boxes out to their car for them to use, I said, "I'm really sorry you guys are leaving, not just because I was looking forward to being in the same town with you, but because I'd been hoping we could do a project together."

And, Lo! before all the boxes were in the car, we'd had an idea.  And I went back to the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, who'd been asking me to propose something, and said we'd do the Debut of our new Musical Radio Play for their 2007 season.  And it was so.  We worked with a great trio of pickup musicians + an entire radio theatre troupe that just happens to reside in Kalamazoo, and presented the show (with Eliz & me playing major roles) . . . . and then we rewrote the whole thing.

And in NYC in 2009 we did that reading, and we learned a lot.  And now we're ready to do it again.  After this one, I hope we'll be able to move forward with a director, producer & funder(s!) so we can record & mix in time for "The Witches of Lublin" to air on public radio for Passover 2011 as a Holiday Special.

I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime . . . Don't touch that!  It's for the Talent.

Cast List (April 2010):
Anne Bobby, Adrienne Cooper, Chris Delaine, Sam Guncler, Fiona Jones, Barbara Rosenblatt & Doug Shapiro

Life on the Borders

Has anyone else read George MacDonald Fraser's novel The Candlemass Road?

What an amazing book.

Found it in a used bookstore in Oxford last fall, mistakenly shelved under Children's (oh, my!). 

(Yes, I've read his The Steel Bonnets.  And Flashman, natch.  And all of Dunnett -- this is a pretty different side of that coin, I can tell you!  Fraser also wrote the screenplay for Richard Lester's Three Musketeers, a huge influence on me [not to mention Octopussy. which was not].  His ear for language is incredible.)

LiverLovers: Please donate cool stuff to help fund transplant

Owing to the constraints of time & what's left of my brain, I am completely & utterly stealing this text from the mighty rm (with thanks, if not permission!).  I'll add a more personal post later, as Laurie J. Marks & her wife are very good friends of ours, and this means a lot to me.  But let's just get the ball rolling, here:

Deb Mensinger needs a new liver, because hers has been destroyed by a genetic form of porphyria. The hope is that Deb's brother will be able to be the live donor (livers are awesome that way). However, Deb's brother lives on the opposite coast and is uninsured, which means there are a lot of expenses involved in all of this that Deb's insurance won't pick up.

So a fandom auction is stepping in to help Deb, her wife (Laurie J. Marks, author of the Elemental Logic series, the Children of the Triad series, The Watcher's Mask, and Dancing Jack, and guest of honor at WisCon 31) and her brother. The auction will open for bidding on May 1, but right now we need people to offer things to bid on! Please visit debsliverlovers  to offer items to bid on, and please help spread the word. Thank you!

I will add that the recent loss of Kage Baker taught me a valuable lesson:  Praise the books you love before the author is at death's door and she can't enjoy the fact that everyone suddenly wants to read them and is buying them like mad!

I trust I make myself clear.  

If you can do nothing else to help, please buy Laurie's books.  It will make a difference.  And you will be ridiculously happy at how good they are.