| | Last-Minute Change to my Reading Lineup
All last week I was preparing, mentally and rehearsing-wise, for the 10 minutes I was expected to fill at the Bernal Yoga Literary Series. I had planned for weeks to read monologues from American Triage. Last time I read excerpts from a play for a literary reading (Litquake 2009) I read American Triage monologues and it had worked pretty well. Ironically, that time I'm referring to also included a last-minute change to my reading plans.
But this reading change up started with a thought late Friday night as I was drifting off to sleep. Maybe reading the two Lalo monologues wouldn't work as well as it did last time without the third monologue (because I had a 10 minute time limit I was only planning on reading two monologues). Maybe I should read one Lalo monologue and one Fatima monologue, I mused. I liked that idea.
This thought was the crowbar that opened up room more possibilities. Fittingly, while I was doing yoga Saturday morning I kept thinking that I should read a monologue from Heart Shaped Nebula.
It feels right, I told myself. Miqueo is very much who I am now so reading a monologue of his felt like the right choice. In the end I decided to read a monologue and the brief dialogue exchange between Miqueo and Amara that follows.
Yes, reading two parts is challenging for an audience not accustomed to reading or seeing plays (know your audience), and yes reading stage directions further complicates things. But I didn't care. This was my plan and I had only a few hours to practice, print out my pages and put together my bio to be read as my introduction.
I had my entire evening timed perfectly. Left my place and caught the bus at 7pm and then caught the 24 Divisadero which would take me through the Castro, Noe Valley and to my old neighborhood Bernal Heights where the reading was.
The evening included music by Billy and Dolly (I liked their songs very much and ended up buying one of their cds) and featured fiction writers Li Mao Lovett and Peter Orner, poets Jeff Hoffman and Tim Comitta and then there was yours truly the playwright.
It's been a while since I've been to a literary reading. As any frequent visitor to this blog knows I go see a lot of plays and play readings. It was nice to return to my poetry roots, return to my old neighborhood. I remembered all the readings I used to go to at USF as a grad student, remembered all the times I walked down Andover toward my flat on Park Street.
Getting on the 24 to head back North I felt all warm and fuzzy. Maybe it was listening to all the voices of writers and musicians. Maybe it was settling back into reading my book and smiling when I realized I must look like a complete francophile (reading Anna Gavalda, wearing my Eiffel Tower ring and carrying my tote with the cartoon frogs standing on either side of the phrase "Griffonner sur une étoffe"). Or maybe it was the thought of returning to my little cottage in the Inner Richmond and knowing that as I traversed the city streets my journey was layered with personal meaning.
That I was coming home.
-M
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| | Posted 2/5/2012 7:50 PM - 58 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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