"...I told you not to spill my drink."

I am writing a new play.

This play has beaten me before. Well… not this play, but its older, dumber brothers. Not that this one is friendly to a writer, but I have to remind myself that it’s a new animal. I’ve tried to write this play while blending a modernized prequel of Shakespeare’s Tempest with it.

That didn’t work.

I’ve tried to write this play as a straight homage to Tom Waits.

That didn’t work.

But let’s start there: Mr. Tom Waits. I came to Tom Waits relatively recently. He hasn’t had the double-edged sword of nostalgia, like Billy Joel. (That’s right, I love Billy Joel. So what?) He doesn’t have the deep catalog appreciation of Violent Femmes for me. He’s someone I’m still discovering in many ways. I first heard a Waits song in Abingdon, VA at Barter Theatre. It was my first professional job and there was a company cabaret night. The props master duoed with one of the sweetest voices in the acting ensemble to croon “Tango Til They’re Sore” for us. I ate it up. “Make sure she’s all in calico and the color of a doll” “Get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pews” “Take apart your nightmares and leave them by the door” [I believe the actual line is ‘their’, but I always hear ‘your’] These are lines that flood my mind with possibility, character, the glimpse of narrative… all the inspiration I crave as a writer.

So my great love affair with Tom Waits began. I learned of Frank, Uncle Vernon, a hooker from Minneapolis with a penchant for sending holiday greetings. The more I discovered, the more I was convinced that Tom Waits was speaking directly to me about a story I had to craft for the stage. But I found out too late, that I wasn’t ready for it yet.

Years later, after I gave up the dream of Waits appearing in my stageplays (literally…. Probably not, but I can still dream) and had become a better writer in the process, I had a dream proposal to write. A proposal for a company that I felt like would probably say ‘no’ anyway, which meant that the dream should be the biggest, stupidest dream I could imagine.

Enter BRAT Productions.

They loved the merger of Waits and Brecht (more on Brecht another day.) and added “musical” “dinner theatre” and “spaghetti western”. Something in me said, “ummm…..what?” But the bigger voice said, “Holy shit, THAT’S IT!”

And that brings us up to speed, to the launchpad for whatever this will be. And this time, for the first time, I’m writing under a deadline…. and the promise of some kind of production. I’m writing with a wonderful support network, and for a specific performer. I’m writing out a dream that has often been a nightmare (I love bad puns….another thing you’ll just have to accept along with the Billy Joel.)

-BGD