Hey Dramatilieges,

Are you ready for some Shakespeeeeare?  What, you ask, is he gonna be in the room?  Well, next best thing maybe -- Mark S. is offering up a unique project to run by the Writers Group at our next meeting, Tuesday Nov. 4th.  I'll let him explain in his own words:

"I have an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' that I'm working with in prep for a production next year.  It's about 20 pages long and the play action will run 32-35 minutes on stage.

"My co-director and I obviously have cut a lot of material to meet a strict time limitation and, while we've tried to connect the dots with the various story lines and characters, it would be very useful to see what we might have overlooked, what needs to be clarified further, or what pieces of language will be particularly difficult for an audience to follow without good blocking or business to illustrate them.

"I'm not certain how well a discussion would fit the format of the Dramatica group as, in general, we can't make up lots of dialog or new plot points.  Typically when editing we get to look up the actual play and say... 'Ok, we need to stick this line back in, and I think we can lose this other one.'  We're certainly capable of writing a line or two in the appropriate style though."

But Mark assures me that you do not need to be familiar with the original play, that the script is meant to stand on its own.  In other words, it needs to hold up before an audience seeing it for the first time.  So we will analyze it on that basis and see what helpful input we can offer, Shakespearean expertise notwithstanding.  (But hey, if we come up with a good storyform for the original play in the process, maybe we can add that to the Examples collection!)

So if you'd like to read an abridged version of "As You Like It" and participate in that discussion, let me know and I will forward you Mark's script.  Again, this is for our DWG meeting next Tuesday, 11/4.

Even though this is technically a public domain piece, I still ask that if you receive the author's material and then can't make the meeting, please contact him on your own.  I will provide Mark's e-mail address if you ask for it.

And of course, remember that we have this week off, so we WON'T see you in Burbank tonight, but hopefully we will next Tuesday!

Sandy

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