Round & About with Co-Creation…

Very good weekend in Los Angeles and Long Beach last month with readings of Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making at three house concerts. Then up to the other end of the state for a reading at Arcata Playhouse and visits with some dear friends at nearby Dell’Arte.

This month it’s Sonoma County theatres. Friends at three area theatres have invited us to do presentations there. April 5th we’re with Pegasus Players, a long-established, enterprising group at new quarters in tiny Rio Nido, up in Russian River territory. Then on April 12th to The Imaginists, a Santa Rosa ensemble combining innovation with strong community involvement.

And on April 25th back on a familiar stage under new management, Main Stage West (formerly Sonoma County Repertory) in downtown Sebastopol, where we staged Drake’s Drum, The Tempest, and other endeavors. For us, it’s a celebration of the richness and diversity of the local scene, and we’re proud to be a spirit flitting about in it.

We’re changing the format a bit, as we invariably do: we’re inveterate tinkerers. Along with the reading, we’ll present two of our short comedy sketches that have been with us for decades, “Dreamers” and “Peace Negotiations”—seems strange, otherwise, to talk for an hour about our theatre work without actually showing any of it.

And, without making it a “seven secrets of happy marriage” lecture, we’re focusing a bit more on what’s really, for us, a central theme of the book: “Riding the Changes.” How do a couple of people survive fifty years of radical evolution and actually feel good about it?

And Looking Ahead…

In June we’ll be back with readings in Sonoma & Mendocino Counties, then at the end of the month to the Denver/Boulder area. Still open dates in both areas. Talk to us about hosting a party, gather your friends, join the fun.

In May…

Well, there’ll be a newsletter out on May 1st, but my head is into the planning now. We’re preparing to spend two and a half weeks in Europe, first to visit our daughter Johanna & her guy Fra in Tuscany, visiting there five days and then scattering to the winds.

Elizabeth will proceed to Zurich to visit our long-time friends Erica and Peter of Kammertheater Stok, part of our lunatic tribe. Then on to Belle Isle, a tiny island off the coast of Britanny, near the standing stones of Carnac, which has become a kind of pilgrimage for her. And at last to Amsterdam to visit another lifelong friend, and then home.

Meanwhile, I’m to Spain—four days in Barcelona, five in Madrid—visiting Goya, Velasquez, et al, but mostly just walking the streets and working on our new novel Galahad’s Fool. Haven’t been there since 1969, when it was under the fist of Franco. Will probably arrive just in time for civil riots—word is that the gov’t is laying in large supplies of tear gas anticipating reaction to “austerity measures.” Should be fun.

Miscellany…

Now circulating our first novel Realists—only 5 rejections so far. We won’t take ourselves seriously as prose fiction writers until we have at least 300.

Still slowly plodding forth with the editing of our Frankenstein for DVD. It’ll happen, I’m determined, by May.

Into regular rehearsals for our fall show Duo. Slow work, solving tech challenges as we proceed—good prospects, I think. Right now it’s really cold in the studio. But that’s because it’s raining, and we need the rain.

Peace & joy—
Conrad Bishop

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Nobody Reads Plays…

But if you’re the exception, check our website. Several of our plays are published (see Media on the site), but full scripts of 29 of our original plays are on the website for free online reading. Take a look.

For sheer joy, I recommend Love’s Fools, Loveplay or Tapdancer. For intellectual challenge, maybe Drake’s Drum or Marie Antoinette. Serious realism, Long Shadow, Hammers, or Mine Alone. You can sample excerpts, then read the whole thing if you like. Something really weird? Action News.

There are information pages and production photos of many of these by clicking the title of the play on the listing. And if you do dip in, let us know your responses.

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Quote of the month…

From Co-Creation…

We’re probably not so much telling the truth as discovering the truth as we go. We have an urge to please and to entertain, so proceed with caution. We’re not much given to self-analysis, so expect it only in spurts. We hope you find some meaning in this, but we’re not sure what it is: that’s the journey we’re on as we write it. And we often feel we’re riding the Earth in a reckless loop around the sun without having the foggiest idea who’s driving.