Long time gone

Dear Blog.

Forgive me. I have been a bad blogger. Several times, I’ve sat down to write out what’s in my head, and will get a good bit of the blog finished, and then get distracted. Then when I try and return to what I was writing, it seems to have passed me by and I can no longer continue in the stream of consciousness that I was originally in when I started writing. So it’s been several months. Where to start?

How about follow up to earlier entries.

GRANT SEASON: I have received two grants out of the five that I applied for, haven’t heard on two of them but even if I do not get those grants, 2 out of five is pretty good.

CATCHING UP: My episode of Def Poetry airs June 17th at 11:30 pm. From what I’ve been told I am the first poet of the episode. I’m extremely excited to see it. There is some trepidation that goes with it. I have this really great image in my head of how the performance and taping went. I think I performed the poem better then I ever had. But what you remember and what the camera catches can be two different things. I think it will look good, still, I’m anxious to see how it all turns out.

NOTES FROM THE BOTTLETREE: So we are doing a full production of the play in early fall. As an actor I am salivating to do it. We have a good cast, my close friend and excellent actress Terry Thomas will be in the lead role. Terry and I have good chemisty in every day life, so playing it out on stage should be fun.

TIPPING POINT/ CHALK: Things have gone well with Chalk. We (Barbara and I) did a production of it Jacksonville, and it was successful. The best thing about it, is that I got really good video. For marketing purposes this is essential. With the little time left in the school year around the nation, I will start sending out packages with the promotional DVD, hopefully this will generate some excitement and schools to put the play up. We have cut a deal with one of the most beautiful venues I have ever seen, the Lazar Theatre in the UNF Fine Arts Building to present CHALK in October. This is will be the biggest venue the play has been in. I’m very curious as to how the play will work in a theatre this large with all the lighting capabilities, and technical bonuses that the piece has not had in any other venue.

NY JITTERS/GRIOT: The big news with Griot is it will be taking part of a festival of celebrating the life and work of Langston Hughes. This is happening at the UNF Fine Arts Center, in Jacksonville during the month of April. This huge for us, as it will accomplish two goals, we have a huge financial goal this year, as we are planning to take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The cost of going to this festival is pretty steep. So we need as many gigs as we can possibly get. Secondly, I’ve never felt that the play has had the opportunity to really work in the Jacksonville community. We’ve either done it out by the Beach (which is a great theatre, but the beaches community and the Jacksonville community are two separate groups altogether, or we’ve done it at small venues with little promotion. So the opportunity to do it at the Lazar Theatre is a true blessing.
The NOVEL: The writing is going good but slow when it comes to the novel. I’d like to get to a more steady pace in the future, but other projects will be taking priority in the up coming months, more on those later.

THE MOVIE: So we (my film partners) have settled on a concept and now I need to sit down and start making it come together. We don’t plan to shoot until some time next year which will give us plenty of time to get it rolling.

NEW THINGS IN THE WORKS: So my new play opens in October @ the Theatre Project. The title of the piece is Julius X. In the near future I’ll post more on this play and what it’s about but right now since I am not totally finished in the planning and writing of the piece, I want to keep the concept close to my heart.

On a whole things are looking very positive for the future. I’ve moved in my new work space, which I hope will up the productivity of my work. For the last couple weeks I’ve been working out of a small closet in my room, and really had no room to move around and work. I love to have pile of paper, books, and other resources near me when I’m working so I can pull something quickly, working in a closet is not conducive to this type of work flow. The new work space is huge in comparision with a nice L shaped desk allowing me to work the way I like to work. No excuses.