Behold! Stella Starlight: Queen of Space!

Good news, everyone! On Sunday afternoon, the inestimable women of Squeaky Bicycle Productions are producing a staged reading of my superexciting new one-act play, "Stella Starlight: Queen of Space." As a bonus, you will receive a helping of "Private School," a long one-act (or short full length?) by the supremely talented actor/playwright/Minneapolitan Dylan Lamb.

Dylan may insist that because his play is the longer, and comes second, it is the main event and mine is the opening act. But like most playwrights, he is a scruffy-faced lie machine, and should not be trusted.

I wrote "Stella Starlight" as a present to my then girlfriend, now wife, last year for her birthday. It's personal in a way that I often have trouble making my work (but am trying to get better at!), and also includes lasers and sword fights and all that good stuff. It's probably the best thing I've ever written, and if you miss it, your life is null and void.

The reading is at 3 pm, which will happily allow me to miss most of the Titans game. It's happening at:

Joria Productions

260 W. 36th Street, 3rd floor

New York, NY

Make reservations here. Make them! And if you can't make it for some probably deceitful reason, email me, and I'll send you the script. You can produce a reading in your own home!

Where Did He Go? Coney Island, That's Where

The blog has been characteristically quiet the last few weeks, and not because I got married a second time. I've been keeping my head down, trying to finish rewrites on the three plays I mostly-wrote this year so that I can start work on something new. I'll update you on those plays when the rewrites are finished. Not too long on them now, hopefully. 

Theatrically, I had a bit of good news: a one act of mine will be in the Bad Theater Festival  on November 2nd. It's tentatively called "S For Slaughter," but we're thinking about changing the name, since the play has nothing to do with slaughter at all, but does have a teeny bit to do with St. Louis Cardinals great Enos Slaughter. It's misleading, I know. 

What's that, you say? You'd like to read more  about baseball? Well let me indulge you, with this nifty bit of "writing" that I did for our good friends The Classical.

You're right, Marge. Just like the time I could have met Mr. T at the mall. The entire day I kept saying, "I'll go a little later. I'll go a little later." And then when I got there, they told me he'd just left. And when I asked the mall guy if he would ever come back again, he said he didn't know.

Homer Simpson never got to meet Mr. T., and I never got to see Kid Harvey pitch. I'd wanted to as early as April, when he embarrassed Stephen Strasburg's Nationals to giddy chants of "Harvey's better!" from a giddy Citi Field assemblage. But April was a long time ago. Watch highlights from that game and you'll see David Wright, Ruben Tejada and Jordany Valdespin—players who have been felled by injuries, managerial impatience, and savage Seligian wrath.

The Mets of April are long gone, and now Matt Harvey has been sent away with them. I could have seen him beat the Nats in April, the White Sox in May, or the befuddled representatives of the American League in July, but I kept saying, I'll go a little later. I'll go a little later. And now, he's not at the ballpark any more. The Mets themselves, depleted and defeated and desultorily playing out the string in Energy Saver Mode, are barely there in general.

This happens ever summer. The first particularly miserable Citi Field day saps my early season enthusiasm, and then the Mets fall apart around the All Star break, and I decide to steer clear of the stadium until the ridiculous, end-of-season ticket incentives kick in. Suddenly it's September, football is here, and I realize I have only a few more weeks to chug as much baseball as possible, a squirrel gorging on nuts when he reads in the paper that winter is coming.

My plan two weeks ago was for a spectacular doubleheader. After months of waiting, I would go meet Mr. T., who was scheduled to pitch an afternoon game against the Phillies on Thursday, August 29. Afterwards, I would take the 7 to the F and ride it all the way to the end of the line, for sunset, surf and the surging Brooklyn Cyclones. I was just about to buy my tickets when a horrible noise—a straining sound, maybe a tearing sound—resounded through Metslandia. Matt Harvey had (partially) torn his UCL. It was just a little rip, but UCLs are like condoms—any sort of tear is some sort of catastrophe.

There's much more. Read on, and learn of the briny delights of Coney Island! Read, I tell you. Read!

Good News, Everyone! An Elopement in Chattanooga!

My beloved and I took a trip to my hometown of Nashville this week, and while here she asked for a little roadtrip. A few years back, we went to Chattanooga, a small city with a surprising amount of charm. We went back on Tuesday, the 16th, and while there did an exciting thing. I've told most of my friends about it, either by phone or Facebook, but had to email one very close pal who's currently enjoying life in the mountains of Costa Rica, in service to the Peace Corps. The letter turned out nicely, so I'll post it here as record of our Big News:

Hello Mr. Mountain Man,

So Yvonne and I are (as I think I mentioned) in Nashville this week. Besides bumping into your parents, we made an overnight trip to Chattanooga. Why, you ask? What is there to do in Chattanooga, you ask? Let's think:

—Watch otters in the aquarium

—Make train noises at the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo

—Get married at the courthouse

—See Rock City

We skipped three of those four classic attractions, but decided it wouldn't be a trip to Chattanooga without a wedding. So we eloped!

We'd been planning it for six weeks or so, in utmost secrecy. I told my barber and a guy I sat next to on the plane. Yvonne told one coworker, so she'd have someone to dress-shop with. (Funny that women need a pal to go shopping. When I'm buying clothes I prefer to have no one there to witness my humiliation.) We bought rings, booked a minister, and hired a photographer. (Pictures to come soon.) We didn't tell anyone until we got home.

My parents flipped out, but in a good way. Dad was literally speechless. He just kept saying "Wow!" and "Zowie!" and "I'm just...I'm tickled pink!" Caldwell's very proper, very English girlfriend—who heard me tell him over Skype—burst out, "Holy fuck!" Yvonne's little cousin asked, "So you eloped? Does that mean you're engaged?"

Nope, we're married. Two days now. So far, it's been great!

—WMA

Although I was nervous driving back from Chattanooga—worrying that my parents and others might be upset that I'd gone off and got married without inviting them to watch—everyone has responded really well. Turns out that if you tell someone something incredibly surprising, you get to see what their most basic reaction is. It's usually pretty amusing. After all, how often do you get to flabberghast someone?

The elopement cost, all told, about $2,400. We could have done it for well less—as little as $300 or so, I think—but we decided to splurge on rings, the photographer and a hotel room, since we weren't racking up any other expenses. I can't imagine a better place to elope than Chattanooga, except perhaps the moon. I'm thinking about writing a pamphlet, and perhaps starting a trend. (New York TImes  style section—are you listening?!) If you'd like advice on how to elope, don't hesitate to email me.

*** 

Unrelated, but last week I finally got around to adding a bunch of information about my plays to this site.  If you want to learn more about my non-journalism work, take a look. I've got excerpts, summaries, all sorts of stuff. If you want to read the whole play, just drop me a line.