The Bone Chandelier,
Feb. 5th, 2005 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushneror,
“And How’s that Play You’re Supposed to be Writing?”
_The Bone Chandelier: a Ruritanian Jacobean Revenge Tragedy with some Really Great Tunes_
Book by Ellen Kushner (with Delia Sherman & Sara Berg Cole)
Music by Ben Moore, with Lyrics by Ben Moore & Ellen Kushner
You’d go see it, right??
Well, quite a few NYC pals did come to our first (and, to date, only) read-through when we presented our rough draft in May, 2003 in a now-defunct Rehearsal Space near Times Square. It was SO EXCITING! Real NY actors & singers faking their way through our script and gorgeous operatic songs . . . We were all so proud. And so aware of how much more work the show needs…!
After that, we all took an unexpectedly long break to pursue other projects – Ben’s witty songs are currently being sung as “encore” pieces by Met soprano Deborah Voigt, Sara was running a small theatre company (Titans, now on hiatus), and I was cleaning up Sound & Spirit and working on the New Novel (which is almost done) . . . . But I promised Ben & Sara ages ago I would work on it with them this month, so Tuesday this week found me in a Village café arguing with Sara loudly about whether we could addict the missing Duchess to drugs, or just give her a mysterious past, and do we really need to explain why she left her lover and baby daughter . . . . Sara is a brilliant dramaturg who saved me ten times over when I was writing/rehearsing “Esther: the Feast of Masks” – and, in fact, it was her idea more than 10 years ago to have me write a play with lots of swordfights and gender-bending, and maybe I'd like to meet her friend Ben . . . a remarkably patient woman, Sara.
It’s hard for me to switch gears between projects. I know you may want to hear about The Novel, which takes place some 20 years after Swordspoint; but plenty of time for that when I’ve handed it in (by May – I just promised my editor at Bantam, the patient and philosophical Anne Groell). Right now, I need to be excited about the play. So that’s what I plan to ruminate on for a bit here, hoping to rev up my engines as I launch into a fresh set of revisions. If you hear nothing, it probably means it’s going well – or that I’m thrashing out plot points sprawled all over the livingroom floor. . . .
Watch this space.
“And How’s that Play You’re Supposed to be Writing?”
_The Bone Chandelier: a Ruritanian Jacobean Revenge Tragedy with some Really Great Tunes_
Book by Ellen Kushner (with Delia Sherman & Sara Berg Cole)
Music by Ben Moore, with Lyrics by Ben Moore & Ellen Kushner
You’d go see it, right??
Well, quite a few NYC pals did come to our first (and, to date, only) read-through when we presented our rough draft in May, 2003 in a now-defunct Rehearsal Space near Times Square. It was SO EXCITING! Real NY actors & singers faking their way through our script and gorgeous operatic songs . . . We were all so proud. And so aware of how much more work the show needs…!
After that, we all took an unexpectedly long break to pursue other projects – Ben’s witty songs are currently being sung as “encore” pieces by Met soprano Deborah Voigt, Sara was running a small theatre company (Titans, now on hiatus), and I was cleaning up Sound & Spirit and working on the New Novel (which is almost done) . . . . But I promised Ben & Sara ages ago I would work on it with them this month, so Tuesday this week found me in a Village café arguing with Sara loudly about whether we could addict the missing Duchess to drugs, or just give her a mysterious past, and do we really need to explain why she left her lover and baby daughter . . . . Sara is a brilliant dramaturg who saved me ten times over when I was writing/rehearsing “Esther: the Feast of Masks” – and, in fact, it was her idea more than 10 years ago to have me write a play with lots of swordfights and gender-bending, and maybe I'd like to meet her friend Ben . . . a remarkably patient woman, Sara.
It’s hard for me to switch gears between projects. I know you may want to hear about The Novel, which takes place some 20 years after Swordspoint; but plenty of time for that when I’ve handed it in (by May – I just promised my editor at Bantam, the patient and philosophical Anne Groell). Right now, I need to be excited about the play. So that’s what I plan to ruminate on for a bit here, hoping to rev up my engines as I launch into a fresh set of revisions. If you hear nothing, it probably means it’s going well – or that I’m thrashing out plot points sprawled all over the livingroom floor. . . .
Watch this space.