• Finish rewrites on that grant application. Finish all the materials I'm responsible for.
• Work on and complete my New Dramatist application.
• Rewrites.
• Work out.
• Clean house.
• Buy a plane ticket for October.
• Pay bills.
• Finally figure out if I indeed have to take the GRE.
• Start studying for the GRE.
• Start shopping for Christmas. Yes, I start way early. It helps prevent me from spending a lot of money in December.
• Overhaul my garden.
• Donate to Goodwill.

That's what friend and fellow playwright Prince Gomolvilas said to me when we spotted one another across the aisle yesterday at the final reading of his new play The Brothers Paranormal at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

After the show he reiterated that statement, adding, "You love scary movies, you love to cry. You're the perfect audience for this play."

And he's right. I love scary movies (you should see my Netflix queue) and I love theatre that reaches into my chest, grabs hold of my heart and squeezes.

Prince knows this about me because we've been friends since 2005 when we both were in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (that was his second appearance at BAPF and my first). Since then, even though he's based in Los Angeles, we keep up with each other's work--I attend Jukebox Stories every time it comes to the Bay Area and he's kept up with my work, even teaching one of my plays.

Prince (left) and musician Brandon Patton (right) performing Jukebox Stories.

So I was more than happy to trek from my foggy neighborhood in the Inner Richmond to sunny Potrero Hill where Thick House is located (the theatre space that BAPF uses for its festival). I left my little home around 2:30 pm and got home around 10pm. Yes, almost 8 hours later--I love when theatre turns into a party.

The Brother Paranormal is full of humor, scares and emotional explorations of both death and the psychological toll of leaving a life behind when immigrating to a new country. It was funny, scary, poignant, riffed on the horror genre in expected (and fun) ways, but still managed to surprise and delight with the unexpected turns the narrative took.

After the reading I headed over to a dinner party held in Prince's honor at a near by sushi restaurant where I caught up a bit with another theatre friend, met some fans of Prince's work who attend all of his Bay Area shows, met an actor from the reading whom I hadn't met before and of course chatted with Prince a bit as he floated from table to table.

It was the perfect way to end the night and I hopped on the 22 bus to begin my trek back to my place very happy. Very happy, indeed.

-M

Wow. The last time I blogged was at the beginning of this month. I think that's the longest quiet spell I've had on this blog since I started it in 2005.

So I'm back.

Where was I?

In Texas. 

For 10 great days I was visiting my family, getting rained on, baking, lounging around, playing with my sobrinos and just relaxing.

It was awesome.

But that was just ten days. What else have I been up to this month?

Well, at the beginning of the month I spend 4th of July in Dolores Park. I was there almost all day in order to get a good seat to watch the San Francisco Mime Troupe's first performance of their new play. This is a July 4th tradition for the Mime Troupe, you see. And a tradition for many, many San Franciscans.

We ate, we drank lots of fluids, we got a little tan. Don't laugh when I say it was hot. It was. This Tejana has been living in mostly fog for 11 years now and she's acclimated to the temperature range (50 to maybe 70s) so anything hotter than normal is kind of a shock to her system. And by hers I mean mine.

Anyhoo.

SF Mime Troupe offers free performances in parks. Go check them out!

Top: Velina Brown, Lisa Hori-Gracia, Bottom: Hugo Carbajal, Rotimi Agbabiaka

The second weekend of the month I attended a retreat for AlterTheater. I brought in a second draft of Wolf at the Door and got lots of good feedback and ideas to propel me into rewrites. Which I need to start doing soon.

The rest of the retreat was awesome as it gave me a chance to hear what my fellow AlterLab playwrights (Larissa, Denmo and Ann) are working on, plus connect with Jeanette at AlterTheater. And, of course I love heading over to Ann's house. One of these days I will snap a picture of it and post it here on the blog.

Then I went on vacation. Which was great. I needed it. Seriously. And aside from family time, getting rained on and seeing animatronic dinosaurs at the Witte Museum, I got the chance to see Travis Bedard who is neither animatronic nor a dinosaur.

Travis is a theatre friend who I met online (he commented on a blog post, I think). While I wasn't able to see him perform in a current production of The Pillowman, I did get to have dinner with him to talk theatre and catch up. Which we did.

I flew back on a Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day recovering from having to get up so early.

And this past Monday rehearsals started up in Chicago for my developmental production of Heart Shaped Nebula, which meant that I also had a nice long chat with my director to go over the script. I'm super excited about the production and cannot wait to head up to Chicago for it.

Lastly, I went to a potluck dinner with a few Latino theatre artists to have a conversation about what they want and need. We had a great time and a few really cool ideas came out of that evening. The first is that we want to connect more with other Latino theatre artists--know who's here, what they're doing. So we started a Facebook group for Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists. So, if you're reading this and you're here in the Bay Area and a Latino theatre artist, we invite you to join.

That's pretty much a recap of my July. A theatre retreat, a vacation, a potluck, a phone call, rewrites...oh and I played Scrabble (almost broke 300) and finally got to see my dramaturg after many, many months.

And this weekend I'm going to see a reading of a new play by a friend. More on that tomorrow.

-M

I have great news. Heart Shaped Nebula is going to be part of Halcyon Theatre's 2013 Alcyone Festival.

I am super excited to return to Chicago this fall to see Nebula up on its feet. A big thank you to Tony and Jenn Adams for making Nebula one of the plays in the festival this year.

And in preparation for the festival I squeezed in an edit/minor rewrite. A page really. A page of new dialogue that hopefully ties up one lingering loose end that I've been wanting to tie up for a while now.

Juan Castañeda, my director, is almost done with casting. So knock on wood everyone. Rehearsals start later this month and I'll be when the festival opens in early September. So if you're in the Windy City, put the Alcyone Festival on your calendar, it's September 6-28th.

-M

Well, technically it's the only podcast I listen to. I mean, I've heard podcasts before, but never came across one which compelled me to listen to each and every episode. So what's the podcast that I find so compelling. Well, it's a theatre one naturally. But I should say a thoroughly entertaining one.

Off and On: A New York Theatre podcast produced and hosted by New York based actor Bernardo Cubria. Recently I came across Bernardo's Twitter profile and saw the link to his podcast series. I clicked on the link because...curiosity. Each episode was an interview with a theatre artist. And, as I recognized some of the names I decided to start listening to the podcasts.

Well...I'm hooked. I even started using my earbuds (and if you know me, you know I don't like using them for music because WebMD totally convinced me they lead to hearing loss. p.s. I listen at the lowest level possible) so I could listen to podcasts on my smartphone as I take my daily bus downtown to work.

Bernardo is gregarious and a good interviewer--letting his interviewees talk often at length on a variety of subjects. The stories are personal, yet will resonate as each artist explains how they found their way to theatre and how they got to where they currently are in their career.

So go have a listen.

-M

Good news, everybody! I'm writing again. Or actually, doing rewrites. After almost 2 months of various levels of back pain I am working on rewrites. Yesterday I rewrote the opening scene to Wolf At The Door. I've decided to focus on finishing that second draft for the next quarterly AlterLab meeting.

I also need to do a quick rewrites of Heart Shaped Nebula because my Chicago director will start rehearsals in July. Yowzers, there is a lot to do. And while my back is improving I will admit I did rewrites while lying down this weekend. Not easy. Not easy at all.

But necessary.

More soon,
M

This morning on Twitter the New Play Map put out this tweet:

How to embed a #NewPlay Map Badge on your own website for directing people to your artist, play or org's profile pic.twitter.com/DLya8mziHb

And here's the picture that accompanied that tweet:

As I've said recently, I only disappear on the blog when traveling. That is, unless my back is acting up. And lo and behold for a second month in a row my back has been giving me grief, making me miss work and be overall useless when it comes to sitting down for long periods of time.

When it was as its worst (last Saturday) and I was unable to turn over without a sharp pain shooting through me, I was frustrated--naturally. Bad days like that scare me. I'm 36. I don't want to be barely walking around like como un viejito.

Good news is, the back is getting better. Slowly. And it wasn't as bad as say last month's bout of back pain. And my acupuncturist and I are working to improve my situation. That is to say we think we've pinpointed what's going on and are taking preventative measures.

Now I've been dealing with my back for a while. Since I was in high school. No wait, Jr. High. That was the initial injury. Then after college I threw my back out. Then a few years ago I strained it again.

So half a life time and multiple bouts of injury and pain. Nerve pain, muscle pain, sometimes just one, sometimes both together.

How bad is it? Well, on the really bad days it's terrible. Otherwise it's just annoying. But that annoying might be excruciating for someone else. I have no idea. I feel like my idea of lower back pain and my pain threshold have moved quite a bit off the normal person's experience. Like right now, I'm uncomfortable. I'd rather be lying down. But I'm sitting and typing. Partly because I have to. Would someone else sit through this though?

The first time I threw out my back I could barely walk. Though I did manage to drive myself to the doctor and walk into and out of his office. That's when I learned how many Motrin you can safely take. Speaking of which, I haven't taken any pain medication in days, now that I think of it. I kinda of forget about pain meds, unless the pain is truly bad.

Like I said. I think my concept of pain is a bit different from people who've never had to quickly put their back against a wall when they feel a sneeze coming on. Why do I do that? Because of the pain that happens when I don't. That kind of pain I do dread.

But back to writing.

I'm behind. Obviously. And I may have to devise a way to write while lying down otherwise nothing will get done. But do not fear. It will get done. I mean, if Frida Kahlo can live with her decades of pain and still paint, then I can find a way to write.

I will say this, lately the pain has me thinking. Thinking about my future. Lying on the floor of my office I came to a decision, one I'll discuss here. But later. Later when the pain has subsided.

Soon. Hopefully soon.

-M

Lots going on this holiday weekend. I will be busy and hopefully productive.

Here's what's going on:

Tonight I'm going to see Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night by my friend and fellow playwright Andres Saito (I call him Andres because that's how I met him and per Andres half his family calls him Andrew and the other half calls him Andres). I'm going with Marilet. We're grabbing dinner, a drink and then the show. It's opening night, whoo! So there will likely be a post show party.

Seriously, DivaFest, put this on a tote, a t-shirt, anything--I need swag with this image!

Saturday I'll be at DivaFest. I'm participating in a panel on gender parity in theatre. It's part of an afternoon symposium on gender parity in the field. I'll end the evening seeing The Helen Project by friends Amy Clare Tasker and Meg Cohen.

Sunday and Money will be devoted to me and writing. Whoo! I am looking forward to it. I plan to do rewrites, writing exercises, new writing--all of it.

-M

It's been super sunny and warm here in the Bay Area. I spent all last weekend running around and loving the weather.

Friday
Friday my good friend Angel came into town. She and I both arrived in the Bay Area at the same time, both moving from Texas to come out for grad school. We both only knew one other person--Dean. And Dean had a life of his own so he introduced us to one another.

Angel and I spent our grad school years running around SF trying to see and do whatever we could on our limited budgets. We once volunteered at a crab festival (which was hectic and poorly organized) so that we could get in free. We once found $20 on the ground near a bus stop and promptly took ourselves to dinner. We once couldn't escape Halloween in the Castro and I fell down when I tripped because earthquakes can lead to broken up sidewalks. Angel looked down at me and asked in a lackluster tone that cracked us both up, "Are you alright?" We once got a sugar high at Happy Donuts and cracked up at the drawing of a pot leaf accompanied by "I love pot" that someone wrote on the wall there. We immediately crank called Dean. We spent many a Thursday night dancing to 80s music at the Cat Club. It was a fun and pretty carefree time for both of us, before graduation and the return to the 9 to 5 grind.

Some guy drew this picture of us and then sold it to us. I framed it.

Angel now lives in Florida, but that didn't stop her from flying out to celebrate her birthday. So on Friday I took a half day off from work and we had lunch followed by tea above Yerba Buena. It was great. A little one-on-one time before her Saturday birthday party.

Saturday
I went grocery shopping first thing in the morning because I wanted to catch an early afternoon CalTrain to Redwood City for Angel's party. I found what I thought was a small watermelon (turns out it yielded quite a bit) to make tequila-soaked watermelon slices.

It was sunny and warm on the peninsula. Me and my watermelon arrived around 3pm and I didn't catch a train back until 9:41pm (CalTrain is not only precise but on time--nice!).

The party was at the home of Angel's brother who moved out to the Bay Area right after Angel and I graduated. There was food, drink, watermelon and lots of sunshine.

It was a good day. I got home close to 11pm or so. So it was a long day.

Sunday
Sunday I got up early to take a phone call. I sit on my alma mater's Alumni Council and was chatting with another alum because I unfortunately was going to miss the afternoon call the council had scheduled.

After my chat I started getting ready because I had a ticket to see the final performance of The Dead Girl by Ann Brebner. Both Ann and I were in AlterLab last year together when she wrote The Dead Girl. I had meant to go up sooner but I had been sick during the first two weeks of the run. So there I was headed to the North Bay worried that somehow the Bay to Breakers run was going wreak havoc on my ability to take public transit.

But first I headed to the book store. You see, for Angel's birthday I had bought her Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson aka The Bloggess. And after watching this YouTube clip I decided I wanted my own copy.

I laughed so hard!

So my plan was to swing by Green Apple Books on my way to the bus stop to buy the book only on my way to Green Apple I realized the shirt I was wearing was too heavy. I was hot. It was hot out. I was sweating. And my flipflops were kinda not good for all the walking I needed to do today. Plus I could so see myself getting sunburn on my feet and that happened once when I was in high school and isn't terribly fun.

Change of plans. I bought the book and immediately returned home to change my shirt and shoes and then hoofed it to the bus stop.

Now, usually I'm terrible at timing this trip. I realize that I won't make it to the Golden Gate Bride in time to catch the bus to San Rafael and in a panic call a cab. Well, Sunday I was on top of it. I early. If I was lucky I might catch the 1:19pm bus and get to San Rafael a full hour before I needed to be there. Then I'd be able to read the book I had just bought. And being at the bus stop a good hour before I normally would be there was my way of compensating for the Bay to Breakers Run which I figured might affect how the buses were running.

So there I am waiting for the 28 (the bus that takes me to the Golden Gate Bridge where I catch the Golden Gate Transit bus to San Rafael) at 1pm with the 28 about 17 minutes away. So, I figured I wouldn't make that 1:19 bus. Oh well, I'll take the 2:19 and still arrive in time for the show.

The 28 arrived in 17 minutes and promptly took us to the bridge. I think the bus arrived early because we arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge and it was close to 1:20 and I thought well, sometimes the buses are a few minutes late I might get lucky and catch that 1:19pm bus after all. When we got the bridge I ran to my second bus stop and picked up a pamphlet for the bus schedules. Interestingly enough the pamphlet said my bus would arrive at 1:26pm! So much for the internet.

I even had time to snap a quick picture. Gorgeous! I love this city.

Lo and behold an express did arrive close to 1:30 and I hopped right on it.

I got to San Rafael a good hour before the show so I headed to Starbucks to read my book, but while I was there I ran into Richard. Richard is AlterTheater's Literary Manager. I hadn't seen him for a while so over iced coffees we caught up and talked about theatre.

Before we knew it, it was almost 3pm so we headed over to see Ann's play. It was great to see Ann's work realized, especially since I've heard early drafts of it and even once gave her a writing exercise for a monologue that ended up in the play. I'm not a reviewer, but you can read what this one said about the play (spoiler alert: he liked it).

After the show Richard and I were invited to have dinner with the cast so we went for drinks why the set was struck. Richard introduced me to the Midori Sour and we continued our conversation about all things theatre.

Neither of us could stay long after dinner as we both had respective buses to catch. We talked about plays we'd send to one another and parted ways at the transit center.

I jumped on a bus that took me through Sausalito before heading over the bridge. Let me just say, there's a reason why people pay top dollar to live there. The water was lovely in the rays of the setting sun. With the fog beginning to make its way in I preferred the ocean side to the view of the city.

I transferred to the 28 and got home just at the sun was dipping below the horizon. A long, lovely day.

-M