Filed by Lance at 10:50 pm under Shameless Plugs, The Arts

For those that don’t know me, I’m Lance. Trevor and Bil have been kind enough to bring me on board as a fellow fighter in the performative trenches, and I owe them a blog post. First ever. No pressure. Okay. Here goes.

This past weekend, I took a group of former theater students of mine to see my high school. They’re now eighth graders, and are all thinking about which college prep or high schools to apply to. The exact nature of my old high school could fill a whole blog itself, but all you need to know is that I come from an extreme and hard core nerd background. The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, my high school alma mater, only has classes four days a week, and on Wednesdays, students complete some kind of inquiry-based project. Students basically do a miniature thesis or dissertation, forming the questions, testing hypotheses about the outcomes, and in general, following the scientific method to arrive at some kind of conclusion, which are all presented as formal research.

In addition to the math and science faculty, IMSA was the first place I ever met people who have Doctorates in crazy things like History or English, and had a lot to do with me doing a 180 from particle physics to theater direction.

I got back in touch with some faculty and staff I knew, and showing younger students I know around IMSA, I got all excited again about work, research, and a life spent taking things apart and putting them back together again, which is how I spent the first 14 years of my life.

It’s just that what I take apart and put back together now is a little different.

Sitting in on a former history teacher’s presentation to prospective students, I got excited about the possibilities of applying what I know about calc-based mechanics to the show Bil, Trevor, and I are working on about William Carlos Williams, his wife, and poetry. I’ve been mulling over how to deal with all of the input I’ve gotten so far on the piece, everything I know about WCW’s life (fortunately, WCW’s friends always referred to him as Bill — 2 L’s — so we can keep him and Mr. Gaines apart), the big questions about his infidelities and affairs, his wife’s forgiveness, how all of that spills onto the page along with his ink, and how to make all of this an interesting piece.

What I’d been considering and wanting to doing all along in various ways really boils down to what I learned at IMSA: formulate question, formulate possible solution, test it, evaluate it, keep the cool, kick the crap, and start all over. This is nothing new or really that revolutionary as far as a process to work and develop a new play, but I’m thrilled that I’ve got a real concrete bead on how to work on this beast that’s excited me for so long.

Consciously taking an ask/test/evaluate approach gives me a few reminders that I always need. Number one, this makes it okay to fail. Number 2, this makes rehearsal both a process and a goal. The idea is to be focused toward an aim, but still concentrated on the methods used and enjoying the ride.

In no particular order, here’s a rough draft of some of the questions I’ve been thinking about. These are sure to be revised and rehashed, but at least it’s a start:

When and how did Flossie forgive Bill?

Was it all at once, or did it happen in various capacities across their marriage?

What did the forgiveness after Bill’s initial affair(s) look like early in their marriage? Was it complete and total, or did she hold grudges until later in their marriage?

What did Bill gain from constant act of repentance as carried out in his poems? Was it just a way to get some good stuff onto the page, or something else?

What did Flossie gain from Bill’s constant act of repentance, her constant act (?) of forgiveness?

How is it possible to structure the play to work like one of his poems? The meter he used late in his life allowed him to change subjects quickly and weave it back into the main line of the verse. This would let the piece as a whole be non-linear, weaving memories back into the fold of the piece’s spine, like one of the poems he wrote to Flossie as he lay dying.

More to come.