Stage to Screen: The Guy Who Was There Both Times

I’m up early this morning to make my self-set deadline of Friday for this blog. I was up until 1AM last night listening to music from this dream team of artists that have sent their material our way to be considered for the soundtrack. In some cases, I think we really struck gold. The trailer will testify to that in a matter of days. It’s surreal to me.

I’ll begin this topic with a bit of back story, and we’ll go on from there.

From Stage to Screen

The Theatrical Production

About a year ago I was heading into tech week for Separation Anxiety at the Curtain Player’s Playwrights Festival. This annual festival took place during the winter (now summer) where, unlike their regular season where they perform the show for three weekends, three brand new pieces are performed for one weekend each.

When I first read Sep as a play, I found myself compelled by the idea of it. The decisions were bold and unforgiving. I turned page after page to see what would happen next. However, that’s not to say that it was without it’s flaws. The play w

as verbose (which I usually don’t mind as much but generally, it’s something to avoid), it had some factual flaws that, if scrutinized, would blow holes into the entire plot.

And because the Playwrights Festival took place over the christmas season, rehearsals were

 limited. We were only afforded one session with the playwright to make sense of things with him in the room and request changes. O

therwise, we were to make due.

As the show ended, I had grown a lot with Bailey. Separation Anxiety was my first bit of theatre outside of college, just after I’d finished directing Glass City. I’d grown because Bailey, along with the other characters and due to the limitatio

ns of the Christmas holiday, hadn’t been given the ideal TLC of a playwrights festival (hence the excitement for moving it to the summer). Where Bailey was underdeveloped I found myself doing a lot more work on my own to justify certain actions and decisions, especially pertaining to the big decision that is ultimately asked of Bailey. I added a brava

do 

to him. A certain infuriating sense of mysterious confidence that “worked” for the character but really was the smoke and mirrors effect to mask someone who was altogether an unanswered question.

Opting Sep for a Film

Since working with John on Glass City we both realized we need to jump at the chance to work with each other again. In late December we’d just finished up a marvelous and hurdle-ridden short called Rendezvous and decided we would keep enabling each other. John respected my instincts for finding good artists and good mater

ial. I respected John’s passionate yet fair sense of filmmaking and his ability to spot a success, among other things. I mentioned the script to him, but sat on it until running it by the writer, Jeremy Sony. At a closing night cast party, when I asked him and got a very shocked or somewhat befuddled “yes” I timidly s

ent it to John in a sort of “There-might-be-something-here-but-I-like-the-story-and-the-characters-could-be-great-I-hope-you-don’t-think-I’m-a-fool-because-I-know-it-needs-work.” You know...THAT sort of timidness.

What I got back from him was startling.

~Cole:

Just finished reading.

It's beautiful.  It's absolutely beautiful.  There are scenes in this

that sparkle and crackle with brilliant resonance, and what it lacks in

subtlety at points, it makes up for with wondrous feeling and heart.

My first thoughts:

~

  So, what we’ve just done is Opted the Script. Nice.

Re-writes

There are certain aspects of working with people I’ve come to develop that is a litmus test for true collaborative artists. Jeremy is a wonderful collaborative artist. When we sat down for dinner after the play had closed with the specific intention of discussing screenplay options, I had never really talked to him before besides in passing. As I’ve said, one of the frustrating aspects of the theatrical production is how much the writer was not actually in the room with us. So, here I sit, a 22 year old freshly graduated collegiate, meeting for the first time with playwright/director Jeremy Sony about his play that I was

 just in, and oh yeh, he’s 7 years my senior.

The beginning started as cordial and pretty nervous, maybe a little awkward.

And then I remembered the point.  We want to make Sep into a film. That tells him already that we love the script. But the difference is that we want to raise a lot of money for this and pay everyone what’s fair. So, that being said, the notes I give him on re-writes from myself and John might come off as harsh, but he should remember it’s because we think he’s really good.

And he never needed reminding of that. It seemed he was thirsty for hardcore criticism. So

mething that is hard to find in a theatre community, which is someone who both knows what they

’re talking about mixed with being honest and truthful enough to challenge you to get better. I think Jeremy

 and I first bonded on that, and a beautiful friendship has since stemmed. But we’ll see what he says later this weekend.

That is what I mean by collaborative artist. Jeremy sets out to do his part of the job in the rewrites as he is the one responsible for them. However, at the same time, we all have a hand in it. Because what he doe

s effects us and what we do in our jobs effects him. Jeremy does so well in film/theatre becau

se he respects how it MUST be collaborative.

Bailey

Bailey’s transformation from the stage to screen is born in the re-writes. Jeremy is working hard to get much more specific with each character, especially the “children” Quinn, Jess, and Bai. Where, as I mentioned, Bailey had an infuriating sense of confidence before, Jeremy has done a wonderful job making him more sensitive and embracing his flaws as well as his virtues, while keeping the truth, which is that Bai likes to make light of everything. With Jeremy as the director/writer of the project, I have been able to meet with him fairly frequently simply to ask questions about the Baile

y and to offer up my own answers. Bailey has grown in his sensitivity, his goals, and his perhaps crippling insecurities.

Questions

Ultimately, I have a list of things that I want to talk about here regarding putting a play on scree

n. But this is

 carrying on and I don’t want to lose you. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments b

elow or email us at ou

r movie Gmail! Jeremy Sony is next, due up by Sunday. Happy New Year everyone!

Cole Simon