There’s Tony Kushner. Waiting for our connecting flight to Valdez. I’m going to be on a commuter plane with Tony Kushner! He looks wary. All in black. A Mame-sized valise looking like it could hold the eight-foot stuffed Kodiak bear next to the ticket counter.
Should I approach? What would I say? Oh there’s John Guare! He’s a hero. And her. And him. And him’s son. (What’s he doing here?) Theatreati. How does one…?

Kevin crosses the lounge stage right towards Kushner, Guare, et. al. Suddenly veers off to Bear instead. Studies placard below until boarding is announced.

Three in the morning. They’re not kidding about twenty-two hours of sun. It’s right there behind the curtains and the blanket I hung over my window.

June 19

Where am I? Two days ago (was it?) I was in Cape Cod with my wife and son. Now, I am… where? A bald eagle eats scraps in the courtyard like a pigeon. Wha?. I’m in Alaska. They’re going to read my play and Albee’s going to be there. But wait: my son is going to be ONE YEAR OLD and I’m going to miss it! I will not see him for ELEVEN days! Will this put a little hole in his heart? It’s putting one in mine. When I was five I spent two weeks in a Burbank classroom while we waited for my uncle’s wedding. My dad returned to Long Island to start the spring semester. I threw up oatmeal every morning on my grandma’s pachysandra. And got “sick” in the nurses’ office too.

I make the first play reading of the day. Ten minutes in and I want to rush to the pachysandra. This play is not good. Is this what the festival is going to be like!? I flew all the way up here and am spending all this money and I’ve IRREPARABLY damaged my son’s PSYCHE, all for-- steady, boyo.. Take it easy, Albee’s here. Guare… and Tony! Surely they wouldn’t fly all the way here for an expense-paid trip of sightseeing, white-water-rafting, and chumming about with Yalies? Would they?

Playwriting Session. I’ve made a friend. A grad student at Texas who agrees: we’re here not to peddle easy, feel-good theatre, but stuff that pushes a bit. On stage, Romulus Linney and Connie Cogdon pose the question: How do we combine the scope and depth of the novel with the dramatic force of theatre? This is precisely the question I have been knocking my head against. How do you? Because I can’t seem to. I keep trying. The form seems to have so many limitations on it; everything counts and must double and triple up. All characters to be functional as well as developed; every line of dialog to move the action forward as well as invigorate, mesmerize, and dazzle; the arc of the play to bring all threads forward, but to create a most gorgeous and complex triple bow at the end.

Linney and Cogdon consider Checkov. Checkov? He’s pretty old. He’s dead. Aren’t there newer models? And what is meant by novelistic scope? Reading is a vastly different enterprise than performance. I want more specifics. I want more meat—EXCUSE ME, I’m here to work out MY VEXING CRAFT ISSUES, ahem??

June 20

Well, we’re going to have to figure it out for ourselves. But today, Guare, who led the session, gave specific anecdotal evidence that was helpful. For example, how he solved the “core problem” of House of Blue Leaves : deciding to make the one character who IS famous—who arrives in the Queens household of all these characters who WANT to be famous—literally blind, so that she fails to recognize those who are so desperate to be seen by her.

I think Tony may have a crush on me. I might be crazy, but I thought he was standing QUITE CLOSE to me near the non-dairy creamer packets and the stir sticks.

I’m crushed! My hero, John Guare, IGNORED ME. Completely. I was talking with Courtney—oh, Courtney Vance? Paul in Six Degrees of Separation? THE star of Law and Order? Well, he and I were engrossed when Guare burst in, and started going on about the whitewater rafting trip--like I wasn’t there! So I blurted out that I had just seen a bear. That got their attention.

I am so humiliated.

Scene. Lights up on Kevin and the Texas guy, eating at The Halibut House, their ninth halibut sandwich this trip. Kevin is talking animatedly between bites, putting hands on heart, holding arms out, palms upturned, gazing at heaven, and making fake noose motions around his neck. Texas guy is nodding head sympathetically, moving his arms in a “they’re not good enough for you” way.

June 21st

The big day. My play is read. And I think it goes well. My male lead hits all the right emotional notes, and the female lead does well, too. Best of all, I can hear the difference between the play and the reading. There are a couple of moments that don’t quite work, but I can tell it’s the reading and not the script. This is the first time I have been able to do that, to differentiate. It’s a big step. I think I’ll be less limited by second-guessing and over-revising now. It’s ready for actors and a director. The New York playwright heading my panel seems to agree. In fact, he talks so long about what he likes, there isn’t time for audience feedback. That’s okay. I’m able to hear the play for myself. Yay.

As I’m leaving, an organizer of the festival introduces himself and asks me to submit to his theatre group’s one-act festival in San Francisco.

December 5th
My play, Big Fun, is accepted for the Bay Area One Act Festival. Produced at the Exit Theatre in San Francisco on March 10,11, 12 and 13th.

I can’t wait.

I wonder if Tony will be in town to see it. Or John…