Rehearsal # 11 & 12

Goodbye to the 1812 rehearsal space! Later suckas. We're moving into the Latvian Society! And they do traditional Latvian dances and serve us rich coffee while they build our set. Pete: I'm sorry I locked the bathroom key in the bathroom. Okay? Happy now?

It's strange the lines that actors enjoy. They're never the ones you expect.

BEST LINES IN WHISKY NEAT ACCORDING TO CAST AND CREW:

Brian Cowden: "Smell it."
Elena Bossler: "I think Tommy and Terry might be machines."
Luigi Sottile: "Smell it."
Bruce Walsh: (A beat.)
Kevin Glaccum: "Dave."
Keith Conallen: "Smell it."
Nathan Emmons: "Chicken ass."
Lindsay Galbraith: undecided


Keith Conallen at a rehearsal on March 21. He drinks his coffee with a spoon to make the scene better. Love that guy.

Rehearsals # 8, 9 & 10

I'm becoming less and less useful. My idea to use actual whisky fell on deaf ears. Bean counters. But I did get to change a few lines because they can't actually smoke in this "Latvian Society." And then I made a few script changes in which I just put "quotes" around a few "phrases" just to keep busy. When I gave the the pages to the actors, I said, say it like "this." They just stared at me blankly.

But I do find this "fight call" concept totally fascinating. Like: "let's practice beating the crap out of each other, so we don't actually beat the crap out of each other." I love it! And boy do I hope they're "acting," because if not Brian Cowden is sure getting his ass handed to him every night. And if that were the case, I would feel a new sense of guilt for having scripted a "ball grab."


Throw Down Part I: Brian Cowden gets socked one by Nathan Emmons during fight call... Don't worry. It's make believe. I think.

Throw Down Part II: Cowden begs Emmons to stop. Sometimes I want to scream at them to stop. Then the director reminds me that theater is pretend.

WHISKY NEAT: Interview Part II

My friend Brendan Huffman was nice enough to take my picture in front of the SEPTA add for my play. He told me I had to smile or he would sock me one.

THE SECOND QUESTION FROM A CURIOUS TEMPLE U. STUDENT
(I went back and added some stuff to my answers. I always think of just the thing to say afterwords.)

2. What inspired you to write this play? Did you change DASEIN's
story line at all for WHISKY NEAT?

I'm not sure I know what inspiration is -- at least not as far as writing is concerned. My plays are just these very powerful daydreams. Not sure how to explain... There are times I become aware that I am daydreaming of something very specific: a world that seems as real -- more real even -- than this one. It's more of a choice to further explore that world or try to shut it out. I've never had much success at shutting it out completely. There are some I have the courage or misfortune or obsessiveness or luck or stupidity to follow. And some I don't for some reason. I've never figured out why. These dreams, of course, contain many elements from my everyday life, just as any normal dream tends to have these elements. For instance, I worked as a parking valet at maybe half-a-dozen restaurants around Philly, so that is a central element to the play. For some reason the dream that began as DASEIN never left me. I don't know why. Perhaps because it was pretty much my first experiment with real narrative. My plays before that point -- before I was 24 or so -- were these sort of strange experiments with rhythmic language. Almost every line of WHISKY NEAT is completely different than DASEIN, and it's more than double in length. It's the same characters though. The through line is the same in the sense that the same big dramatic event occurs. (I don't want to give anything away by mentioning what that is.) But DASEIN was closer to a short story in structure. It really just had one dramatic movement: a big bang happens and we watch how the characters deal with that. In a full-length drama there needs to be -- for me at least -- a kind of ricochet effect. There are a chain of events -- an arch rather than a snapshot.


Elena Bossler didn't truly get started with us until March 14, the day this little clip was taken. Notice that on her first day of rehearsal she sort of casually throws the script on the table, and continues word perfect. In this little moment her character, Alex, is talking to Handsome (Luigi Sottile) about her BMW. I was actually attempting to take a still photo, but had the wrong setting on the camera.

INTERVIEW Part I

The other day I got this really cool message from a Temple student. I think she was writing an article for the school paper. She asked me questions about my play, and I had a great time answering them, though now I think I may have freaked her out with my insane theater-nuts passion or something because she never got back to me. Anyway, here's the first question. It took me back to college days, and I wound up digging out some artifacts from 2002!

Hi Mr. Walsh,
Thank you so much for getting back to me. If you could answer these questions by this Thursday or Friday that would be fantastic. You can just send them to this same e-mail.
Thanks again!

1. I see that Whisky Neat originally premiered as Das Ein at the 2002 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. What can you tell me about its reception by the audiences?

Actually, the play was titled "Dasein" -- one of Martin Heidegger's philosophy terms. I have no idea why I titled it that. Azuka spelled it "Das Ein" in their marketing materials. I have no idea why they spelled it that way. It's all very mysterious to me. The Fringe show wasn't much of a premiere. It was a 40-min one-act with 3 performances. At that time, I hadn't figured out how to write anything without the pressure of a physical performance planned for a specific date. I asked my friend from college (Dan Kutner, a Temple guy now in New York) if he would direct a play by me. I told him I was working on it, but I really didn't start until after I asked him. I knew the guys that ran the space from a previous show, so they agreed to deduct their money from the tickets. I think I paid the actors -- also my college friends -- $80 a piece for the whole thing. We had no set. We used the door to the theater as an entrance in the play. It was all very ridiculous actually, because there was supposed to be a television in the play, but we had no way of cueing something like that, so people just sort of mysteriously pointed the remote toward stage right. I guess it went over well enough. Fringe audiences -- God bless em -- tend to put up with a lot. The language and the actors had a certain energy that can be entertaining in a small space. Dan did a great job keeping it moving, so you didn't really have a lot of time to start wondering what the hell was going on. I nearly puked the first night -- the first and last night I actually sat with an audience at one of my plays. It was the first time the actors had done the piece in front of people. The lights didn't work. My dad was there. The toilet broke in the men's room. It was horrific. But by the third one, I think people were genuinely laughing and having a good time with it. But "Dasein," for me, was really just the seed of an idea for "Whisky Neat."


Director Daniel Kutner (seen here living it up as a professional director in New York City) believed in my one-act, even though I hadn't written anything yet. He also didn't read into the fact that I had to take an incomplete in Theater 110 our freshman year. I owe you one, Dan.


All this talk about 2002 got me digging through my filing cabinet. I never did find an explanation as to the play's title. But I did discover the original listing in the Fringe guide.

Rehearsal #7

Alright, so I wasn't actually at "Rehearsal #7." But I did do a fair amount of fretting about the play while at work. That's pretty much all I do at rehearsal anyway, so I figure everybody's happy. So here, then, is a top ten I thought up at work, while waiting on images from the Museum of Art. (The Cezanne thing looks cool. You should totally go.)

REASONS WHY PLAYWRITING IS A LONELY BUSINESS

1. Typing works fingers not abs
2. People always approaching you with “totally awesome” ideas for plays
3. Talk backs
4. Audiences always ask for more “sass-walk” at talk backs
5. Theater industry peaked in 1895... in Russia
6. Kinko's customer service has gone down hill
7. Sometimes co-workers refer to you as “Playwright-er”
8. People hate theater
9. Lavish lifestyle can isolate one from peers
10.No event category for plays on Myspace


This is me fretting at a rehearsal on March 14. It looks pretty much the same at work.

Rehearsals # 3, 4 & 5

Please forgive me for a bit of self-pitying. There is a moment when you realize your play is in the hands of another. And I've been with this babe (I call the play babe sometimes) for over two years. So these days after rehearsal, I put on Tom Waits and cry in my Makers: "My baby's gone!" There really isn't a lot of reason for me to be at rehearsal to tell you the truth. There just isn't much left for me to do.

But I like the guy she's with now. He has a generous laugh and he responds to her finicky moods with sensitivity. He yells at actors when they are rough with her music.

Here he is:

Director Kevin Glaccum reluctantly allows me to take his picture at a rehearsal for WHISKY NEAT on March 16.

Rehearsal #2

REASONS WHY I THINK LUIGI SOTTILE IS A GREAT ACTOR:

1. Doesn't need real scotch to wince like he's drinking scotch
2. Brings his own pen
3. Willing to take off pants on second day of rehearsal
4. Not drunk
5. Doesn't need real mirror to look in mirror
6. Chose this play over HAMLET
7. Can recite entire "Abe Froman" scene from FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF
8. Good hair
9. Sass-walk
10. Doesn't ask to use bathroom often during rehearsal


Sottile, left, seen here gracefully receiving direction from Kevin Glaccum during a rehearsal on March 12.

Rehearsal #1

First rehearsal, 3/10/09.
Left to right:
Bossler: Alex
Conallen: Terry
Walsh: Sick crazy happy writer
Sottile: Handsome
Cowden: Tim
Emmons: Not pictured [late (traffic)]
Glaccum: Not pictured (too cool)
Galbraith: Not pictured (calling Emmons)


Things I notice that make Equity theater different from Fringe:
1. Coffee is provided
2. It's not anybody's living room
3. There are lots of pens and markers provided
4. Copies of script are free
5. Director's pants are nice
6. Script has ending
7. Director asks me what stuff means
8. Music stands
9. Sound designer is not me
10. None of the actors deal weed "on the side"