Saturday, February 20, 2010

Etcetera IX here we come. [Byron Melton]

I got in touch with my old pal Chris Rutherford, (exceptional playwright, actor and producer who’s been making his living in the Tampa scene for the past few years) and borrowed a script.

The first time Chris and I worked together we put up a small art show in the “gallery” on the first floor of our dorm.

It was a concept piece based around a hip-hop record cover from 1989. The Album and the show shared the same name:

“What is it, Yo?!”

The show mostly included garbage and found art. Scene shop dumpster diving will reveal some real treasures. We dressed up in suits, invited the press, and help court at the grand opening. Many people suspected it was a joke. We had no comments for them. The only thing we told people was that:

To this day I still really don’t know if it was a joke. And all this was done before I had ever done any drugs or drank heavily.

Chris and I teamed up a few times over the years, and later our projects turned to short films. He wrote a great script called “What Lies Ahead” and we never got to shoot it.

I thought it might be perfect for submission when Allison approached me about getting something together for this.

It’s a great script – I think with the right tweaking it might make a pretty cool short play. And given that Etcetera this year is billed as “four nights of contemporary, experimental, progressive, and interdisciplinary live performance”, I think we can show those sword swallowers and acrobats that theatre isn’t always cherry orchards and cancer.

So we’ll see if it wants to fly as a short play. Film on stage Byron? You swore off projectors. They never work! Well, maybe it’ll be different this time. I read somewhere that if Shakespeare was alive today he’d be doing films. Maybe this humble project can bridge the gap.

Also, I have no shortage of good actors around me. Who doesn’t have time to memorize 15 pages of dense, rapid–fire dialogue?

Further bulletins as events warrant.

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