Stephen Sondheim

I was watching the History of the Broadway Musical Documentary (while watching the Indians....you know....just in case the LGBT came busting in my apartment pointing and screaming "I knew it!!!!") Stephen Sondheim was talking about how the crescendo at the end of each small phrase was his basis of mood in the opening song. With each small crescendo, you would keep anticipating something to happen but it never would. He said hardly anyone would notice it but it would automatically create a mood.

That is something that has been spinning around in my head about this 9/11 show for some time. The mood for the show. If it's supposed to happen like it did that day, I suppose I should start it at 8:46 in the morning, but then my buddy Alex wouldn't get there to see it, that's 6 hours before he likes to wake up. If the audience enters to a mood that we all had at 8:45 am that day, I might consider having a stand up comedian, a folk band, or people just handing money out so that everyone says "Oh what a splendid show this will be", and then have the ceiling cave in and crush the first three rows.

Maybe in the first three monologues I can crescendo the end of each sentence and the audience will think "Why in the hell is he doing that" , and get so annoyed they run out of the theater. I feel like I can actually recreate the horror of that day right there in the theater. Oooh, I have actors in mind that will really destroy all normalcy of the room if they perform. This place will explode!!!! Anyway...thank you Stephen Sondheim. (and the fact that I've been doing farce comedy for the past 4 weeks)

Invite to First Reading

I sent out a few invitations for my first rough read next Monday night the 27th. Just a few friends that I feel comfortable sharing whatever I think this thing might be. What feedback do i want from them? (I'm going to call each person's monologue a piece). 1) What overall feeling does one get from the piece? Why do they "really like it" or "really hate it" or why didn't it resonate in them. This is an important question because their answers are coming from a point of view of someone who wasn't there or thought about certain aspects of the day. They might hate it, but for all the reasons I'm going for. 2) How wide are the different point of views. It was a sad and life changing day, but too much of that would make for a really boring show. Did I hit enough different points of views that make the entire show very well rounded and interesting? 3) What would they have liked to see more of? And equally, what would they have liked to see less of? I hope it's not death, terrorism, heroics, and disaster..... cause there is going to be a lot of that. 4) What acting things pop out to them as I read the pieces. At the end of the day, this is an acting thesis. I'm aiming to stretch my acting chops a whole bunch of different ways and not only tell the story through my words, but through my body, behavior, emotions, expressions, characters, and unpredictability.

I already have a feeling of what pieces they are going to like. They're probably the ones that I like and that I liked writing. They're interesting. They stand out from the rest. I'm really hoping that a couple that I don't like are among their favorites. Why? Because it would mean I touched on something without even realizing it. The plan for the past two months has been to dive into every aspect of that day through reading, watching, studying and then letting my mind come up with ideas that might be interesting for an audience member or a topic that would be interesting to explore.

I'm not uncovering new ground. I am taking what I know as being an artist and doing what I can with it. I have the potential to reach out and educate, inspire, and move people with my understanding of the events of that day. I am fully aware that this might be the worst piece of shit ever to be performed, or maybe it can have a few moments that touch someone and they feel they know a little bit more about what our country and citizens went through.

First Reading

I did what any normal single 35 year old would do on a Friday night, I sat down and read my thesis script and relived 9/11 all over again. Yea! Actually, I was very happy with what I've accomplished in the past 2 months. I have finished 63 pieces and I feel enough stand out on their own to be put together to make an entire piece. I can tell right now that I'm going to have a problem cutting down. I found that a few of them that I liked all had a reasonable similarities and through some work I'll be able to combine them for one full piece. I also realized I have a strong connection to the ones that were more creative than the others. The ones that were off the wall had me thinking "I hope this gets a good response at the read through!" I'm happy with the number of "comic" or "lighthearted" ones. They can make people laugh and smile without making fun of anything that happened that day. New York is full of crazy characters and I'm using my knowledge of them to help this show.

I will need to start thinking of the entire piece as a whole soon and what choices I could make to make it a very meaningful evening for the audience. I talked to Dan in the costume shop about recruiting his help for costume ideas. I have many set and lighting ideas but don't know if any of those will be able to be used depending on where I do the show.

I did watch the conspiracy theories of 9/11 on dvd tonight and how they are argued by Popular Mechanics magazine. If the "truthers" are wrong in any way, they should apologize to every single American. Or how about a TV show pitting both sides against each other? I'm sure that would be a tad bit better than the Kardashians.

I talked to a couple friends who were younger and out of state and got their opinions on that day and realized if this show is a success, I could write an entirely different show based on the people who didnt live in NYC. It was a totally different experience from those who saw the smoke rising to the sky and those who didn't. It also makes me think how this show will play to an audience down here compared to one in the New England States. Does the image of fighter jets flying around NYC protecting us for days afterwards resonate as surreal to this audience as it did for us?

June 10th, 2011

I'll name this entry exactly what it is. It's a check in that says I'm still doing this writing thing so that when I include it in my thesis paper, I won't have to go back and make stuff up. I have 58 individual pieces so far, some being really good and some being complete shit. Some are fragments of ideas and that led me to write another piece in the same vicinity of one I didn't like. I still have a brainstorming list that is several pages long that I feel I could write another 75-100 without any effort. I would say 40 of the 58 are off of general ideas of death, forgiveness, hatred, love, survival, shock, recovery, or decision making. The other 18 are quite avant garde and off the wall. I have found ways to add comedy and light hearted moments, but hope to write a few more that doesn't make fun of the day but lightens the mood. Another path I'm crossing is going from feelings and emotions that I don't need to do research on to doing more pieces using very precise data and information. I want to write a piece that really makes it apparent how much terrorism and anti American sentiment came into it, but first I have to understand it myself and have read almost two books about it just so I can write a 5 minute piece on it. I don't want it to be a lecture. I want it to communicate the message while making it interesting and creative.

That's another struggle I'm dealing with. To make the moments active towards someone specifically with a specific want or getting the information out as much as possible, sacrificing the "scene". I want to make each moment a different take on something that has been looked at the same mundane way before. I want to surprise the audience. I also don't want to dumb down the audience and I want to trust them that they'll see what I'm trying to say with the words without slapping them in the face with them. Take the example of someone who is saying goodbye to their family member for the last time. Sitting here I can think of 10 different ways to do that. It's a matter of writing all of them and then getting a feel of what is working the best and then how it compares to the other pieces that I include in the final product. My goal is still to do a full reading on Sept 11th of this year on the 10th anniversary.

Memorial Day

I have lived at my pool for the past 3 weeks and I have finished about 90% of my first rough draft of the show. I decided to take the route of writing pretty intensely for an hour or two at a time and not reading it again. When I get back from Ohio, I'll re read each character and moment and see what stands out. Then the rewriting begins and that's going to be... well just plain aggravating and stupid. I've written about 30-35 characters which have little or nothing to do with each other and moments that range from heart breaking to side splitting. Yes, I had to come up with some funny moments or this show would be about as funny as Schindler's List.

I then realized over this month that this blog is actually going to be part of my thesis paper and how the process of writing the script came to be and decisions I made and chose not to make. So I need to be a bit more specific on things, BUT there's a huge part of me that doesn't want to share what I've written yet because it's so disgustingly raw. So raw that Im scared to read it again myself right now. All I can say is there is one moment that I actually started crying as I was writing the words because the character I had created touched my heart so deep. The moment I wrote that is intended to lighten the mood was so much fun to write and just like when you're in the middle of an improv scene that is working, came so easily. One thought lead to the next and it almost felt like it was writing itself. Then I came to a section where I started writing with one intention and it got away from me and something happened with it that scared the shit out of me and surprised me at the same time and I had to get up and walk away and wonder if it was really me that just wrote it.

It's fucking 9/11. We all have feelings about it. It all means something different to every single one of us and I have to trust myself and feel like I'm giving it the justice that I feel I want to. I have narrowed the vision of the show to include only New York and the idea of terrorism and how it affects someone physically and mentally. I'm going to have a few people read the sections and characters and give me feedback not how to make it better but what they feel when they hear and experience it. If they feel nothing, then I have to hit it from an another way.

Another thing I have to keep in mind is that this is predominantly an acting thesis and I want to give enough variety in the characters, moods, tempo, information, and entertainment value to have fun and challenge myself. How do I go from convincingly playing a jewish mother

remembering something to a NYC fireman in the act of doing something that day? The ridiculous part of me gets an artist's boner when I think of tackling these challenges.

I'm also glad I started this project when I did because after reading 5-6 books and watching hours of documentary, I started writing ideas that went A to C but now a month later are going A to Q. I get an idea and wonder how in the hell I could make it work and then just start writing and seeing if I can. Some ideas are so ridiculous that I want to make them work just so I can punch it in the throat and say "HA! Take that bitch!" Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I'm not putting that pressure on myself, but I have found out that the more I really push my creativity, the more enjoyable it is. BUT...... is that what got Spiderman the musical in so much trouble??

The added pleasure of this work has been my creativity has been on overdrive and have written so many side projects these past few weeks that I have something to take my mind off of the tragedies of Sept 11. I'm in the process of rewriting those and sending them to Alex so we can start filming them next semester. I remember my composition teacher at Otterbein saying "write, write, write. 10% of what you write will be good and the other 90% will teach you what not to do and maybe will give you an idea that will give you an idea for your next project."

So what the hell am I writing this blog for...back to New York!

Need help

I've been writing constantly for the past week and have hit many different aspects of that day. It occurred to me tonight that there is a lot about that day that I've learned in my research process. I'm doing this show for you, the citizens. To answer questions and to bring you closer to understanding something that was so horrific. As I keep coming up with new topics and ways to communicate them, I'm wondering what kind of information you know and what you think you know about 9/11. If you wouldn't mind, if you could write about that day. Not where you were and what happened, but what you remember about the facts of that day and after. Some things that I thought were common sense are lost on people outside of NYC. Also list any things you wish you knew more about from that day. I'm keeping the show revolved around the happenings in NYC. Thanks for any insight you might have. You can send a message to my facebook or email me at jasonnettle@mac.com.

Thanks,

Jason

First stream of thought writing. 10 minutes.

9/11 First draft free thought- 10 minutes

death. bodies and murders like no one has ever witnessed before in america and in nyc. it was brutal. how everything must have worked so perfectly for the highjackers for this to happen. makes me think it was supposed to happen. Any number of things could have gone wrong, but they didn't. it was almost perfect. two towers falling but only killing 3,000 people. is it wrong to think that that wasn't very many people. or enough people to make it horrendous? People evaporated. Sitting at a job they hated or being tired and were absolutely defenseless and evaporated. Then the people above had to worry for an hour. Smoke killed some. What an awful way to die. then the jumpers. did they feel they could survive? what was happening up there? How hot was it that jumping to your death was the only choice. People on the street witnessing them falling. nothing anyone has ever seen. bodies exploding on the ground. who sees that? how do you recover from that?

The first plane seemed like an accident. was it a bomb, small commuter jet? was the pilot drunk? Second plane was an attack. For 16 minutes we were dealing with a fire. 2nd explosion had more people watching and meant more. It was like a movie. cinematography couldn't have been better or more suspenseful. An explosion in a building in nYC of that magnitude on tv. You cant write something like that. THen who knew if the 2nd plane was it? Were there more? What else? then we hear about the pentagon and united 93. there are rumors of others around country but not confirmed. Anything could have been the answer for this. 10 thousand dead? 1 thousand dead?

300 firefighters crushed. Did they know it was going to fall? Were they heroes? Did they think they'd get up and out before anything destructive happened. They hardly made it close to the fire. They didn't even put any out. a couple did. They went in to get crushed. Walking up stairs would take them 3 hours. It only stood for an hour.