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ellenkushnerSo first of all, I want to let all my MythPunk pals know they should write & submit something so we can take over the world!
Here's what Red Bull wants:
Write a short play of no more than 10 minutes in length that contains heightened language, verse, classical themes, or is an adaptation of a great classic story. This year, each play must respond to the following word:
REVOLUTION
Take a look through http://www.redbulltheater.com/History to see the kind of work we have done. [And check out our mission.] Respond to a play we’ve produced, or choose a classic of your own. Adapt one, Riff on a character, Create a whole new Jacobean-like world – you choose!
So I should do something from the Swordspointverse, right?
The problem is, I don't really think in short form. This is where you come in. Can you think of a self-contained little story/scene either from an existing Riverside novel or from something you wish I'd write about them all?
And does it have anything to do with Revolution?
Thanks in advance for helping me brainstorm! I am much more a communalist than a lonely artist who stands on a cliff with her hair blowing back in the inspiring wind.
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Date: 2012-01-04 05:20 am (UTC)Sorry. It's all that came to mind.
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Date: 2012-01-04 07:45 am (UTC)- Alec in his student days when he and his classmates thought that they came across something ground-breaking, which the administration was against. (I suppose this would be a failed revolution.)
- Similarly a lot of "Fall of the Kings" stuff seems like it would fit in with this theme, particularly the scene where St. Cloud presents his magical argument and gets stabbed.
- Perhaps a perspective on the lead-up to the last scene in "The Duke of Riverside" with a nobleman trying to kill Alec to prevent his ascension but Alec succeeds as Duke anyway. Or something else involving Alec's ascension; it seems like a natural fit with the theme of "revolution".
But honestly, what I would really, really love to see:
I remember how you described St. Vier and his ex-girlfriend as rising twin stars in Riverside, and I would love a scene that showed how they earned that reputation. (I would love to see more about her, period.) I am sure a revolution could be squeezed in there somewhere, perhaps a change in power in Riverside?
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Date: 2012-01-05 02:01 am (UTC)And if they don't make plays, maybe some of these could be stories . . . I'd never really thought about writing about Richard & Jessamine, but I can see them both so clearly - is it wrong to keep that to myself? Is it?
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Date: 2012-01-07 04:17 am (UTC)DEAR GOD WOMAN, YES.
I mean, erm... I would quite enjoy that. Yes, please.
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Date: 2012-01-07 07:14 am (UTC)BUT I would say that as a reader I would so very dearly love to see more of that backstory!
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Date: 2012-01-04 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 09:03 am (UTC)I was thinking along the lines of a revolution in the audience. On stage you do not see the play itself (maybe only hear voices acting it out somewhere behind the (real) audience) but instead you watch a couple in the audience on stage that is commenting on what they see in the fictive play. The woman realizing throughout the play that her consort is actually an idiot and that she has to stand up for herself and get rid of him, if she doesn't want to spent her life sitting quiet, being ridiculed for the things she enjoys.
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Date: 2012-01-05 01:47 am (UTC)But the language in The Sw-rdsman's Tragedy is self-consciously Jacobean. I didn't write text for TSWNWND in TPoTS, I don't think - but it's bound to be a bit more, ah, old school.
And you've given me a real self-contained little scene, there . . . not saying I'll do it, but it definitely bears thinking on - many thanks!
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Date: 2012-01-05 04:47 pm (UTC)If the TARDIS ever shows up on my lawn one of the first things I want to chase down is a first folio of the Tragedy. Those few little lines are SO TANTALIZING.
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Date: 2012-01-04 10:17 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2012-01-04 11:55 am (UTC)Ellen, how about Sophia's decision to challenge the patriarchy at the College of Surgeons, and how that opened the door for other women to take their places in the intellectual life of the city? Perhaps she had a discussion with the Mathematical Girl, Flavia, on how this could be approached?
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Date: 2012-01-04 04:27 pm (UTC)I just thought of the stage. For 10 minutes - not really very long, you want minimal staging and having a one or two person show can be extremely effective in short timeframes. I think your idea would also work well within that type of constraint.
I see a black backdrop and a single spotlight either on a table shared by two characters, or just a chair or chaise for one person. That really would be all the staging required - minimalist and striking, allowing the words to carry the scene.
- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2012-01-04 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:44 pm (UTC)This particular contest is just for 10-minute readings; I don't imagine we'll even get costumes, though your description of the dropping lace and ruffles makes me sigh...!
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Date: 2012-01-04 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 12:07 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2012-01-05 01:49 am (UTC)From your mouth to someone in Hollywood's ears.
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Date: 2012-01-05 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:52 pm (UTC)I am a long-time theatre attendee (at least until I got married because my DH really doesn't like plays very much). My father wrote musicals (unsuccessfully) before he began writing textbooks (much more successfully), my mother loved the theatre and raised me taking me to plays and musicals often. But I'm absolutely sure that you have a much better idea of what might go well at a production like this than I do.
- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2012-01-04 11:41 pm (UTC)See Ellen's note above. Apparently--sniff, sniff--I cannot begin hope for as much attention to production detail as I'd like.
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Date: 2012-01-05 12:08 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2012-01-05 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 02:43 pm (UTC)Just a couple of thoughts focusing on the Hill rather than Riverside: I think of revolution relating to that entire Tremontaine family. The House of Tremontaine is a very powerful one in your created world. Although Alec feels like THE revolutionary Duke Tremontaine to me (a bomb throwing anarchist rather than a political wheeler and dealer), both Diane and Katherine had their own perhaps revolutionary agendas and appear to have been quite successful in carrying them out through more subtle political means.
Totally different place to take off might be Alec settling a dispute or solving a problem in Riverside. This is own favorite aspect of Alec--the quite successful Duke of Riverside! Who actually does change his world for the better.
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Date: 2012-01-04 04:38 pm (UTC)I always love Hill parties, so maybe a grand ball type situation at which some young Hill wife stages a revolution and overthrows a reigning society doyenne? That would be cool because it could be disconnected from any of the plot lines we already know about.
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Date: 2012-01-05 01:57 am (UTC)Ah, if only this were That universe, so that it would not all require me also to set up the world-building! And everyone knew already who the Last King was, and who'd killed him, and why.....
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Date: 2012-01-04 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 04:32 am (UTC)Pardon my Capitalization. I am feeling Excessively Declamatory today.
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Date: 2012-01-07 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-16 10:51 pm (UTC)Something about very very young Alec and his sister (maybe when they were children) and their imaginative revolution against the very strict and oppressive education of the family? Like a specific act they decide to take that makes them feel like they're fighting the authority, even if the authority itself doesn't realize its revolutionary nature, because it's just some children thing.
I always loved the detail about the horses they dreamed of that could have taken them away... Alec must have been as quirkful and sharp with both his imagination and tongue even as a child, or rather that's how I get to imagine him.
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Date: 2012-01-16 10:57 pm (UTC)Keep 'em coming.
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Date: 2012-01-17 12:51 am (UTC)Style and fashion has a very important part in your world, so what about something about a revolution in fashion design that's also somehow meaningful as another kind of revolution?
The two example that came up to me are:
-a new attire for women which is very popular and revolutionary because it adapts something typically male for a lady's outfit, which is revolutionary in style, but a sign of a more silent and yet very strong revolution of gender.
-a witty anecdote about a very new popular foreing dress that's quite revolutionary in style because of some strange detail, like an odd pocket or something, which was created to conceil a weapon for the assassination of a politician, only that the killer failed and with him his revolutionary intent, but his appositely tailored dress made a revolution of its own, which is si very sad and ironic indeed.