To our loyal readers…we are still here. In fact, we are planning a meeting this Sunday, February 21st with the cast of the Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams to discuss a possible movie adaptation of the show. As we mentioned before, we couldn’t possibly leave this alone, and we’re hoping to take this even further. Danielle has already had some rewrite work on the script, and we’ll see where we end up from there.

3,000 miles suddenly seems like opposite sides of the city. Stay tuned!

Art Project Theatre Company is going to be taking a short hiatus from performing together.  I’m moving to Boston to go to graduate school and that (unfortunately) means that I will be about 3,000 miles away from the rest of the ensemble.

But that doesn’t mean that we are putting our projects on hold.  I’m writing another play right now (and this one’s a comedy…kind of) and in a couple of months Anthony and I are going to revisit “Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams” for possible rewrites/expanding the play into a 90 minute show.  (Thank goodness for the internet and cell phones so we can continue our collaboration from opposite coasts.)

The play I’m writing now is currently titled “The Untitled Mailroom Project” (working title) and it’s a heightened take on my three years working as a mailroom clerk.  I’ve only written about four pages so far, but I know I’m going to continue working on it seriously if I announce it here.

It’s hard to believe that it has been only a scant 6 months since this whole endeavor began–from little more than a “it’s winter break and we need to crank something–anything–out in two weeks!”  But, alas, in about 17 hours we open fully to the public. If you asked me in November if I thought that this would happen I’d have laughed.  But, with lot of hard work and long nights, this ensemble has put together a wonderful show that has certainly surpassed my expectations (high as they were) and still amazes me, especially considering how far we’ve come from out Oreo-filled brainstorming session. This post is a toast of sorts to the cast and crew of “Jim and Paul Meet In Dreams” and tonight I shall be dreaming and perhaps even doing a little dance of joy.

To Danielle especially.  It has been a pleasure and a privilege working with you (even if it hasn’t always been the same in return). I look forward to our future works.

Hello everyone!  Art Project Theatre Company has their debut performances tonight and tomorrow night.  We are incredibly excited about our public debut.  ”Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams” is a play about two men who meet in mutual dreams and a woman named Catherine who is part of both of their lives (she is Jim’s sister and Paul’s co-worker).  I am so proud of our cast.  The show looks really great.  

Here are some rehearsal photos from our second week of rehearsal.  Enjoy!

This week we started rehearsals for “Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams.”  (That’s right, folks.  We’re sticking with our extremely long title.  It’s starting to grow on me.)  I’m happy to say that we have a cast of three great actors who are a lot of fun to work with.  Nathaniel Akstin-Johnson is playing Jim, Amanda Castillo is playing Catherine, and Rick Gomez is playing Paul.  

We spent Monday and Tuesday developing characters and reading through the play.  It was great to see what kind of backstories Amanda and Nate have come up with for Catherine and Jim.  (Rick was in rehearsal for “Romeo and Juliet” this week, so we couldn’t have him for table work.  I cannot wait to see what he brings to Paul.)  We blocked a good portion of the play on Wednesday and Thursday, which puts us way ahead of schedule.  Rehearsals are going really well!

Final revisions were made to the script this weekend and starting on Monday we will be working with a frozen script.  It’s hard to believe that it’s really happening!  

Special thanks to my professor Bernardo Solano for asking so many questions about “Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams” and to Amanda Castillo and Nathaniel Akstin-Johnson for bringing up a lot of interesting points in the table work.  And of course, thanks to Anthony Batiste for writing this play with me.

After being sidetracked yet again…by Off-Broadway, and the One-Acts, we are back and going full steam ahead! We now have a fantastic stage manager, Charles Kealey, a costume designer, Samantha Silberman, and a set/graphics designer, Samantha Cabrera. Additionally, we are holding auditions this coming Tuesday, and should be starting rehearsals soon after this. Danielle has been diligently working on the script, because a certain someone has been off elsewhere designing 2 other shows, and as I write this entry, has just completed all the scenes in the draft.

I have a renewed sense of hope, as it didn’t look like we were going to ever get this moving beyond the script-writing stage, but great things should be happening in the weeks to come, so expect more frequent updates, and pictures, and maybe a video or two (that is if Anthony’s new camera doesn’t melt in his pocket…again).

A long time ago I promised to add video blogs to this website.  Yesterday, Anthony and I actually did something worth filming.  Scratch that.  Anthony did something worth filming and I hit the record button.  Here is a sneak peak at a possible lighting effect for the show.  You will hear us talking about the status of our play as the lights go crazy.  Enjoy.  

We are very close to being done with the play, which is really exciting.  We are at the point of asking our peers for their criticism, which is making it more real.  We even have the theater reserved!  Things are actually looking good.

We’re not dead…I’ve (we’ve) taken a bit of a hiatus on the project to make room for At Home at the Zoo. The past few weeks have been sheer chaos because of that show, but it was worth it. Thanks to all who came out to see it, it was a great show. Thanks also to Danielle, who board-op’d quite fantastically.

Anyway, we have a first draft deadline coming up on Feb. 16th, and we shall have a “writing summit” of sorts this Saturday, see if we can’t polish it a bit more.

More to come in the following weeks.