Second Post: 2010 projects

The daily blog task has been fulfilled now for two days in a row. Wow!

Today I spent a bit of time ringing around to get people to help out at Front of House for the show. This is always interesting, but very distractable (is that a word?). You find yourself chatting away 19 to the dozen and before you know it an hour has passed and you've only called three people!

There were two themes to discussions today. One is I should audition for a role in Cosi which is to be Wyong Drama Group's April 2010 production.

I've auditioned for and obtained roles in a couple of plays recently (Bedfull of Foreigners and Loot). In both cases I've had to pull out due to rather serious medical conditions. The first one, costo-chondritis (which translates as arthritis in the ribcage) for which I spent two weeks in hospital, and the second for testicular cancer (which meant an operation to remove one of them). The first affliction I've still got, the second I hope to hell I haven't.

Anyway, I'll see what transpires with regard to auditioning. I may not even get a role in the first place... And the trend might reverse itself - maybe if I'm sick to start off with, I'll spontaneously get better!

The second theme was that I should definitely submit a play for consideration by the group for me to direct. Last year there were four plays submitted: Inheritance (Julie Bailey), A Better You (me), All My Sons (Pam Campbell) and No Sex Please, We're British (Millie Sampson). I missed out, and in fact Fawlty Towers was done instead of All My Sons. (That's one hell of a substitution, eh?)

I got the impression A Better You wasn't something the group wanted. Yet from what I've been hearing at rehearsals and what transpired on the phone I was encouraged to resubmit this play for 2010. So I did that about half an hour ago.

A Better You is written by Mark C Bourne and is an Australian play about a group of women who contract a lecturer to come in for a self-improvement presentation. They try to brighten up their lives and increase their confidence. During the course of the lecture, the presenter gets a bit upset, so they calm her down with some tranquilisers that one of them originally had for her dog. It's a bit tricky working out the dosage for a human, and they err on the side of excess. This makes it look like they've actually killed the presenter, so they have to get rid of the body.

Just as they're trying to arrange disposal, a couple of other people rock up to rehearse their up-coming dance number in the hall, which seems to have been double-booked. There is inconvenience all around, as the dancers are miffed to find people already in the hall, and the ladies attending the self-help presentation distressed at their very probable discovery of a potential murder.

The play is very funny, using both light and dark humour and a number of farcical elements. It has a cast of seven women and one man and is a real tour-de-force for the stereotypical members of a drama/discussion/social group. The more I think about it, the more I'm of the opinion it'd be a really appropriate play for our group, and the audiences will love it.