My original plan was to skip today’s rehearsal and head up to L.A. to see an old friend from high school, Danny Vermont, who writes for George Lopez.  But I want to see how Henry and the cast deal with the schedule, so I call Danny and cancel.  We catch up over the phone and share a laugh over stories from our brash youth.

Because of the gala, traffic is horrendous and I decide to walk to the theater.  Michael is having trouble with the new line I added to scene one.  Henry explains it, but Michael asks for more information.  We rehearse act one.  Henry is homesick, and becomes upset when he cannot get a skype connection to his children.  I invite him and Mickey to see the Padres game that evening.  Ubaldo Jimenez is scheduled to pitch for the Rockies.  Henry declines, but Mickey agrees.

We are late for the game because of parking difficulties.  As we take an elevator to the top level, five drunken Padres fans hop on with us.  One decides to harass Mickey before being pulled away by one of his buddies.  While the moment never becomes outright dangerous, it is frightening enough to make me think of Jonathan Larson dying just before the opening of Rent.  I envision the headline of my obituary:  “Popular E-mail Author Was Aspiring Playwright.”

Mickey and I take our seats in time to see Jimenez walk off the mound at the end of the first inning.  He will not return, having been traded to Cleveland just before game time.  Mickey and I have a great conversation and pay little attention to the game, which the Padres lose.  I hope it ruins the day of that idiot in the elevator.

SUNDAY:  I drive Natalie to the theater and tell her how much I’m enjoying her performance.  I worry about Michael not liking the new line, but she assures me he will make it work.  Everyone seems to be in better spirits today.  We rehearse the final moments of act one through the end of the play.  I leave my car at the theater and walk back to the apartment to meet a friend and her family for dinner before the show.

I first met Ava, the friend, in 2004, after a performance of Irish Authors Held Hostage at the New York Fringe Festival.  She and her daughter were in Manhattan with only time enough to see one show.  I have no idea why mine was the one chosen, but I’m grateful that it was.  Ava stayed after the show to speak to everyone in the cast and collect our autographs before heading back to California.  Shortly thereafter, we began an email and facebook correspondence, which I have enjoyed.

The restaurant is atop a bank building on the west side of Balboa Park, with a staggering view of downtown, the harbor, and the airport runway.  Incoming planes soar by the restaurant at eye level.  From the start, Ava insists on paying for the meal.  But the exchange with the waiter goes more like this:

WAITER:  Would you like something to drink?

AVA:  I want the check.

WAITER:  Would you like that on the rocks?

Ava’s brother Malcolm is quite the oenophile, and orders a Pinot Noir from Oregon, which is the best I’ve ever tasted.  We speak of our children, our travels, our plans for the future, and our preferred methods of cooking salmon.  It is a beautiful meal with good people.  At its end, the waiter presents Ava with the check and a glassful of ice.

I sit beside Wilson at the performance.  The house is full and appreciative, but the performances are to my mind lackluster.  Angela rushes and steps on laughs again, Rod lacks energy, Natalie gets lost a couple of times, and the rain of paper is little more than a trickle.  This is not the way we want to head into another day off.

Afterwards, I thank Ava, Malcolm, and their respective partners for a wonderful evening.  They ask me to sign their programs.  A woman sees me signing and asks excitedly if I’m the author.  I nod and smile and shake her hand.  But I put a finger to my lips while doing so, which makes her apologize.  I feel awful for having dampened her excitement.

Henry decides not to give the actors notes until Tuesday, at which point we will do a full run-through prior to that evening’s show.  He gives the tech crew notes, however, with which I fully concur:  more paper, much faster.

MONDAY:  I leave at 6:30 in the morning for a lunch appointment in Burbank with Barbara Beckley, the Artistic Director of Colony Theatre.  Barbara was interested in Engaging Shaw around the same time as Old Globe, and we struck up an internet acquaintance during the process.

I haven’t been to Burbank since 1985, and no longer recognize it.  Arriving early, I call Jackob Hofmann in New York to discuss the latest draft of Blame It On Beckett and he leads me through a number of avenues to improve it.

Barbara arrives like a whirlwind of excitement and good cheer.  She gives me a full tour of the space, which has just opened On Golden Pond with Hal Linden and Christina Pickles.  The stage and house are gorgeous, much bigger than I imagined, with free parking, in a nice, central location.  Over lunch, we have much to say to each other and take turns eating and talking, as we recount our respective histories.  Everyone at the restaurant knows Barbara and congratulates her on a successful opening.  She requests the latest drafts of Shaw and Stonewall’s Bust, which I gladly promise to send.

I drive back to San Diego in time to participate in an audience talkback for the Old Globe education department with dramaturg Danielle Mages Amato and set designer Wilson Chin.  I love this type of forum.  Danielle tells me ahead of time what questions she will ask, and I begin to concoct idiotic replies.  About eighty people are in attendance, and I have great fun telling stories and cracking jokes.  The conversation is quite lively and the laughter significant.  Unfortunately, once I feel an audience is mine, I have difficulty relinquishing them to anyone else and I begin to call on audience members myself, rather than letting Danielle do it.  She jokingly admonishes me, but I can tell that she and the crowd consider the evening a success.  Let’s hope they buy tickets to the show and bring their friends.

Just before 8:00 p.m., I slip into the performance of Amadeus on the Festival Stage.  I’m sorry to say that this is not one of my favorite scripts.  I like the movie, but I find the play to be little more than an illustrated monologue by a monomaniac.  If I want that, I can simply listen to the thoughts in my own head.

The production is well put together, however, and Miles gives a good performance as Salieri.  I can imagine no greater actor leaving me for dead after an alarm clock mishap.  Angela spies me during the intermission and we express mutual worries about Sunday’s show and the remaining schedule before we open on Thursday.  I feel that I have now ruined two performances by speaking to the actors–Angela’s during the invited dress and Natalie’s on Sunday–so I am reluctant to do anything to Angela now but stroke and compliment and reassure.  Angela laughs and protests that that is not what she needs.

TUESDAY:  I have been rationing food all week, since my wife and kids arrive tomorrow and I will be leaving the apartment at that point for a hotel.  Since I don’t want to throw any food away when I leave, I have spent the week living on Diet Coke and beer.

The cast, crew, Henry, Mickey, and I sit in the plaza outside the theater for notes on Sunday’s disappointing preview.  Henry tells us that, despite what we are feeling, he has no notes for anyone.  He pays a compliment to the play and production by saying it will be considered charming and clever by audiences no matter what we do, since that is the structure inherent in the script.  No audience member went away disappointed on Sunday, only we did.  Our job, then, is to tell the story and let the mechanics of the production work.

We enter the theater and quickly practice Michael’s new line.  It goes well and Michael opines that the line has given him a new perspective on that section of scene one.  Henry tells me that it clarifies Webb’s entire character.  We run through the show and it feels better than Sunday.  Ron Cooling, the company manager, sits in for awhile and laughs heartily in the back.  We’ll see how everything plays at the preview tonight.

Henry suggests one more last-minute cut, to which I would ordinarily agree but I won’t be able to hear how it plays tomorrow since my wife and kids will be arriving and we have plans for the day and evening.  I suggest we save that cut for when the production moves back east.  Henry smiles.

During the dinner break I walk back to the parking lot with Michael, Natalie, and Rod since this will be the last time I have a chance to speak with any of them.  They are quiet as I approach, but Michael asks if Ron was in the house because he had detected different laughter than usual.  I say yes, but add that I try to laugh differently at every rehearsal just to keep the cast honest.  Michael responds that he particularly enjoyed my Carol Channing laugh today.  I tell him I’m still working on that one and he chuckles.

The conversation flags, and as I separate from them at the car I become depressed.  Though I spent more time with this production than the one in New York, my relationship with the actors seems more professional than personal.  Part of it could be my own emotional distance in rehearsal, being reluctant to say anything that might throw them off or contradict Henry.  I certainly like all of them and get the sense that we would all enjoy working together again, but beyond professional courtesy I feel an outsider.

Then again my depression could be related to something else entirely:  knowing that this wonderful process is drawing to a close, or missing my wife and family who will arrive in the morning.  Both of these things could result in feelings of isolation.  Or maybe the unrelenting cheer of San Diego’s oppressively perfect weather–day after monotonous day–has sapped me of my smile.  I’m strange that way.

After dinner and before the show I have a lovely conversation with Roberta, the education director, and her husband John.  John still lives in Baltimore and flies out to see Roberta when he has business on the west coast.  I am cheered by talk of Maryland and marvel at how Roberta and John are able to maintain their relationship at such a long distance.

The show tonight is fantastic.  I sit beside Charlotte Devaux, the assistant costume designer, and mention my wife’s interest in sewing.  Charlotte offers to give Betsy a tour of the costume shop Thursday morning.  During the show everyone in the cast hits the right notes, listening to each other rather than to the audience.  Michael’s new line gets a huge laugh and the explosion of paper before the final scene is extraordinary.  It is the perfect time for the playwright to disappear so they can make the show their own; which I do without saying goodbye, telling Henry to congratulate the cast for me.

WEDNESDAY:  I spend the morning writing notes of thanks and congratulation to the actors and designers in anticipation of tomorrow’s opening.  I pack my things and move out of the Old Globe’s apartment building to meet my family at the airport.  I am overjoyed to see them and catch up.  We drive out to Carlsbad and spend the evening with Janette and Vernon Malone, former Maryland neighbors who recently moved to the west coast.  Their new home and neighborhood are gorgeous, and we laugh a good deal.  Later that night, Lavinia’s performance report indicates that the audience was small and quiet, but that the actors continued to build upon Tuesday’s success.  We are ready to open.

THURSDAY:  Opening Day.  In the morning, Charlotte Devaux gives Betsy a marvelous tour of the costume shop, which is extensive and eye-popping: twelve different workstations, mountains of shoes, over a hundred bolts of fabric, and a stockroom full to bursting with every imaginable manner of dress, suit, and article of clothing.  Betsy is grateful for Charlotte’s generosity and appreciates the craftsmanship and detail of the costumes we see.  Charlotte points out that Angela’s blouse in act one cost two hundred dollars.  Afterwards, Betsy and I stroll through the Spanish Art Village to shop.  I call my Dad to see when he is due to arrive.  With three hours to kill, my younger son suggests we head to the zoo.

Zooed to the brim, we meet my Dad and his wife Gloria for a drink at the hotel bar before changing into more formal attire.  The lot of us have an early dinner with my cousin Judy and her husband Arthur at the Hotel Del Coronado on the beach.  Being a fan of Some Like It Hot, I’m excited to see this place.  Unfortunately, luxury also equals languor, and after a fifteen minute dissection of the menu from the waiter I realize I may be late delivering my opening night gifts to the actors before equity rules bar me from their presence.  I choke down an extraordinary pair of diver scallops like they’re chicken mcnuggets and abandon my family for Old Globe.

I deliver my goodies to the proper dressing rooms and people, then head to the plaza to await the family.  Standing on a balcony overlooking the plaza I spy Henry, sipping a glass of wine and looking tremendously forlorn.  He motions me to join him.  Upon climbing the stairs, I learn that there is a dinner for board members and donors taking place in honor of opening night.  Apparently, I was supposed to be on the invite list, but no one told me.  Henry hands me a name tag.  Executive Producer Lou Spisto apologizes for not inviting me, then asks me to say a few words to the donors.  I look horror-stricken and insist that Henry go first.  Both Lou and Henry say wonderful things that garner applause, while I stammer an impotent expression of gratitude.

At half hour I head back to the plaza, but my family still hasn’t arrived.  I call.  Betsy is frantic.  They are only getting into their cars now.  Coronado is a good thirty minutes away, and there is construction on the bridge tonight.  I tell Wilson what is going on and he goes to beg Lavinia to hold the curtain until my family is in view.

I see the former casting director walk by with her fiance.  Apparently, she does not see me, so I call her name, give her a hug, and thank her for providing the show with such a wonderful cast.  I tell her that she was correct about the wonders of wigs, costumes, and make-up.  She smiles and walks on, hardly breaking stride.  Obviously, I’m not someone she cares to see.  Later I discover that she has unfriended me on Facebook.  I don’t know what I’ve done.  I think I should get on well with a theater person originally from Maryland who loves the Yankees, but clearly I’ve blown this relationship unwittingly after only two meetings.

My family arrives with five minutes to spare, having driven through San Diego like Satan on crack.  Lavinia runs backstage to start the show as we take our seats.  The cast are in fine shape and the audience is vocal.

Henry’s approach to the script focused on the understanding of every word.  Emotion was to be subservient to clarity.  As a result, audience response is quite different from any other production of the play I’ve seen.  Whereas other productions had periods of silence punctuated by loud laughs, this one enjoys an almost never-ending series of chuckles after every phrase–sometimes two or three chuckles per sentence.  The large laughs don’t begin until Webb’s piano monologue in scene two, which seems late to me but not to the audience, since they’ve been chuckling throughout.  The constant light laughter results in other surprising, vocal responses–groans, cheers, gasps–and the comfortable feeling that the audience is following not just the story, but every word of the story.

During the intermission, Judy gives me a quick rundown comparison of how this production compares to the one in New York.  My Dad doesn’t say much.  I can only guess he’s having trouble hearing the dialogue.  I introduce him to Henry, who I have really come to like as both director and friend.

Act two glides by with reassuringly larger laughs.  Angela and Rod are in the zone and taking the audience with them.  I see women and men nudging each other when their particular prejudices regarding marriage are reinforced by one of the characters.  One elderly gentleman cheers when Shaw says he hates the poor.  I doubt we’d have much in common.  All is going well until Rod can’t untie his boot in time to put on the bandage in the penultimate scene, stifling the biggest laugh in the show.  Ever the masochist, I will obsess over this failure for the remainder of the evening, nearly driving my wife to violence.  The performance ends with a standing ovation.  On the way out of the theater, I am surrounded by well-wishers and board members who stand in line to congratulate me.  A number of them thank me for writing the play, which is a compliment to which I don’t know how to react.

In the plaza, Lou congratulates me and asks to meet my sons.  My younger one asks Lou about the difficulties of acting in the round, and Lou treats him to an acting lesson.  I’m pleased by both the question and Lou’s response.  Before we head to the party, Judy asks about how late the valet service at Balboa Park will remain open.  Lou directs his personal assistant to find Judy’s and my Dad’s cars and move them to a nearby lot.  I can’t help remembering when I was house manager at  the Long Wharf at the age of twenty-four, when I had to provide Arthur Miller with jumper cables after his daughter’s car broke down on opening night of The Crucible.  I’ve gone from being the servant to being the served.  Betsy finds it exciting, but I can’t help feeling the guilt of the unworthy.

The party is small.  My older son and I speak with Henry a good deal.  Of the cast, I speak mostly to Angela, who offers to marry my son once he becomes an attorney.  I don’t remember saying more than hello and goodbye to Michael and Natalie.  I tell Rod that I’m writing a role for him and he says, “Yeah, I’m interested in reading that,” then turns back to another conversation which I apparently interrupted.  We exchange a few pleasant words later and all seems okay.  When my Dad and Judy leave, Evangeline and her boyfriend sit with Betsy and me.  On the way out, I meet and compliment Jonno Roberts who played Benedick in Much Ado and Donald Carrier who played the emperor in Amadeus.  I also meet John Cariani, the author of Almost, Maine, who did such an amazing job playing Dogberry.  He is a tremendously charming and interesting individual and I wish I’d met him before my final evening in San Diego.

The next morning, my family and I start a weeklong drive up the coast to San Francisco.  It is a well-earned vacation, which I spend neurotically checking the internet for performance reports and reviews.  They are positive for the most part, but the most important one comes from my father, who simply asks:  “How did you do that?”

THE FLIGHT OUT:  I awaken at three in the morning for a seven o’clock flight.  My wife, dramaturgical martyr that she is, drives me to the airport.  If all goes as planned, I’ll arrive in San Diego just in time to see the final run-through in the rehearsal hall.  Naturally, nothing goes as planned.  The first flight to Denver is delayed two hours.  I’ll still make my connection, but it will be tight.  In Denver, we are delayed while pulling away from the gate because of an engine warning light.  The stewardess attempts to assuage my fury with water and sitcom reruns.

Her strategy is effective.  While gazing stone-faced at an old episode of The Big Bang Theory, I hear a line so devastatingly brilliant I can’t contain my laughter, which as some of you know is quite loud and prolonged.  I fear a federal marshall will deplane me.

We land in California ninety minutes late.  By the time I get my bag and car, there is less than half an hour of rehearsal left.  Mickey texts me to swing by anyway, so Henry and I can talk.  I walk into the rehearsal just in time for the final scene.  It’s the first time I’ve seen it, and Henry’s staging is a revelation.  Shaw appears to be alone in a tower, physicalizing the metaphor in the dialogue.  After saying hello and goodbye to the actors, Henry leads me through the theater to see the set, the size and quality of which I’ve never had for any other production.  We visit the costume shop, where Alejo Vietti, the designer, is fitting Angela.  The costume is gorgeous, but Alejo dismisses every compliment I offer by saying it isn’t finished.  Angela thanks Alejo for making her look thin, which she already is, naturally.

Henry and I grab dinner at Mama Testa’s on University and talk baseball.  Wilson Chin, the set designer, calls to invite us to catch Captain America with Alejo and Matt, the lighting designer.  I’m exhausted, but I want to get to know everyone and say yes.  My head droops during the previews, but I manage to stay awake for the entire film, which was fun.  Wilson and Alejo want to stay for another movie, but I can’t do it.  I drive Henry and Matt back to their apartments and zip over to a supermarket five minutes before it closes to buy tomorrow’s breakfast.  I’ve been up for twenty-five hours straight.  I collapse into bed.

SUNDAY:  I awake to find my screen window open and my front door unlocked.  Someone had broken into my apartment overnight.  A frantic inventory tells me that nothing has been taken, but the bedside lamp and clock have been unplugged.

I later learn that the previous tenant had set the alarm for 5:30 a.m., but since I sleep without my hearing aid I didn’t hear it.  Apparently, the alarm sounded for more than half an hour before Miles, my next door neighbor who plays Salieri in the Globe production of Amadeus, couldn’t stand it anymore and began to pound on my door.  But being both deaf and exhausted, I heard nothing.  So Miles broke into the apartment and began to scream at my sleeping form.  I did not respond.  Suddenly, Miles became afraid, suspecting I was dead.  He quickly unplugged the alarm clock and left through the front door, telling his partner that there was a corpse in my bed.

When he tells me the story later I laugh, exclaiming, “So I’m lying there dead and you just unplug the clock!  Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“Well, I didn’t want to be arrested for breaking and entering.”

I arrive at the theater for the first day of tech.  All of the design elements are gorgeous, with the exception of Shaw’s fake beard which keeps falling off.  To keep it affixed, Rod does his best not to smile or laugh when he is not on stage, but that only encourages Michael to tell more jokes.  Tech crew place adhesive at every exit, so Rod can reapply the beard whenever he is offstage.

Again, the detail of the design elements is unlike anything I’ve seen.  Alejo’s act one costumes for Charlotte are a turquoise color that makes Angela’s eyes appear green.  Paul’s sound design employs Wagner and Mozart between the scenes, and when Henry asks for an offstage bicycle noise he provides both a bell and a bulb horn from which to choose.  Matt’s light design has taken note of where the desk lamps are, having warmer lights shine from those directions.  Wilson has filled the set with books, all of which had been published by 1896.  Not even an audience member with keenest eyesight would be able to read the titles, but knowing they’re there creates an atmosphere of authenticity for the actors.

It is a slow process.  During a lull, Natalie sits beside me and we have our first real conversation.  After five hours, the show is only through scene one.  I can’t imagine how long it will take to work on the letter-writing scene in act two.  Lavinia’s goal is to get through the first act in the ten hours allotted us.

Henry thinks it takes too long for Shaw to run offstage to grab the claw used to open the crate.  He suggests we have a crowbar already on stage among the books, so I supply Shaw with a line:  “I believe there’s one next to the Shakespeare.”  Rod finds this so funny, he can’t deliver it with a straight face.  But the scene doesn’t work unless Shaw exits, so we go back to the original.

As we head toward eleven p.m. the actors are getting punch drunk.  Not having seen the show in two weeks, I can’t tell the difference between a bad character choice and fooling around.  Henry reassures me that all is okay.  The day ends on schedule with act one written into the computer.

MONDAY:  An equity day off.  I have been waiting for this a long time:  a free day to explore the museums in Balboa Park and maybe catch a Padres game.  But the team is out of town, and when I drive into the park I discover that the museums are closed on Mondays.  I won’t have the opportunity to explore them again, since the remainder of the week is crammed with twelve hour work days.

With nothing to do, I spend the entire day revising Blame It On Beckett, and email the new draft to Jackob Hofmann for approval.

I have dinner with the cousin of a Baltimore friend and teaching artist.  She has been trying for months to get us together.  Her cousin is a former editor for the San Diego Union Tribune.  We hit it off instantly and, after dinner, head to a microbrew pub.  I’m ashamed to admit that I know most of the beers on the menu.  At my suggestion, we both have a snifter of Delirium Nocturnum.

TUESDAY:  Tech for the first scene of act two takes only an hour.  Lavinia takes a deep breath and says, “Okay, here we go!” and the letter-writing scene begins.  Henry suggests that we set the lights and sound before even attempting the rain of paper, to which Lavinia agrees.  That alone takes seven and a half hours.

Rod’s beard looks much better today.  But I notice that he is taking off each bandage during the blackouts and suggest to Henry that the bandages should accumulate throughout the scene.  Henry agrees, and Rod, being a gifted comedian, relishes the schtick.  Rod is definitely my kind of actor.  He delights in–what I call–the “writer words,” those fun words I’ve put in for my own benefit, rather than the benefit of the audience.  The way he italicizes “I was about to telegraph a madman.”  Or “I would never insult any woman (fractional hesitation) in public.”  Makes me very happy.

We arrive at the moment Henry has been building toward:  paper raining down on the stage over the course of the scene.  The idea is that, after each letter is read, a page will fall from the sky.  Gradually, the rate of falling pages will increase until it is a constant torrent, covering the stage.  After the first attempt–though Lavinia never misses a cue–it is clear that it won’t work.  It is too distracting.  As the individual pages fall, our attention is drawn to the paper rather than the actors.  Henry changes the entire concept.  The pages will now fall every four seconds from beginning to end, but rain in a torrent during the change into scene three.  We try it and it is less distracting, but each page falls with a whack upon the hardwood stage floor.  Paul offers to add an underscore of music to mask the noise.

We quickly rush through scene three and break at 11:30 p.m.  We managed to tech the entire show in two days, much to Lavinia’s delight.  Tomorrow we will run it twice.

WEDNESDAY:  I drive Natalie and Angela to the theater and tell them the story of the alarm clock break-in.  Angela responds that I am lucky to be a handsome man.  I have no idea what this means or how it pertains to the story.  Comments like this can have me ruminating for days.

Danielle has come to watch the first run-through and we talk a bit about the recent Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America conference.  I declare that deep down I consider myself an educator and dramaturg who happens to write plays.  She responds that she is a dramaturg first and foremost, and asks to read Blame It On Beckett, since it is about the plight of literary managers.

Act one of the first run-through is rough.  Danielle correctly opines that the relationships are not being established well enough yet.  I start to worry and complain, as is my habit.  Henry again tells me that my worries will be corrected later, that he is hoping to accomplish something different with this run.  I know that impatience is the playwright’s curse, to which I am not immune, and I trust to Henry’s schedule.

Act two is significantly better.  Other than perhaps my sons, I am more proud of the second act of Engaging Shaw than anything I ever brought into this wretched world.  But it’s not just the text in this instance, it’s the production.  Angela is brilliant.  She makes me laugh very hard and nearly moves me to tears.  If we can get act one to this level, we’ll have a show.

We sit outside as Henry gives notes.  He offers to let me say something, but I decline out of fear that I will say something to screw up their performances.  As we head back into the theater I make the mistake of complimenting Angela profusely.  She tells me that my impression of that particular section is not what she had intended.  And during the second run, all that I enjoyed in that section is no longer present.  When to speak and when to remain silent are the two greatest talents a playwright can possess.

I give Henry a note regarding the character of Beatrice, how she should enjoy matchmaking.  Henry likes the note and passes it along to Natalie, who executes it brilliantly in the second run.

Between runs Henry cuts the rain of paper during the scene.  Rather than masking the sound of the paper, the music has proven to be an even bigger distraction from the characters.  From now on the paper will be relegated only to the scene change, but in torrential form.  We practice it and it works beautifully.  I tell Henry that it reminds me of the first scene change in the original Broadway production of The Real Thing and he responds, “Oh, cool.”

The improvement between runs one and two is significant.  During notes we cut a few more lines of text, which I’m sorry to see go (as is Rod, I think) but must admit improve the scene.  That night Danielle emails me a quote from Sidney Webb which she found in her research.  It is so salient and beautiful that I promise to find a place for it in the script.

THURSDAY:  We spend the afternoon re-teching the last two scenes.  The paper drop and the music that covers it distract too much from the story.  Henry asks me what I think of dropping the paper only during the scene change.  I agree wholeheartedly, echoing many of the thoughts already in Henry’s mind.  In practice, the change works beautifully.  I mention how much I love the image of Shaw looking up into the raining paper and Henry directs Rod’s beard to point to the sky for twenty seconds, which it does after a few corrections.

There is an invited dress rehearsal in the evening, and my brother drives down from L.A. to see it.  While awaiting his arrival, I talk to Roberta, the education director, about the production and the work experience.  After some confusion and conflicting text messages, my brother arrives.  I’ve not seen him in a year, and it’s the first time he has seen a play of mine since the mid-90’s.  I am excited because he is about to see my best script in its highest quality production.  Unfortunately, the show he sees, while not precisely a disaster, is definitely not the show we rehearsed.  The actors are nervous, rushing and forgetting lines, stepping on laughs.  The age range of the audience falls somewhere between elderly and dead.  What should be an intelligent romantic comedy comes off as a confusing bore.  We lose about fifteen people during the intermission.  To be fair, those who stay laugh more during the second act, but it is neither the reaction nor the production I expected.  I make many smiling apologies to my brother and tell Henry that I’m going to start taking notes about how certain jokes need to be delivered.  Henry nods–he saw the same things I saw–but he insists that this week is about telling the story.  Joke telling is next week’s agenda.  I realize, again, that Henry has a very specific process which is at a level I’ve not yet encountered.  I am accustomed to previews being practically finished products.  Henry sees them as work opportunities.  Right now, in his mind, the show is nowhere near finished.  Each new audience will be a lab test until we open on August 4th.

My brother and I head to a tequila bar, where we both order a British beer.  We have great fun, talking family and business.  He tells me to maintain this blog more regularly, but after tonight’s show I feel like deleting all I’ve written thus far.

FRIDAY:  First preview tonight.  I awaken early and, as before, stop playing with that stupid rubber band with which I’ve exercised all week.  Henry texts, saying he wants to discuss a possibility with me.  That means cuts.  Deep down I worry that last night’s performance will have Henry blaming the script for the show’s failure and me blaming him, though I really don’t think either of us was at fault.  The performance was simply the result of nervous actors and a death-cheating audience.

I head to Balboa Park early to zip through the art museum I missed on Monday.  There is a private collection of Spanish art from El Greco to Dali that I am dying to see.  I flash my Old Globe I.D. smugly to gain free admittance.  I’m rushing to find the Spanish exhibit since I don’t have long before my meeting with Henry, but I am slowed and distracted by a collection of gorgeous Persian illustrations and sculptures from India.  The Spanish exhibit, while not disappointing, is much smaller than I expected.  The El Greco is a miniature.  I’ve seen the Dalis in Philadelphia.  The Picassos are either drab or they are later and lesser drawings.  But one artist stands out:  Jusepe de Ribero.  His portrait of Saint Jerome immediately put me in mind of Caravaggio.  And when the docent’s caption points out that Ribero really was a devotee of Caravaggio, I emit a silent, snobbish, and triumphant:  “Yes.”  Four years of college.  Not one in vain.

At the theater, Henry suggests I cut a significant section of scene two, the letter to Ellen Terry.  When I say significant, I don’t mean it has anything to do with the story.  Significant means it contains the one joke that I laugh at every single night, which no audience has ever found funny.  It’s a reference to Ellen Terry’s husband complaining about a bad review Shaw wrote, describing it as “Henry Irving’s private performance of ‘The Aggrieved Thespian.’”

Yes, I know you don’t get it.  But you must imagine me laughing hysterically as I type this, because that’s how funny I find it.

I can’t believe the lines lasted this long in the script.  I give Henry perfunctory reasons why it needs to stay, but he answers them with the cruelest of all arguments:  irrefutable fact.  I agree to the cut, remembering Cynthia Jenner’s advice to “kill your babies.”  But I know there are dramaturgs somewhere in the world who are reading this and laughing as much as I.  Come on:  “Henry Irving’s private performance of “The Aggrieved Thespian!”  It’s the funniest line anyone never laughed at!

The rest of the rehearsal is spent on the transitions between scenes.  Rod and I have a discussion about different types of insults among European cultures and languages.  Michael complains that he has nothing to contribute to such discussions, asking if anyone wants to hear a dirty joke.

Before the preview, Henry, Mickey, and I congregate in the plaza.  Old Globe has a performance at all three of its theaters tonight for the first time all summer.  I buy a souvenir T-shirt and joke that I will lose it somewhere before the evening is through.  I sit beside Ursula, the dialect coach, and I compliment her work with the cast.  As a writer of human speech language fascinates me, and I am eager to pick her brain.  She refers to Munich as München, which pleases me to no end.  (If only Michael were here to complain, it would be a perfect moment.)  Ursula remarks upon my ability to write dialogue that captures the linguistic rhythm of the characters, and I take it as one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.

The house fills.  182 is the official count, out of approximately 200.  I suddenly realize that this is probably the largest single audience a play of mine has received, not counting a reading of Stonewall’s Bust at the Kennedy Center.  I don’t think we ever broke two hundred at Mountain Playhouse, but I could be wrong.  I’ve been told that Shaw is selling “better than expected,” and I immediately start doing the math.  200 people times 8 shows a week, times 5 weeks, means nearly 8,000 people will have seen this production by the time it closes.  Up to now I’ve considered one thousand patrons over the course of a run to be a staggering success.  But that will be only five days here.

Why am I not nervous?

The show begins.  Michael and Natalie set a good pace.  The dialogue is easily understood and passionately presented, garnering small, but heartfelt laughter.  Rod enters and the audience begins to smile, as the laughter grows.  Angela enters, and the play takes off like Apollo 11.  Laughter, tears, gasps, groans of recognition–they not only follow the story, they react to it!  It is the type of communal experience people work in theater to experience.  As I walk through the lobby when it is done, trying to find Henry, I overhear someone say, “Well, that will get good reviews.”

Henry congratulates the cast and me.  I return the congratulations and thank him for all of his work with the actors and the script.  With three more previews before we open, I am confident we have a successful production.  By the time I get to the apartment, it is too late to call my wife and tell her the good news.  It must wait until morning, when we will put aside tonight and concentrate on the fourth.  I return to the apartment and remember that I left my souvenir T-shirt at the theater.

But casting at this level is unlike anything I’ve experienced. Names of celebrities are dropped in conversation. Two of the roles are cast through direct offers. There may not be any auditions at all, excluding the Abingdon cast entirely. I am excited and afraid by how little I seem to know, and beg for understanding as I struggle to keep pace. I ask that there at least be auditions for Shaw and Charlotte, and that the actors who previously played Webb and Beatrice be seen as a courtesy, for consideration in future projects. Henry and Samantha agree and an audition date is set.

Fate intervenes to deprive the New York cast of an opportunity to repeat. Marc and Victoria opt out of the audition, since their roles are already cast. Warren calls me, almost in tears, saying he can’t make the audition because he is stuck at an airport in Florida. The planes are grounded due to tornadoes in the Carolinas. Claire is the only member of the New York cast to audition, but she seems a bit off. I later learn that she suffered a family tragedy that morning. I can’t believe she made it to the auditions at all, and am moved by her dedication and tenacity.

I have great fun telling my usual anecdotes (I only have about five) between auditions. Samantha is always out of the room when I begin the stories, returning just in time for the punch line and hearty laughter from Henry and the reader, Aubrey. I turn this into a running gag. The actors who played Shaw and Charlotte in New Jersey get a chance to read, and I enjoy seeing both of them again. But the audition process is incredibly cruel. The rejections can be entirely arbitrary, and the acceptances can be little more than whimsy. It is clear that many of these actors can play the roles. With ability not an issue there lies a small bit of friction, as I continually advocate adherence to physical type. Samantha assures me of the wonders of wigs and make-up. Henry insists upon fresh approaches to the script. And I eventually come around to their viewpoint, knowing that the actors, whether or not they look anything like these figures from history, will give tremendous performances under Henry’s direction.

MONDAY: The flight out to San Diego. My flight isn’t until one o’clock but, being neurotic about getting through security, I insist that my wife drop me at BWI airport around nine. I use the express check-in, pay the baggage fee, and grab an early lunch. I have a wonderful conversation with a steel mill worker from Michigan, whose son is in the marines, stationed at the Pentagon. At noon, I head toward the gate indicated on my boarding pass, only to discover that there is no one o’clock flight at that gate. Scanning the boarding pass, I learn that the computer assigned me to an earlier flight because I checked-in so early. I missed my plane. And in doing so, I lost my seats on the return flights too. The man at the desk reroutes me, granting me “elite access” boarding into Houston, where I will have a three hour layover before proceeding to San Diego. The first flight is uneventful, other than being given the seat by the emergency door and being exhorted by the crew to save everyone’s life should the plane go down. I vow to use my nose like a can opener, should it come to that. The jest is greeted by silence and a plastic cup full of Diet Coke. Once in Houston, I try unsuccessfully to get on an earlier flight. But I am forced to live out my worst nightmare: Stuck in Texas. In an airport. Named for George Bush.

I’m in first class between Houston and San Diego, and take full advantage of the hot towel. My suitcase, luckily, arrived a few hours before I did. By the time I pick up my rental car and drive to the apartment, it is nearly midnight California time–that’s three a.m. to my pathetic, scrawny carcass. Outside the apartment building, I run into a strikingly beautiful woman, walking a dog. We don’t recognize each other at first, but eventually I guess correctly that she is Angela Pierce, who is playing Charlotte. We speak warmly about the possibilities of the project, and express excitement to be working with each other at such an incredible theater. I stagger into the apartment, text my wife that I arrived in one piece, and do my best to sleep.

TUESDAY: I awaken early, still being on east coast time, and immediately head to the supermarket for my weekly ration of Diet Coke. I tell myself I won’t overspend and overeat out here, the way I did in New York last year, so I am careful to plan a healthy menu for the week. My only indulgence is a tin of Old Bay, which I buy out of homesickness, knowing full well that I’ll never finish it in a week.

As I leave the apartment for the first rehearsal, I run into Angela again and give her a ride to the theater. I offer to serve as driver all week, but she is renting a bicycle from Old Globe and declines. Parking is difficult, so I drop Angela off before finding a spot about a mile away. It is hot and I am carrying my new laptop as I struggle to get to the rehearsal on time. That, coupled with the nervousness of meeting new people, causes me to sweat into my hearing aid, rendering it temporarily inoperable just as I get to the rehearsal hall. I present the first impression of a sweaty, smiling idiot, who can only say, “What?” I miss everyone’s name and the design presentations, but I love the models and drawings and smile at them with a sweaty seal of approval.

Along with all of the new faces, there are a surprising number of familiar ones. Mickey McGuire, who stage managed the Abingdon production, has been brought onboard as Assistant Director. Roberta Wells Famula, Old Globe’s Education Director, is an old acquaintance of mine from Baltimore. And though I’d never before met Old Globe’s Dramaturg, Danielle Mages Amato, we had exchanged e-mails when she was the Literary Manager at Studio Theatre in DC. I catch up with each of them briefly, once the hearing aid is dry.

The first read-through of the script goes well, and I am particularly pleased with Michael Warner and Natalie Gold as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, since I’d never seen them before. Afterwards, Henry opens the floor to questions and discussion. But he doesn’t lead the discussion or ask any specific questions himself, so there are large, awkward pauses. My natural inclination is to fill the pauses with pedantic blather, but I bite my tongue to remain silent. This isn’t about me, but about the actors making discoveries. And at this point Henry seems more interested in learning about who they are, than he is in telling them who they should be. I cork the bottle of bloviation as best I can. But I can’t help myself. While Danielle presents a display of Shaw photographs, one, which I’d never seen before, leaps out at me as perhaps the basis of the Bertha Newcombe painting in scene two. Without consulting Henry, I tell the prop master and the set designer that the painting must look like that.

Lavinia Henley, the Stage Manager, takes us on a tour of the space, which is beautiful and intimate, but large enough to allow the actors to move. Wilson Chin, the set designer, has a surprise for us. After a few minutes delay, pages begin to rain from the flies onto the stage. He and Henry plan to use this device in the letter writing scene, both to symbolize the letters themselves and to clutter the playing area for the final scene in which Shaw has fallen apart. Apparently, this was one of the key things I missed during the design presentations earlier in the day. As the pages float from the rafters, I’m like a child on his first visit to Disneyland, unable to fathom the magic or verbalize the joy.

Wilson, Henry, Mickey, and I grab a drink at the Prado afterwards. It turns out that Wilson worked at Abingdon last season, and we share our respective positive experiences. I return to the apartment ready to cook my newly purchased healthy food, only to discover that my tools are limited to a cookie sheet.

WEDNESDAY: I drive to the production meeting early to avoid yesterday’s parking issue. As I walk to the administrative offices, I notice all of the staff lounging outside in the shade. Some are conducting business meetings at the cafe tables. Just as I begin to marvel at the relaxed luxury of southern California, Roberta, the Education Director, tells me that the power is out. Everyone is outside because there is no light or air conditioning. She and I have a wonderful conversation about mutual acquaintances in Baltimore, arts education in San Diego, and the educational programming at Old Globe. I volunteer to help as much as I can while visiting, and she pencils me in for a program scheduled on the Monday before we open.

The production meeting is held in the hot, darkened conference room, and I worry I’ll miss all that is said by sweating into my hearing aid again. The room is crammed. Aside from Henry, Mickey, Lavinia, and me, there are the designers, department heads, production managers, assistants, and assistants to assistants. And they all read from notes, discussing how to realize in a practical way the specific historical quirks of the Fabian Society from 1896-98. I think back to the genesis of the play in 1997: Me, scribbling notes as I read Shaw’s letters, alone in the McKeldin Library stacks at University of Maryland. And now, fourteen years later, there are twenty people being paid to sit in a hot room and discuss the evolution of the bicycle in late-19th Century England, because it is crucial to the accuracy of that play’s design.

By the end of the production meeting power has been restored to our rehearsal room, toward which we repair. The theater is not so lucky, and it is forced to cancel that evening’s performances. Angela has what Henry calls “an actor moment.” On the way to rehearsal, the chain falls off her bicycle and she crashes. Luckily, she is not hurt, but she plans to draw on that sense of helplessness and fear when playing Charlotte’s bicycle accident. We settle down to four hours of table work and manage to get through act one. Michael quickly establishes himself as the cutup of the group, which works for the character of Webb. I’m happy to see almost everyone is a baseball fan, and that Rod is a Yankees fan like me. Unfortunately, the Padres are out of town this week. The men make plans to attend the Padres/Giants game next week–when I’m out of town.

THURSDAY: More table work. I’m impressed by Henry’s exchanges with the cast, the amount of insight he has into the motivations of each character, and the way he is able to elicit what is required without demanding it immediately. He allows it to be a process of discovery, providing a comfortable environment that lets the actors make mistakes and work their way through them before intervening. Rod asks lots of good questions, and incorporates the answers into his performance effectively. He’s having a lot of trouble with one section in scene three, which I remember giving Warren trouble the previous year. Natalie says little during rehearsal, but reacts well to the adjustments everyone else is making, seeming to absorb it all through osmosis. Angela has a confident stage presence that barely covers a staggering vulnerability. At one point, she finds a direction of Henry’s so beautiful in its simplicity that her eyes overrun with tears. We start to block the first scene, before heading off to a photo shoot.

Mickey and I plan to see Much Ado About Nothing that evening, so we grab a drink and reminisce about Abingdon. We both acknowledge how lucky we are to be a part of this, and reveal hopes to capitalize on the experience once it is done. Mickey heads off to one of the Balboa Park museums before the show, while I grab dinner and try to catch a pre-show lecture by the education department. Henry spies me at the lecture and signals to grab another drink, after which I am ready for anything Shakespeare has to throw at me. Henry and I rejoin Mickey and walk in to the show, which is gorgeous from a design standpoint. I like the actors playing Benedick and Dogberry, but Henry sums up the rest of the production perfectly: it’s too polite.

Walking back to the apartment, I run into Angela walking her dog again. She worries about the physical description of Charlotte in the dialogue, which she does not fit. I compliment her dedication to the craft of acting by her agreeing to wear a brown wig, which she fears will make her unattractive.

FRIDAY: I stop using the resistance bands I brought from Maryland to keep in shape. After three days of it, I can’t bear the image of myself as a pathetic, middle-aged man playing with a pink rubber band.

Evangeline, the Production Assistant, suggests I see an adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at La Jolla Playhouse that evening. The mention of the production begins a conversation that seems to encapsulate the obsessive pigeonholes into which theater people put themselves. Evangeline, being a young theater techie, continually remarks upon the fun tech elements wherein five actors construct the story from scratch. The actors all want to know who was in the show, some of them declaring that they were up for that show before they got this one. And I, being the playwright, talk about specific scenes in the Ibsen text, where the play falls within the Ibsen canon, and all manner of academic twaddle. I’ve never met a conversation I couldn’t kill with historic and literary allusion.

Blocking continues and I make a few small changes to the script. Natalie is so efficient, we block the entire arrival of the painting in half an hour.

I drive up to La Jolla in time to watch a lecture on Ibsen and Peer Gynt from their Director of Education. The lecture is rudimentary and uninteresting. The woman actually refers to Ibsen as the Father of American Modern Drama. I check my rising gorge and head into the theater early. The recorded announcement telling us to turn off our cell phones presents the adaptation as having done us a favor by sparing us from five hours of Ibsen. “Luckily, this adaptation is a more reasonable two hours long.” The audience sighs and applauds. I no longer want to be in the room with these people.

The production is fun, as Evangeline indicated. I disagree with some of the adaptor’s choices, but I understand why they were made. The play is not Peer Gynt, but I like it and am glad I made the effort. Yes, one actor is so over-the-top, I can’t even look at him by the end. But I like Danny Gavigan, the actor playing young Peer a good deal, and am pleased to see he has a lot of DC area credits in his bio. Though I don’t believe he and I ever met, we have a good many mutual friends. I don’t wait to introduce myself afterwards.

SATURDAY: Rod greets me at the start of rehearsal with the exciting news that Derek Jeter belted hit number three thousand. Michael provides me with the same information a short while later. I can’t believe it, since it’s only eleven in the morning. I’m still unaccustomed to California time. In the Bronx it’s two o’clock and the game has been playing for an hour. For all the stories of relaxation here, I feel nothing but a constant need to keep working. From the moment I awake, I’m already three hours late.

While blocking scene three, Rod encounters the same difficulties as before. I’d always known the scene was problematic for actors, but it always played well. I didn’t realize how problematic it was until I saw Rod struggle. In every previous production, I’d not had the opportunity to attend many rehearsals due to family considerations. It suddenly becomes clear that I need to revise that scene, and quickly. Henry makes a few suggestions and, having heard Rod’s questions and complaints, I get a sense of what he feels the character needs. But I am due to head up to spend the night with my Dad in Mission Viejo and may not have time to make the revisions before the stumble through of act one tomorrow.

There is no traffic on the way to Mission Viejo. Dad and his wife Gloria are in good spirits and there is much laughter and drink. I man the barbecue while Gloria handles the side dishes. Dad sits there and tells us what we’re doing wrong in his own jocular manner. We watch a DVD I made for Dad as a memento of the old house in Cortlandt Manor and his youth in Brooklyn.

SUNDAY: I get up very early. Eat a quick breakfast with Dad and Gloria, and get on the road to San Diego. I arrive at rehearsal forty-five minutes early, laptop in tow, scaring Evangeline who wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. I quickly get to the revision at the end of act one. Lavinia enters, sees me pecking away, and goes, “Uh-Oh.” Henry delays the start of rehearsal five minutes so I can finish. He approves of the new scene, which Lavinia prints out for Rod and Angela. They read it a couple of times and not only is it clearer than the old scene, it has at least one more laugh. Angela suggests I make one further change to strengthen her character. I agree, and the revision is adopted. Later, Henry compliments the change as both good and necessary.

The cast stumble through act one and all can see the potential of the production. If we continue working in this fashion, it will be a strong show. I push to finish blocking act two before I return to Maryland on Monday, but there isn’t time. The letter-writing scene is too demanding.

I give all of my uneaten produce to Mickey and ask Angela to look after a bottle of wine until my return. She tells me it won’t be here when I get back. I leave the next morning, content with what’s been put in motion. I am eager to be home, but my wife knows that she will hear nothing from me for the next two weeks but a fervent desire to return to San Diego.

Now I am writing from San Diego, where rehearsals for a new production of Engaging Shaw at the Old Globe Theatre are about to start. I plan to keep a diary of the rehearsal process, but don’t want to skip an entire year of productions, some of which were successful. So first let me recount how I got here, play by play, and in the present tense:

ENGAGING SHAW: Shortly after the production of Shaw at Abingdon Theatre closes, I receive a number of unsolicited requests for the script. Two of these requests result in future productions. The first is Old Globe, currently in rehearsal, and the other is from the English Theatre of Vienna in Austria, scheduled for April 2012. I direct my agent to approach the theaters in Washington and Baltimore about producing Engaging Shaw since I’m local, but not one DC area theater even asks to read the script. The dramaturg at Center Stage, where I’d worked for many years to promote their Young Playwrights Festival, jokes to my agent that they don’t need to see my script because they prefer plays written by my son, a three time winner at YPF. After 21 years of banging on doors in the DC/Baltimore area, I’ve had enough.

A THING FOR REDHEADS: With visions of international success dancing in my head, I dive headlong into a disaster at home. A Thing For Redheads at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival is the most frustrating theatrical experience I’ve had in sixteen years. And the blame is entirely mine. I wrote Redheads in only three days to satisfy a grant deadline in 2009, but that’s not an excuse. I had more than a year to revise it and did not avail myself of the opportunity. From the script, to the casting, to the direction, to the set design, to the marketing campaign, if I was not directly responsible for their failure I am certainly responsible for not intervening to prevent the failure that clearly awaited. The only joyful moment in the show is the part with which I had nothing to do, the song that Lori Boyd wrote for the obligatory scene.

One critic writes that the script “would not go as far as Morogiello’s others.” Ironically, later in the year, a scene from the play is selected for publication in The Best Women’s Stage Monologues And Scenes 2011, which is a trade book publication. Therefore it is farther than any of my other plays have gone. Excited by the possibilities of further life for the play once a portion is published, I revisit the script. But after two pages, I can’t bear it. Too many bad memories bubble to the surface.

Productions like this are good to have once in awhile. They keep me honest and humble. Perhaps the strangest part of that particular fringe festival is being recognized by two total strangers. One asks for me by name. The other asks if I am “the Irish Authors guy.” Funny how you never realize you have a fan base until you alienate them.

GIANNI SCHICCHI: Post-Shaw and Pre-Redheads, I complete the first draft of a play called Comedy Of Venice. Giving it a quick glance, I realize that on an unconscious level the play is about me saying goodbye to the theater community in Washington, DC. But on a more deeply unconscious level what I have really done is rewritten a play I first constructed in my twenties, an adaptation of Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi. Unhappy with Comedy Of Venice and recalling many happy memories of Schicchi, I decide to bid Washington farewell by self-producing the latter play in the fall of 2010 with myself in the title role.

I am pleased with the cast we put together, particularly Terence Aselford, who is one of my favorite actors both to work with and to watch. I also enjoy Rachel Meloan’s performance of “O Mio Babbino Caro” during the curtain call. The script, I think, is in its strongest shape yet, after some significant cuts to the prologue and epilogue. It’s funny how items with which I swore never to part when I was 27 are discarded so easily nearly two decades later. I am happy to play a role I always intended for myself, but I suspect I am the darkest Schicchi the script has ever seen. The aspect of the production I most enjoy is being able to work closely with my wife, who designs the costumes and manages the house.

We receive a lot of preview press from the county weekly and from the Italian American community but for some reason the major newspapers choose to ignore us, despite how brazenly we try to sell them on the recent additions to my resume. The result is four weeks of empty houses. The few who attend react positively and the internet reviews mostly follow suit. Though none of them are outright raves, not a single review criticizes the script. Probably because of its production history, all of the critics accept the script as a finished product. Somehow, it has crossed through the mystic portal from the savage land of “new script” to the civilized kingdom of “established play.”

THE MATCHMAKER’S GUIDE TO CONTROLLING THE UNIVERSE: Running simultaneously with Schicchi, but way up in the Finger Lakes, is this one-act. There, Bob Frame, who is a great guy and a wonderful supporter of my work, runs Harlequin Productions for the students at Cayuga Community College in Auburn, New York. I’ve always loved this script. It’s light, it’s silly, and it’s incredibly easy to produce. I renovate it for the production, updating the references and incorporating revisions I’d made for the film version, but I am unable to attend the production because of Schicchi. They send me a DVD, which is a lot of fun. Bob and the cast hit just the right combination of romance and petulance.

COMEDY OF VENICE: Done with Schicchi, I attempt to salvage this play about the rivalry between Goldoni and Gozzi, two 18th Century Venetian playwrights. By January I have a draft that almost seems serviceable. But a serviceable script no longer strikes me as good enough. If I am to continue in this business, I need to match or exceed the quality of Engaging Shaw, not suffer through another Redheads. To test the script’s quality, I decide to host a private reading at my house, using a few close actor friends around whom I’m not afraid to fail. Though I miscast one of the roles, the reading goes well. Again, Terence Aselford makes me laugh harder than anyone. And yet, I’m still insecure about the script. Afterwards, Misty Demory, the actress playing Smeraldina, tells me that Constellation Theatre, a company in DC to which she belongs, is doing a Gozzi play in the spring. Would I be willing to let them mount a reading of Comedy Of Venice to coincide with the production?

Of course I would.

Constellation insists that only company members perform in the reading, so I am unable to use Terence. But I am very impressed with the comic abilities of the cast and director, Rex Daugherty. In particular, I have no idea Gozzi is funny until I hear John Michael MacDonald’s interpretation. During the reading, I sit beside Constellation’s Artistic Director, Allison Stockman, and add a joke to the play specifically for her benefit, advertising her production of The Green Bird. About thirty people attend, laughing more than I anticipated. I cannot determine if the laughter is due to the performers, the script, or to the friendliness of the house. But I am pleased in any case.

YOUNG TURG: In early spring 2011, I get a call from Kim Sharp, asking to mount a reading of Young Turg at Abingdon Theatre Company in New York. He suggests Jackob Hofmann as director, since we worked so well together during Shaw the previous year. I happily agree to both the reading and Jackob.

Young Turg is the script I wrote directly before Shaw. It’s a bitterly comic indictment of office politics in a regional theater’s literary office. I like the script, but I confess to being surprised that Abingdon made the offer since I’d been told it’s not the sort of play that appeals to them. Naturally, I am happy to be wrong.

Jackob and I both agree to ask Jan Buttram, the Artistic Director, to read one of the roles and she readily agrees. Rehearsing with Jackob in the Abingdon space conjures many pleasant and comfortable memories of the Engaging Shaw production. Having most of the Shaw cast in the audience to support me only adds to my delight. Between the rehearsal and the performance, I have dinner with Henry Wishcamper, who will be directing Shaw at Old Globe. After dinner, Henry accompanies me to the reading of Young Turg, and sits beside Old Globe’s former director of new play development, who happens to be in town. Suddenly it feels as though a lot is at stake. And as the reading begins, I am struck with horror by how obvious are the script’s flaws. With every line, I squirm and wince and beg for death. A college friend of mine leaves during intermission. Henry leaves before the talkback. I assume a brave face and take the stage, fully expecting the vitriol of a multitude at the small of my back.

But it’s wonderful. Not only are there more positive comments than I expected, but the criticisms, questions, and suggestions are universally sound and supportive. As always, Kim Sharp has one thing to say which goes to the heart of what needs to be fixed. I take copious notes.

Afterwards, Jackob, his partner Hugh, and I repair to the Houndstooth Pub with Shaw alumnae Claire Warden & Victoria Vance, and a dear friend of mine from college named JoAnn. Everyone provides me with an unending parade of ideas to spark revision, but Claire commands my attention. She recalls specific lines–and words within lines–despite never having read the script before. She directs me to changes I’d not considered and directs me away from changes others had suggested. That and a later conversation with Jackob solidify in my mind what the script needs.

I overhaul the script like I’d never done before. Entire scenes are cut. Others are added. Plot points that were only implied are now fully explored. I send the new script to Jackob and he is effusive with his praise. He recommends it strongly to Abingdon and they agree, offering me the opening slot in their upcoming season. The only problem: Nobody likes the title.

I’m sad to confess that I don’t write good titles. If they’re not outright dull, they’re so obscure nobody cares. So I make a list of possible alternatives and email friends, asking them which ones they like. No consensus results.

Then I discover a quote by an author referred to in the play, which I think is perfect. My agent agrees, so I post the new title as a fait accompli on Facebook. Within minutes, I get a call from Jan at Abingdon. They hate the new title even more than Young Turg. Implicit in the conversation is a threat that if I stick with my new title, they will rescind the production offer. Desperate, I call Jackob. He suggests a cute reworking of one of my lines: Blame It On Beckett. Perhaps I think it is brilliant or perhaps I am overstressed, but I laugh immoderately and directly concur. I will maintain a diary of that production too, when it rehearses.

But not now. This entry is much longer than I hoped it would be. I am now nearing the end of the first week of Shaw rehearsals at Old Globe. I will recount that experience soon.

MONDAY
I’m home for only a day, before heading back to New York. There’s a huge list of things I need to do before my younger son’s confirmation on Saturday. My wife has been working furiously while I’ve been having heaps of fun in the city, so I need to make up some ground. I spend the morning hauling ten bags of mulch out to the garden and replacing two boards of our deck, staining included, when I get a call from Kim Sharp of Abingdon, whom I’d just left yesterday. He tells me that a critic has requested a clean copy of the updated script right away. He doesn’t need to tell me what that means. I know: the New York Times is coming to see the show. I don’t have a clean copy of the script. I need to type it. So, with many apologies, I again leave poor Betsy to prepare for Saturday’s massive party alone, while I tend to theater business.

TUESDAY
I take Amtrak up to New York for a special benefit performance of the play. Although I’d only left the city Sunday, it feels different. I can’t tell if it’s because the romance of the experience is abating or if my thoughts are back home, worrying about the confirmation. Either way, I’m tired. I spend the afternoon watching the Yankees in a pub on 8th Avenue, before walking to the theater.

The audience consists of Abingdon’s donors and board members, each of whom paid one hundred and fifty dollars to see the show and afterwards have dinner with the cast. Artistic Director Jan Buttram introduces me to everyone, like I’m the reason they’re there, which is a very odd feeling for me. I prefer to blend into the woodwork, so no one feels obligated to be nice. I’m immediately put in mind of the first scene of my play, wherein Shaw is meant to charm a potential donor.

I’m pleased to see the actors bringing fresh energy to the show. The audience laughs hard throughout the first scene, including at Webb’s opening speech which is dense and academic. But around scene two, silence descends. Warm smiles turn into disinterested staring. They perk up at the end of the scene, but collapse into silence again until the sex discussion at the end of Act One. I hadn’t noticed the actors doing anything different. The direction is still solid. Is it the script? All are complimentary during the intermission, but I’m worried. Act Two is perfect, with huge laughs; so I keep my concerns private.

The dinner is designed so that every donor has someone from the creative team at their table. I’m seated at the center table between two gorgeous actresses who are affiliated with Abingdon, but not in my show. One is in her twenties, the other in her seventies. I’ve heard the young woman’s name before, but we can’t discover a mutual acquaintance. The other member of our table is a donor being groomed for board membership. The two actresses and I are meant to be the “star power” that convinces him to maintain his relationship with the theater. The head of the Abingdon board was supposed to be at our table too, but had to cancel because he’s a C.P.A. and it’s two days before tax deadline.

The actors and Jackob, the director, work the room, going from table to table introducing themselves and making sure everyone has a good time. I marvel at Jackob’s ability to charm. I attempt something similar, but wind up telling the same story over and over again, boring myself and everyone within earshot. Back at my table, there’s no one around me whose voice is familiar. It’s a loud restaurant, and I am having a great deal of trouble hearing what anyone says. All I can make out is the rhythm of the speech patterns. The two actresses speak quickly, almost conspiratorially, with much laughter and agreement. Warren, the actor playing Shaw, visits our table, and speaks slowly, with authority and significant pauses which command everyone’s attention.

As the donors leave, Jackob and the cast coalesce around the table of Victoria, who plays Beatrice; and then, for me, the fun begins. Marc, who plays Webb, has been urging the people at his table to move the show to a commercial house for a million dollars. No offers are made. The waiters blink the lights to kick us out, so we stagger across the street for a drink. Jan tells me that she wouldn’t mind working with me again. Claire, who plays Charlotte, is “merry,” as she calls it, shouting hilarious, wacky, and belligerent non sequiturs at everyone. I’m still unable to understand much of what is said, but Claire tells me quite seriously that she’d prefer I was more outspoken and direct. I respond in my usual formal and emotionally distant way, perhaps with an attempt and wit. Jan pays for the round, and I walk with Mickey, the stage manager, to Port Authority before heading off to my hotel around 1:30.

WEDNESDAY
I am horribly depressed after a conversation with Betsy, who is offended by something I wrote. I feel I have done something wrong without meaning to do so. I am apologetic and explanatory, but the guilt at having upset her ruins the morning. The city goes from being the greatest place in the firmament, to being the most heartless and lonely. I head down to Horace Greeley Square Park, buy the Times, and read it cover to cover. This is the day I had originally planned to attend the Yankees game, but the cheapest available seats go for three hundred dollars, so I opt for another pub. The Yankees lose, echoing my mood.

There is a talkback with me and the rest of the cast after the show tonight. No friends are in attendance. The audience consists almost entirely of a group sale to the Rotary Club, who are fairly conservative and not at all intellectual. Just the perfect audience for a play about polysyllabic socialists. The show is godawful, completely lacking in energy. All of the problems I saw the previous evening are magnified tenfold. A quarter of the house stays for the talkback.

I love talkbacks, feeling comfortable and in my element. I get a number of laughs from saying the typical idiotic things I’m prone to mutter. The volunteer usher hopes that the cast will be kept intact when (not if) the production moves to a commercial house. Afterwards, I voice my concerns about the show to Jackob. I can’t put my finger on what is wrong, but something isn’t working.

I hop on Amtrak at ten p.m., headed to Baltimore. I arrive home after two.

THURSDAY
I awake at seven, bleary and catatonic. I have a job interview in Baltimore to be the Education Director of Everyman Theatre. It’s between me and one other person, now. I arrive half an hour late and unshaven. It’s the kind of job I’ve coveted for many years, and I paint many compelling pictures of how I see their department expanding.

But there are drawbacks. Though the money they’re offering is about twice what I currently make, the job requires four times the work. Betsy would need to take over my child-chauffering duties, which she found almost impossible last week. Naturally, I’d need to give up all of my freelance teaching and professional development work. Plus, I would need to give up playwriting entirely. There wouldn’t be time for me to write anything new, and they wouldn’t let me travel to rehearse anything old.

This is less of a deal-breaker than many people might think. I’ve been frustrated for many years now about both the quality of my recent work and the nature of the theater business. When I completed the first draft of Engaging Shaw ten years ago, I told myself I’d quit if the show never made it into New York. Now that it is in New York, does this mean that I’m required to continue this dreadfully unfulfilling path in perpetuity? My sons are nearing college age. Maybe, for my kids, I can take a hiatus for eight years, like I did when they were born. Would I have the energy to resurrect my playwriting career at the age of 53? Would I want to?

Though everyone at Abingdon indicates that they’d like to work with me again (a sentiment I return), I’m hemorrhaging money with all of the travel. Plus, I don’t think I have a script of Shaw’s quality which would fit their tiny space. I gave them Young Turg and Irish Authors Held Hostage but so far they’ve responded to neither.

If a commercial producer steps forward to move Shaw within the next few days, or if Everyman doesn’t offer me the job, then the decision is made for me. But it is more likely that I am the one who will need to start examining the course of my future.

In the evening, an e-mail from Jackob tells me that eight critics, including the Times, are watching tonight’s show. I’m not nervous, since it’s out of my hands and I know we’ve put together something that–when it works–works beautifully. Mickey’s stage manager report tells us the audience was full and very responsive.

FRIDAY
Betsy and I scramble to cook and clean for the arrival of thirty family members from four different states in anticipation of James’ confirmation. My wife is a wonderfully efficient planner, and has turned me into a reasonable facsimile of one when I feel like it. We rearrange furniture to make room for the rented tables and chairs. My job is to do grocery and airport runs. As I drive to BWI to pick up my sister, her daughter, and my cousin, I hear a news report about the murder of Brian Betts, who was the Arts Integration Coordinator at my older son’s middle school two years ago. He was one of the most dynamic and dedicated administrators I’ve ever met. He was the reason we chose that school, and he was instrumental in getting Evan into the percussion section of the band. It is a tremendous loss for middle school students in DC.

Compartmentalizing my shock and sorrow, I return home with family in tow and have a great deal of fun playing pool in the new basement with the boys and my brother-in-law. My cousin gives me a DVD of her documentary about skid row artists in L.A., which I’ve been dying to see. Before bed, I check online for Mickey’s stage manager report. For the first time, we had empty seats. He says it was quiet and that we “lost” the audience during Act Two, scene one. All bad signs. Because this is the day I’d arranged for a commercial producer to attend. There are no phone calls or offers made. I think of Shaw’s line in the play: “Like Ibsen, I will put my plays into print and trouble the theater no further with them.”

SATURDAY
The confirmation. My Dad and his wife arrive at the house early. I haven’t seen them in two years, and my father has indicated that this will be his last trip east. James had his braces removed a few days ago and looks like a million dollars. During the ceremony, my father-in-law falls ill, nearly passing out. He refuses to go to the hospital, hoping it will pass. It doesn’t, but he gets no worse, which I suppose is a plus.

The party after the ceremony seems to go well. It’s loud; but I know everyone’s voice, so I can hear them. I float from group to group, assisting with drinks, cooking, and cleaning up. The bar and basement are a huge hit. My Dad infuriates everyone by insisting we play pool by the official tournament rules that his buddies use in California. I remind him that we’re only playing friendly games, but he is adamant. The food came out very well, but we made too much. There are no seats for Betsy and me among the main group, so we sit in the foyer and share a lovely private moment. Unfortunately, the private moment turns out to be seen by the public, and we are teased by all.

Because of her father’s illness, Betsy has decided not to come with me to the press opening of Engaging Shaw. I understand. Mickey’s report again indicates a few empty seats and a quiet house.

SUNDAY
Opening Night. I have an early breakfast in Maryland with the extended Morogiello family, after which my Dad puts his credit card on the table and leaves without signing the bill or retrieving the card. Betsy will sign for it and mail the card to him later. I drive my sister and her daughter back to the airport, and my cousin and I head up to New York. My cousin, Judy, has been particularly worried about jet lag, so I provide her with a pillow if she wishes to sleep during the drive. Instead, we spend the entire drive talking and reminiscing.

We reach the city by three, staying at the Hotel Wellington just south of Carnegie Hall. I furiously write notes to the cast, thanking and congratulating them. At four, I meet Judy in the lobby. She insists upon springing for a cab. At the theater, my friend JoAnn arrives with a large contingent of Stony Brook friends, some of whom I’ve not seen in a quarter century. I return Betsy’s ticket to the box office to be resold, but Jan decides to use it and I’m happy to sit beside her the whole night.

It turns out that not a single member of the press will be at Press Night. They all came last Thursday. Apparently, the press finds Press Night too manufactured, since we’ve packed the audience with friends. They prefer to go to a late preview–which we also manufacture by packing the audience with friends. Essentially, it means that the critics saw the show before Jackob could give the actors the final notes I passed along to him on Wednesday. And it’s a shame, because the cast gives the best performance I’ve seen. Everything is working and the cast is fresh and energized. Beatrice even gets a laugh when she crosses to Webb during the splinter sequence! At the intermission, a stranger thanks me for writing the play. I try to give a witty response, but it comes off callous and glib. I vow to be earnest for the rest of the evening.

Afterwards, I shake the hand of just about the entire audience. I head to the post-show reception with Judy and a friend of hers who lives in New York. For some reason, despite the volume, I am blessed with the ability to hear everyone for this one night. It’s one of those parties where you talk to everyone, yet you talk to no one. No sooner do I start a conversation with one person, than someone takes my arm and my attention elsewhere. Warren has become this quasi-mystical creature to me, as if he knows everyone I’ve ever known, lived the career I’ve always wanted, and now plans to open the portal that has blocked my career for the past twenty years or so. Halfway through the party, he takes me aside and introduces me to Jim Flynn, an agent I’d been pursuing for about seventeen years. I make him laugh once or twice, but he does not proffer his services. I spend a lot of time talking to Piper, the Development Associate, who also has a hearing problem.

When the party breaks up I realize I’ve not eaten anything, so I head to a deli across from the hotel. Looking back on the evening, my only regret is that Betsy wasn’t able to share it with me. Too jazzed to sleep, I strike up a conversation with two women from Holland, who are stuck in New York because of the volcano. They are soon replaced by a couple from Dayton, who talk baseball. The reviews will start coming out in the morning. But I don’t care what they say. They can neither give me more than I received this evening, nor take away a smidgen of the joy that will carry me home. Like the character of Charlotte, I got what I wanted the minute I surrendered.

EASTER SUNDAY
I train into the city from my in-laws’ house in Cortlandt Manor, smiling at the suggestion of my mother-in-law that the upcoming production of Engaging Shaw was simply an excuse to avoid mass. I’ve not ridden on Metro-North in about ten years, and immediately I begin to think of the many times I’d traveled the route before, with Betsy, with Danny Vermont, or on the way to college. There are new luxury condos and townhomes along the way; and I think of how the poor owners are paying–in different senses of the word–for both the river view and the proximity to the railroad.

I arrive at the theater, very excited to see the final run-through and scene work before tech week. It’s my first opportunity to see what they’ve been working on, and my last opportunity to suggest any changes. Everyone seems happy to see me. Later, I’m told that some of the actors were intimidated by my presence; though I can’t understand why, because I’ve done nothing but gush about them and the entire experience from beginning to end. Marc Geller, who is playing Sidney Webb, warns us that he’s had a revelation about his character and wants to try something different today. His new take on the character is brilliant, as is the entire run-through. Claire Warden, playing Charlotte, is an absolute revelation: funny, strong, vulnerable, and able to hold her own against Warren Kelley, who delivers an intense and hilarious Shaw. I’m head-over-heels in love with her performance and tell her so. I’m honored that my play will be Claire’s New York debut, because she’ll be running that town in a year or so. My only note is to Warren, instructing him to keep all of his bandages on as he plows through Act Two, scene two.

Speaking with director Jackob Hofmann after the rehearsal, I’m a little embarassed because I’m so pleased with what everyone is doing, that all I can do is gush again. Everyone feels they need to return the compliments, which makes me want to run away. Before I go, Kim Sharp, the associate artistic director, gives me some suggestions for script changes, with which I agree. On the train back to Peekskill, I have a fun text exchange with my younger son about the Yankees/Red Sox game.

MONDAY
Betsy and the boys are heading back to Maryland, while I squat at the home of an old college friend in Astoria until Friday. I train into the city again, only this time I’m dragging an eighty pound suitcase behind. Frustrated that I’d be away from the gym for eight days while in New York, I packed the suitcase with dumbbells; but as I struggle to carry it up and down subway steps, avoiding tourists, it is clear that the genuine dumbbell is not the item within the suitcase, but rather the sweaty, grunting idiot who drags it.

The actors have a day off as the tech crew overtake the theater to focus the lights and write the cues. The set is gorgeous, particularly a huge reproduction of the Fabian Society’s emblem, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, which was painted by Jackob’s husband Hugh. Mickey McGuire, the stage manager, is great to work with. He’s wonderfully professional and keeps everyone in the loop. While they are managing the lights and music, I sit down to revise the script the way Kim suggested. Everything goes so smoothly, that we finish four hours early. I ask if I can leave the giant suitcase in the theater, while I explore the city until my college friend gets home from work. Jackob suggests I go to MoMA for the naked people exhibit. Though there are few things I like better than art and the nudity of people other than myself, I haven’t the courage to attend.

So, instead, I grab a couple slices of pizza, and drag a half ton of clothing and exercise equipment to Queens. Arriving at my friend Mike’s place two hours early, I drag the suitcase, like some herculean hobo, to a pizza place down the street, where I have another slice of pizza. Finally Mike arrives and we have a wonderful time catching up, and are pleased to discover we are in the same camp politically. He is in the process of planting blueberries, raspberries, and clover in his front yard, and having beehives installed on his roof. I’m fascinated, but can’t help asking how his neighbors feel about it. For dinner, he suggests pizza and I do not refuse–but I eat no more of it for the rest of the week.

TUESDAY
Tech with actors and a run-through. Much of the show is little more than, “Lights up. Lights down.” So we are running the show from the start of rehearsal. Victoria (Jamee) Vance, who plays Beatrice, has come alive during this rehearsal after a conversation with Jackob. All four actors are working as a unit. I voice only one concern when a light cue doesn’t match the script. I mention to Jackob that it’s an important one for me, because I have never seen it the way I wrote it in the previous productions. Just this once, I’d like to see it my way. Jackob justifies the theatricality to the performer, has a small conversation with Mickey and the lighting designer, and the cue is rewritten to reflect the script. It works and is kept.

After a break, we tackle Act Two scene two, the letter-writing scene. “Finally!” Mickey exclaims, “I’ve been waiting for this day since the first rehearsal.” It’s a whirlwind of lights, music, words, and set changing. Jackob’s staging, along with the lights and Larry Spivack’s music, keep the scene constantly in motion. Jackob has solved the problem of that scene, and I cannot restrain my smiles. Again, we break early because everything looks tight and Jackob is worried about Claire’s health. She has had a cold for nearly two weeks.

I head back to Astoria after grabbing a drink with Jackob. Turns out Mike doesn’t have the YES Network, so I head off to an Irish sports bar to watch Yankees/Red Sox. It is perhaps the toughest bar I’ve ever entered, and I don’t think I’ve heard the F-bomb dropped so frequently since I did Glengarry Glen Ross in Amish country (Yes, I really did). Everyone there is a Mets fan, so I need to cheer surreptitiously to avoid fisticuffs. The bartender is drinking along with the patrons, and by the eighth inning I am his best friend and he’s offering me beers on the house.

WEDNESDAY
Warren compliments my outfit, which I consider high praise, since he is always impeccably dressed, wearing a tie. He also likes the way I lounge across the chairs, declaring it sexy. I don’t think the word sexy has ever been associated with my name, unless there was a giant “IS NOT” between them. Warren then pays me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received by asking why I’m not playing Shaw. Again, I am staggered by how pleasant and talented everyone is, particularly in light of every previous production of this play. Ordinarily, I wait for the disaster to occur, or to create one by worrying unnecessarily about what happens next; but this time I’ve decided–for once–to enjoy the moment. Dress rehearsal goes very smoothly and we break early.

I spend the evening with Mike and another college friend named JoAnn. We head to a sushi bar on 3rd Avenue and 27th Street, then sit on a park bench and talk until ten. JoAnn is a wonderful promoter of my work professionally, and I relish her sarcasm personally. The conversation is jovial and never lags.

THURSDAY
Invited dress. We run Act Two, scene two, a couple of times in the afternoon. I have dinner with Meg, an actress and scholar, who teaches at Brooklyn College. She is perhaps the most brilliant woman I know, aside from my wife, and I love talking theater with her because she not only knows the practice of it, but the history as well. She shows up at the restaurant with a carry-on bag, filled with research material for her doctoral dissertation.

As we walk toward the theater, Meg refuses to let me carry her bag. This frustrates me, because my manners are from a bygone era and I know I’d be in trouble with my wife if I didn’t at least offer. But it’s a beautiful evening and the sun is setting as we walk toward Times Square. I recognize Henry Winkler heading toward us, and we nod to each other. Meg and I head west to Ninth Avenue to avoid the tourists, still talking energetically about theater and Billy Joel. No one is on 36th Street as we turn onto it. Then, directly in front of us, a man steps out of a building with a bicycle. I recognize him as David Byrne, and he shyly turns away, riding past us.

The glance of David Byrne affects me like one of Stephen Dedalus’ epiphanies. I see myself from an outside vantage point: walking through New York on a golden evening, talking theater with a beautiful, intelligent woman, on the way to see a play of mine off-Broadway. It is a perfect moment. From a life I’ve dreamed of having since I was a kid. I get goose bumps and start babbling like a teenager about how amazing everything is. Meg laughs.

There are about thirty people at the dress rehearsal. The cast, again, is fantastic. There is lots of laughter, applause, and shaking of my hand by strangers. People exit the theater, tweeting their friends. Meg and I repair to a bar in Queens midway between her place and Mike’s. I am gratified by her response. She speaks about the way she would have directed certain scenes, delves for information about the future of Shaw and Charlotte’s relationship, and ends with stories about her personal past wherein she behaved or did not behave like Charlotte. We close the bar, and I stagger back to Mike’s around 1:30.

FRIDAY
First preview. I leave Mike’s place for a hotel in Manhattan, believing correctly that it will be a late night. My metrocard is bent and unusable, I break a wheel of my suitcase, and the stupid thing still weighs eighty pounds.

When I check in with the theater, I learn that the show is sold out. Obviously, the tweets from last night were positive, and had an effect. I am unbelievably nervous, almost nauseated. The audience, however, is very responsive, laughing in all the right places. But what is strange to me: they start cheering and booing the intellectual points each character makes as if it is a sporting event. When Charlotte proposes to Shaw, a woman in the audience loudly gasps. I’ve never seen reactions like this to a play. Clearly they are positive, but they are unexpected.

Seated behind me in the audience is a friend from my high school drama club, whom I’ve not seen since graduation–back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It’s great to see him again, and to meet his wife. I sit beside a very good teacher friend from Maryland, and after the show the two of us duck into an Irish pub called The Playwright to talk shop until the wee hours. Around one, we walk through Times Square, which illuminates us like 1940’s atomic test observers in the New Mexico desert. She catches a cab to her friend’s place. It is another perfect evening.

SATURDAY
I skip the matinee of Engaging Shaw to see Christopher Walken in A Behanding In Spokane with a couple of actress friends from the DC area. The play is good, but not brilliant. It has a substantial structural flaw, which is easy to forgive; but the dialogue given to the African American character puts me instantly in mind of Hollywood Shuffle. It’s embarassing and a big mistake on McDonagh’s part. Walken, however, is riveting–but I can’t explain why. Everything he does is so strangely wrong: shambling around the stage aimlessly as he speaks, delivering almost every line directly to the audience. I don’t know how he gets away with it. And yet, he is compelling, and saves the show. The understudy filled in for Sam Rockwell, so I don’t know whether or not his performance would have improved the script for me.

After the show, I abandon my friends and zip down to Abingdon to meet some of my wife’s family just as Engaging Shaw gets out. It was another sold out house, which is virtually unheard of. No one sells out the second preview–the matinee! Despite the full house, I’m told the audience was very quiet, except for a cell phone that went off and a woman who insisted upon talking back to the actors. My wife’s cousins have only nice things to say, however, and insist upon taking a picture with me in front of the poster, to prove to my father-in-law that they were there.

I have trouble reconnecting with my friends–though I do spot Tony Shalhoub coming out of Lend Me A Tenor–so I have dinner with the cast. They tell me that the evening show is sold out as well. I will need to give up my seat to a paying customer. But four seats are empty as the show starts, and the house manager seats me in one of them. Unfortunately, the four empty seats belong to a college friend of mine, who later provides an e-mail account of his failed efforts to attend. I hope he is able to make it another night.

The evening performance feels off somehow. Warren is misplacing his props and changing blocking. Claire is stepping on laughs by coming in too early. And the audience isn’t so much laughing, as smiling warmly. The energy is low and I start to get depressed. I mention my concerns to Jackob during intermission, and he sits in for act two, which goes much better.

After the show, Warren introduces me to Peter Bennett, the director of the original Broadway production of Crimes Of The Heart. I’d met him before at SUNY Albany in 1988, but he doesn’t remember. We have many friends and colleagues in common, however, whose names we drop; and he pays me the compliment of being glad to “finally” meet me after hearing about me for so many years. I’m grateful, since I never believe anyone thinks of me unless they’re sticking pins in my effigy.

Some of us head to a bar next door, where we enjoy a horror movie trailer on Jackob’s iPhone, in which one of our table mates has a role. We cheer every time her face appears on the screen.

Though there was much to enjoy, this particular day feels awkward and dull to me. As I walk back to the hotel, I am overwhelmed with boredom and paranoia, and I’m ready to head home.

SUNDAY
I arise at seven, having not slept a wink and with an aching back. I grab a Diet Coke, wander the streets a bit, and drag my suitcase to Penn Station, bearing a small grievance against the cavalier gratitude of youth. On the train, Jackob texts that we had our fourth full house in a row for the matinee, and that the laughs were huge. He declares that there’s a buzz throughout midtown and it’s all about Shaw. I smile, believing it to be hyperbole. But I smile pretty smugly nonetheless.

I don’t yet know who the director is, or who is in the cast, but I’ll post the information as soon as I hear anything. Abingdon doesn’t even have it on the website yet. They plan to post it after 26 January, but they’ve given me the okay to start promoting it here.

Some of you are very familiar with the play: it has been produced at Oldcastle Theatre Company (with Langdon Brown) and New Jersey Rep, and received readings at New Jersey Rep and the Kennedy Center. This will be its first exposure in New York (although The Times came to see it in New Jersey and declared it to be “Exactly the type of work that nonprofit theatres dedicated to producing new plays and musicals should be doing.”) My favorite review came from Variety, which called it “a spirited and intelligent combat of words and sparkling banter,” then attributed its authorship to someone named “John Mortimer Langdon.”

For those of you who are not familiar with it, Engaging Shaw is an unromantic, romantic comedy about the courtship of Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Payne-Townshend. The little slogan I wrote for the marketing department describes it like this: “He considered himself the superman. She allowed him to believe it.” Just enough wit to leave you incontinent.

Hope you can make it. It would be great fun to see friendly faces.

Other news: two play readings are in the works for early 2009, one in New York City (Engaging Shaw) and the other in the DC area (A Thing for Redheads). Details to follow as schedules are etched in stone.