Handwritten Theatre

Beware: Memory!

Handwritten Theatre Twenty-Four: "It was one of those fully detailed memories."
Performed by the author
Running Time: 7:06
All Audiences

It's October again, time to start your month long celebration of
Harold Pinter's Birthday!
October 10, 1930

Apart From That
by
Harold Pinter
Performed by the author and Rupert Graves in 2006

Handwritten Theatre, the book! Available now

The complete plays of Handwritten Theatre to date (plus two bonus pieces yet to be recorded) are now available in a handy take home container.
Yes, Handwritten Theatre is being released in that new delivery system sweeping the globe: The Book.
Requiring no internet connection or power source (aside from your imagination) the Handwritten Theatre book is platform transparent, carbon neutral and eligible for free shipping from Amazon.com

Shortly after the last Handwritten Theatre posting, I went on strike with the Writers Guild of America. Funny how a major labor action can eat up your time. Well, we have a contract now and I hope to put together new additions to the Handwritten canon soon.

In the meantime, you can find my writing in a handy take-home container. I have a new novel, Trunk Piece , available at Amazon.com.

Obtaining a copy of this book and reading it aloud will simulate much of the Handwritten Theatre experience...and pretty much guarantee no one will sit next to you on the bus.

The light is flashing on your answering machine. Pick up.

Handwritten Theatre Twenty-Three: "Pick up."
Performed by Moira Quirk
Running Time: 12:13
All Audiences.

You've got all of October to celebrate the birthday of Harold Pinter
October 10, 1930

"There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened."
-Anna in Old Times

Read. Watch. Perform. Savor.

Harold Pinter performing Krapp's Last Tape in 2006

Ian Holm, Vivien Merchant and Paul Rogers in the 1973 film version of The Homecoming

Arrange all materials within reach. Make yourself comfortable. Begin.

Handwritten Theatre Twenty-Two: "Read all instructions first."
Performed by Michael Rayner
Running time: 7:05
All Audiences

Story Salon invites storytellers around the globe to fill the world with stories on Saturday, October 20th, 2007:
Story Salon Saturday
Pick a time on that special Saturday to tell a story...to friends, to strangers, in a coffeehouse or your living room. Then send an email to
storysalon@gmail.com
and let us know what, where, and when you're going to be joining storytellers around the world.

Listen to Story Salon's series of special podcasts to be posted throughout the day starting at 12:01 A.M. Saturday, October 20th (GMT) during which we'll give a shout-out to every individual participant in the event.
www.StorySalon.com

If your theatre company or drama department is interested in producing a program of Handwritten Theatre, send an email to the rambling campus of The Handwritten Theatre World Headquarters and Corporate Retreat Facility at:

GhostWords@mac.com

The women you meet in bars always tell the most interesting stories. Sip that third martini and listen to the song of the cocktail sirens.

Handwritten Theatre Twenty-One: "This was before I knew her."
Performed by Moira Quirk and Marsha Clark
Running Time: 23:27
Mature Audiences (Contains several common vulgarities)

Handwritten Theatre on stage

Bill and Jody Bishop and Cheryl Warren performing "Note the relationship between the two seated figures in the booth" as produced by The Fremont Community Players in Fremont, Nebraska.

If your theatre company or drama department is interested in producing a program of Handwritten Theatre, send an email to the rambling campus of The Handwritten Theatre World Headquarters and Corporate Retreat Facility at:

GhostWords@mac.com

Birthday Wishes to
Ray Bradbury

August 22nd

"I have come up with a new simile to describe myself lately. It can be yours.
Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.
After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.
Now, it's your turn. Jump!"

Ah, summer. Travel. Adventure. Romance. Inexplicable narratives from the man in the window seat. Yes, he's back. Enjoy your complimentary cocktail and warm nuts.

Handwritten Theatre Twenty: "This is how the story was told to me." (v. 3.0)
Performed by Paul Jacek
Running time: 9:26
All Audiences

If your theatre company or drama department is interested in producing a program of Handwritten Theatre, send an email to the rambling campus of The Handwritten Theatre World Headquarters and Corporate Retreat Facility at:

GhostWords@mac.com

Remembering James M. Cain on his birthday.

"I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you've been reading about in the papers. It didn't look like a House of Death when I saw it."
-Double Indemnity

Handwritten Theatre returns with, if not a constant flow, at least a spurt of new plays. Sometimes we look for secrets, sometimes the secrets find us. And that can happen anywhere, even in a suburban drive-way.

Handwritten Theatre Nineteen: "Leo speeds up when he sees a yard sale."
Performed by Marsha Clark
Running Time: 18:48
All Audiences (But it is about grown-up behavior)

The book of photographs discovered by the character was inspired by an actual collection of snapshots uncovered at a flea market by Michel Hurst and Robert Swope who published a selection of their discoveries under the title Casa Susanna

This remarkable book is available at Amazon.com.

In Other News:
Handwritten Theatre Live!

An evening of Handwritten Theatre was presented recently in Fremont, Nebraska by The Fremont Community Players under the direction of Will Mitchell (Cyberjazzdaddy.blogspot.com) and featuring Bill Bishop, Jodie Bishop, Daniel Christensen, Ed Cutler, Laura England, Teresa Giesselmann, Haley Halverson, Madeline MacDonald, Kim Mitchell, Will Mitchell, and Cheryl Warren

If your theatre company or drama department is interested in producing a program of Handwritten Theatre, send an email to the rambling campus of The Handwritten Theatre World Headquarters and Corporate Retreat Facility at:

GhostWords@mac.com

It has been pointed out to me by someone, in tones rich with sarcastic intent, that it's been awhile since the last Handwritten Theatre posting. This is true...not that I needed this guy to rub it in. But plans are underway to return to the studio and get a new series of plays on their way to your ear-buds before the long days of summer wane...or as soon as I can shanghai another bunch of actors, whichever comes first.
In the meantime, thanks for the downloads.
Your Obedient Servant,
Joseph Dougherty

"The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of narrative is, by definition, holy."
-James Carroll
American Requiem

Handwritten Theatre Eighteen: "He changed his mind about what he wanted to read in bed and went back into the living room looking for a particular short story."
Running Time: 10:16
All Audiences.

Salutations to Reynolds Price on the anniversary of his birth.
1 February, 1933
"I sleep long nights with few hard dreams, and now I've outlived both my parents. Even my handwriting looks very little like the script of the man I was in June of '84. Cranky as it is, it's taller, more legible, with more air and stride. It comes down the arm of a grateful man."
-Reynolds Price
A Whole New Life

Finally, some practical information on how to handle life in corporate America. Feel free to take notes. There will be a test on this material.

Handwritten Theatre Fifteen: "I look to you for advice."
Performed by David Clennon and Dan Farren
Running Time: 9:52
All Audiences

Remembering Kenneth Millar on his birthday.
13 December Writing as Ross Macdonald, he took the American detective novel to a new level.

Another first for Handwritten Theatre : Our first sequel. Time once again to join that interesting man in the window seat on board a jet-liner bound, non-stop, for...say, is that Rod Serling standing by the cockpit door?

Handwritten Theatre Thirteen: "This is how the story was told to me." (v.2.0)
Performed by Paul Jacek
Running Time: 6:51
All Audiences

Another belated birthday.
Kurt Vonnegut
11 November

Handwritten Theatre returns with a cycle of brand-spanking new plays, fresh from the kitchens of L.A. Podcasters' Studio 101 at The Brewery in Los Angeles.

Handwritten Theatre Twelve: "Note the relationship between the two seated figures in the booth."
Performed by Donna Allen Figueroa, Tony Figueroa, and David Clennon
Running Time: 11:23
All Audiences

Belated good wishes to Harold Pinter on his 76th birthday.
10 October

Once more into the archives, dear friends, but this time it's for something that's never been publicly heard before: A scene from a television pilot called Georgetown written and produced in the disorienting months after the 9/11 attacks.

I was asked to create a series about the permanent power structure in Washington, D.C. in August of 2001. I said yes and a few weeks later the meaning, content and relevance of the project changed completely. There was still a desire to do the show on the part of the network and I felt it was important to become part of the national dialogue about what it meant to be an American when America was under attack. I wrote the piece in October and November, 2001.

In the scene, the powerful matriarch of the Garrison family has a quiet chat with a new senator from Colorado, recently appointed to complete the term of a beloved politician who died in office. It takes place in the library of the Garrison house in Georgetown during a dinner party at which the President of the United States is expected.

I gave Mrs. Garrison my take on this country and had the great good fortune to have my two-cents delivered by Helen Mirren. Andrew McCarthy plays the idealistic senator.

The pilot was not picked up by the network and has never been shown to the public. So, a world premiere right there on your computer and in your iPod.

Something you won't get from listening to the dialogue: The photograph Mrs. Garrison refers to as hanging over the mantel in the library is by O.Winston Link. Here's a reproduction:

Helen Mirren

Handwritten Theatre: Summer Bonus Track #4
Performed by Helen Mirren and Andrew McCarthy
Running time: 6:08
All audiences

O. Winston Link's black-and-white photographs from the last days of American steam engines are some of the most powerful and evocative images ever recorded. Take a look.

All the actors are stuck in traffic coming back from the beach or standing in long lines at the airport while we remain cool, calm and collected for another dip into the archives. This time we're going back to the Gulf War...the first Gulf War. At the time, I was one of the writers of thirtysomething and I took the opportunity to write about the disturbing trend toward lockstep patriotism the first Bush administration was pushing down our throats at the time.

thirtysomething was a series about the lives of two friends who worked in an advertising agency. In an episode I called A Stop at Willoughby , in an unsubtle tribute to Rod Serling, Michael Steadman is at odds with agency head Miles Drentell over a client's demand to fire an actor from an endorsement contract because of his temerity to appear at an anti-war rally. It was a way for me to articulate the very queasy feeling I was getting about the right-wing shift the country was experiencing. At the time, we thought it couldn't get any worse. Yikes.

I'd like to say the episode now feels like a quaint artifact of another period in American history, something we've all gotten over. But I realize this scene is more relevant now than it was when it was first broadcast on May 14, 1991. It sounds like I wrote it yesterday.

In the scene, Michael and two associates are pitching an alternative commercial to save the contract of the actor, Randy Towers, who has offended the patriarch of Durstin Ale.

Miles Drentell (David Clennon) and Michael Steadman (Ken Olin)

Handwritten Theatre: Summer Bonus Track #3
Performed by David Clennon, Ken Olin, Andra Millian, Richard Cummings, Jr.
Running Time: 9:34
All Audiences

thirtysomething has never been released on DVD or VHS, but there is a volume of scripts out there.
thirtysomething stories

Summer simmers on, but we're nice and cool and climate controlled down here in the archives. Let the actors enjoy their vacations! They're just going to miss my favorite all time scene...of scenes I've written. It's from a movie I wrote called Cast a Deadly Spell, a film noir detective picture based on the premise that H.P. Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler once collaborated on a story set in an alternative 1948 where magic and witchcraft are commonplace.

This script was written in an un-air conditioned apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens while I was working as an office temp and couldn't get arrested as a writer. I wrote it for personal encouragement as much as I did in the hope of getting it made. I needed a hero, an example, a ragged knight who'd speak truth to power...so I blended the worlds of two favorite authors and invented H. Phillip Lovecraft, private eye, then filled his personal mean streets with all manner of demons and amused myself through a hot summer of writing.

The film was made eight years after I wrote it, and this scene appears in the movie exactly as it did in the first draft. Remarkable.

Phil Lovecraft takes the case of a millionaire with a missing book and a misbehaving daughter. Things get personal when the clues lead him to a beautiful woman from his past, a night-club singer named Connie Stone. There's a lot of unfinished business between these two and plenty of residual heat when Connie shows up late one night in Phil's office.

Julianne Moore as femme fatale and nightclub canary, Connie Stone.

Fred Ward as the hard-boiled gumshoe, Phil Lovecraft

Handwritten Theatre: Summer Bonus Track #2
Performed by Fred Ward and Julianne Moore
Running Time: 6:36
All Audiences

Cast a Deadly Spell was made in the early 90s, and last year it was selected for screenings at The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon where I got to see the picture with an audience for the first time in more than a decade. The hard-boiled detective I invented to remind myself how important it is to keep the promises you make in hot Queens apartments is still out there, still fighting the good fight, cracking wise and taking a punch, and never giving up.

Cast a Deadly Spell hasn't been released on DVD, but there are still VHS copies hanging around out there.

Just because the actors have all gone to the beach, doesn't mean we're not going to soldier on here at Handwritten Theatre. A presentation from the archives: A scene from a movie I wrote a couple of years back, the remake of a key film from my youth, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman. While not conceived for this podcast, I can guarantee that it was handwritten at the time.

The movie was directed by Christopher Guest and produced by Debra Hill with Daryl Hannah in the titular role. In the great tradition of B-movie science fiction pictures, the movie was short. So short the studio insisted we go back and add scenes to pad the running time. While this had an unfortunate impact on the pace, it gave me the unique opportunity to go back and write new scenes for two of the actors, O'Neal Compton and Victoria Haas who played the sheriff and deputy in the town rampaged by a giant Daryl Hannah.

Sheriff Denby and Deputy "Charlie" Spooner were characters at the edge of the action, but Victoria and O'Neal had the most remarkable...I refuse to say chemistry. Let's just say they were really good in scenes I'd written before I met them. The need to add screen time gave me a chance to write something specifically for their voices. What I came up with is a scene that does nothing to move the picture forward, just the Sheriff and the Deputy talking about two thirds through the movie. It's pure padding, but it's one of my favorite scenes. And I think it's one of the perfect counterfeits in a movie filled with scenes meant to sound like they were lifted from a Jack Arnold Universal-International picture made between 1954 and 1957.

Give a listen to two very good actors who got to go back after a movie was finished and play a scene written expressly for them.

About an hour into the picture, Sheriff Denby and his deputy are discovered in his office where he times Deputy Charlie to see how fast she can load her revolver. This leads to a general discussion of life and what's been going on up at the Archer place where the beautiful Nancy Archer has grown to five stories tall, yet hopes to keep her marriage with the philandering Harry intact.

Handwritten Theatre: Summer Bonus Track #1
Performed by Victoria Haas and O'Neal Compton
Running Time: 7:02
All Audiences

If you'd like to see the scene...as well as the rest of the picture, you can rent my version of Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman at Netflix...

...or buy a DVD for your very own at Amazon.com

Handwritten Theatre reaches the rarefied level of double-digits!
Sit still. Be quiet. The restraints are for your protection.

Handwritten Theatre Ten: "I can see you're concerned about torture."
Performed by Moira Quirk
Running Time: 10:51
Explicit Content (Contains a single, non-gratuitous utterance of a popular vulgarity.)

Other Business
Victoria Haas, who tells the tale of a young woman's first encounter with a sour apple martini in Handwritten Theatre Four, recently finished work on Approaching Union Square, an independent film that has been selected for screening at The 2006 Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan, June 8 - 11.

Let me assure you from personal experience that as impressive an actress as Victoria is when she's just a voice on your iPod, she's even more remarkable when you can see her.

Approaching Union Square will also be shown at The Long Island Film Expo at The Bellmore Movie Theatre in Bellmore, NY Monday, July 17th, the New Filmmakers LA series at The Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House Theatre at Barnsdall Art Park in Beverly Hills, CA the first week of August, and the Anthology Film Archives on 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street in New York City, Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Waterfront Film Festival 2006
Anthology Film Archives

Thanks and a big "Welcome to the team" to The Pear Tree Pen Company for "stepping up to the plate" by covering the cost of new uniforms for the Handwritten Theatre Little League Team, "The Scriveners." It's just the boost the kids needed.
The Pear Tree Pen Company