Wild Horses

When I finish writing this, I'm going out, watering the flower pots on the patio, then taking a stroll around the garden to see who's blooming. And I'll have another cup of coffee. Not because I need the energy to survive another crushing, mad day, but just because I like coffee.

We put Pavement Productions, my theatre company, to bed last night. Sold out house, had to turn people away or risk a fire code violation. Good party afterwards. Loaded up the chairs and music stands into the big red pickup truck I inherited. Just as we got home, it began to sprinkle lightly. It was warm, a soft rain, and it was very, very quiet. Later, I went out on the back porch with the headphones and the Stones. I was going to smoke a celebratory cigar, but it just seemed too much, so I had a single pipe instead. Listened to "Wild Horses," which I remembered playing over and over after the heartbreak of producing "Altered States of America," a show the cast, crew, and I were very proud of and loved very much...as audiences seemed to as well...those that saw it. But there were too few of them, despite good reivews, and we took a bath, and, on Pavement's profit-sharing model, for the first time in my producing career, I wasn't able to pay my people. It was the most exquisite agony, like a protracted death, and I'd hear those lines:

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away

And I would cry. Sometimes. I'd play it until I was finally so exhausted I could sleep. But as I listened to it last night, it was like the soundtrack of a free-form film playing in my mind's eye, images from shows past, friends faces--really wonderful irreplaceable friends, laughs at mistakes and the surreal moments that pepper life in the theatre, and the raptures of lights turning to magic, the perfect sound cue opening new levels of meaning, and actors, in the moment, finding their souls.

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let's do some living after we die

The song sounded so perfect, so beautiful, that it washed away its past connotations, and a cord, taut and twisted, loosened. When the song ended, I shut off the CD player and just sat, listening to little but a light breeze, a barely audible rain, my own breath, distant traffic.

Everything was all right. I went to bed. Slept deeply. Woke up to a gentle overcast. Sat up. Took a deep breath. The world had kept turning, both the same and altogether new.

And the living become the dead....

This Saturday, "Dead of Winter" fades into the ether, with a tinge of brimstone and an echoing laugh. Tickets are going fast for the closer, so, if you want to see the show, I suggest you get your reservations in sooner than later as the house is small, and there's a good chance we'll sell out. Some press follows below. "Dead of Winter" has also received a "critic's choice" note on Oregonlive.com. Call 503-777-2771 for reservations: tickets are $12 at the door, $10 for seniors and students. Or you can buy advance tickets for $10 at blustockings.com

Thanks everyone for your support (and for a wonderful cast and crew). After a couple of years of having my plays produced out of town, from Canada to New Zealand, it's been great fun to come home again.

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Followspot:
Three ghost-story style plays use familiar themes of séance, morgue, and clairvoyance. Still, tales presented from a different, often humorous, angle, making them intriguing and creepy. Sparse, specific design elements parallel style of show, leaving much to the imagination. Unusual location adds to haunting atmosphere. A fun and chilling evening.

An auience member:
Last night, I saw Dead of Winter, a collection of three short plays, ghost stories, really. It was like attending Le Grand Guignol in February. Each of the vignettes were short on gore and special effects, but still managed to be creepy as all hell and present a couple of good "jump" moments. I'd love to see this same crew put together something in a similar vein for Halloween. I'm a sucker for small-scale theater like this. I really enjoy seeing what can be done in a modest space, without a lot of flash to spend, with local playwrights and actors.

Oregonian:
"Dead of Winter" The Bluestockings (fresh off their invigorating "Spirits to Enforce") team up with Pavement Productions to mount this trio of ghost stories by Portland playwright Steve Patterson. Opens 8 p.m. Friday, continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, through Feb. 23, Performance Works Northwest, 4625 S.E. 67th Ave.; $10-$12; www.theblustockings.com, 503-777-2771.

Portland Tribune:
Lurking behind this evening of ghost stories is local playwright Steve
Patterson, whose 2006 collaboration with actor Chris Harder led to a
Drammy-winning one-man show.

Dead of Winter delivers deliciously lo-fi spooks
by Caitlin McCarthy // arts editor, Pioneer Log, on 02/08 at 07:45 PM

Ghost story plays should most certainly be staged at SE Foster and 67th Ave. Foster Road (the closer it gets to 82nd Avenue, the smuttier) is a haven for warehouses, laundromats and pawnshops, so prepare to be spooked when you finally stumble upon Performance Works Northwest, nuzzled between a Russian bakery and a Sav-a-Lot. The three different worlds presented in the theatre’s current production, collectively titled Dead of Winter, will transport you from the dreary, rain-soaked, and all-too-realistic land of Foster Road straight into the fantastic and beyond.

What do Jack the Ripper, séances and the talking dead all have in common? Besides all being rather bone chilling, each is the topic of Dead of Winter’s trio of ghostly plays. The production is a conjoined effort by two Portland theatre companies, Pavement Productions and The Bluestockings. Co-founder of Pavement Productions, Steve Patterson is the playwright; co-Artistic Director of the same company, Lisa Abbott, directs.

Audience members are made to practically walk through the small set to get to their seats in Performance Works NW’s converted garage—or is it a hangar?—of a stage. Fold-up chairs and old pews, replete with cushions for optimum comfort, are crammed onto one side, making it quite the intimate experience. Potential theatre-goers should not be scared away—this is lo-fi theatre at its best, and the stifling setting makes the psychological twinge of terror in the air that much more palpable.

All of these ghost stories work just as well as whodunit tales of mystery. It’s up to the audience to figure out whether the characters’ perceptions are reality or an intense, but purely psychological, mystical experience. In Whitechapel, we meet Camellia Johnson, an American transplant living in London’s Whitechapel district; one-time stomping grounds of Jack the Ripper. A pompous English boyfriend, a blind medium and a few very stubborn spirits pepper this ghost hunt for Mr. Ripper himself.

Rowdy ghosts feature in the second play, Wet Paint. Set in “A House in a Small Northwest Town,” it tells the story of Bev, trying but not succeeding to renovate the second storey of her old, supernaturally drafty house. A séance turns from a half-joking suggestion to a production of very real results. The last scene is the strongest, but only can it be seen to be believed.

The Body, more than the other two, straddles the line between what is real and what are merely the twisted inner workings of an exhausted coroner. His newest corpse looks a little too much like his recently dead wife, but everyone knows the dead tell no tales…

Dead of Winter revels in its lo-fi production, making impressively minimal use of light and sound to scare us silly. Less emphasis is put on fancy props while more is given to dialogue and expressions—this coupled with the intimate setting made it reminiscent of old radio programming.” This atmosphere was perhaps also helped by the general age range in the room: this play’s so good, only adults go to it! So, go ahead, grow up with the ghost stories of Dead of Winter.

Dead of Winter is showing through February 23, Thurs-Sat, 8:00 p.m. at Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th Ave. $10 advance, $12 door, $10 student/senior; call 503-777-2771.

The Weight

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said.

How do Chris Coleman, Allen Nause, Olga Sanchez,* or any other artistic director with a full season do it?

Which is to say, I've been a producer off and on since 1990, really forgotten how many shows I've helmed (of other writers works as well, not just mine), and every time I forget how much stuff goes into a show, how many phone calls, e-mails, meetings, late nights working on press. The director does the really heavy lifting of pulling the show together and making it work on stage, but the producer is there to focus on publicity, logistics, and coordination. And problem solving, if necessary. Frankly, it's exhausting. Not so much because it's such hard work but because it demands one be constantly present, paying attention and staying on top of details, large and small.

That said, "Dead of Winter" has gone well. We've struggled with the press--there are so many shows up and running or opening in Portland that everyone's been competing for ink--but we have excellent word-of-mouth, and I think we'll finish strong. This weekend looks to be filling up, and the final weekend tends to be solid because it's the last chance to see the show. The cast and crew are having a good time, and audiences are enjoying themselves. As am I, though I'm wearing down.

Once the show closes, I can kind of breathe for awhile, focus on writing and submitting plays. In April, "Waiting on Sean Flynn" opens in Detroit, and in May "Rain," a short piece I wrote for Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company's "Seven Deadly Sins" show, opens, but "Flynn" is an established piece and "Rain" probably won't require more than a couple line tweaks arising out of production. I'll be producing again in June--TBA at this point--and that's more than enough, but I just think of those folks who are looking down the road, opening one show while they're starting production of another and programming next year's season, and my eyes glaze. I get the thousand-yard stare. The phone rings and I just look at it, thinking: who are you? This time? What do you want from me?

That's what producing will do to you. The trick--the real trick, I think--is maintaining your passion for the project while retaining a sense of humor and staying human with your fellow artists and audience. Then the burden becomes a gift. But I still marvel at the long-term, full-time producer. I know they have staffs to do much of what I do, but they also have obligations that extend far beyond mine.

I suspect, at this point, they do it partly out of compulsion, partly out of obligation, and partly, one hopes, out of love.
Take a load off Fannie, take a load for free;
Take a load off Fannie, And...and...and....
You can put the load right on me.

*For readers outside Portland, the aforementioned are the artistic directors of, respectively, Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, and Miracle Theatre Company.

Wearing the Producer's Hat

It's pointy, like the ones they used to make bad kids wear at school, and it never quite fits right, always slipping down over your eyes at inopportune moments.

Last time I counted, I think I've produced 25 shows, only one of which failed to break even. I think that's a decent track record for a frankly perilous endeavor. The last time around was so completely exhausting and disappointing--in terms of ticket sales, artistically it was excellent, which made the small audiences even more frustrating--that I put the pointy hat on the shelf for five years and concentrated on writing plays and letting others produce them.

Part of the reason, however, that I got into producing was that I just wasn't seeing certain kinds of plays--strange, unkempt, orignal--being produced in Portland. There's a lot more work being produced here these days; so much so that it's hard to see everything one would like. This time, I'm dusting off the pointy hat because I want to produce something that seems like a total blast and an easy sell. In other words, I'm in it for the fun.

That is, next February, my company Pavement Productions is co-producing with Portland's The Bluestockings three ghost stories I've written for the stage: Whitechapel, Wet Paint, and The Body. The whole evening will be called Dead of Winter (going up in February), and every time I tell someone about it, they get that weird sparkle in their eyes that tells me it's a good idea (and people will come). When you can write the press release in your head, you're on the right track.

The thing about producing is this: it will take you over. You are the go-to person when things go wrong, when little things need attention, and there are always details that have to be addressed, whether it's making sure you make press deadlines or procure that goofy little prop no one seems to be able to find. It's taught me a decent lesson about life, though: when you think you can't give anymore, push a little harder, and you'll find you have more to give. It's an opening to a process bigger than yourself. That's why it's tough. That's why it's also rewarding. And when the pieces come together and things go right, it's a wonderful, hard-charging high. As Neil Young sings: "With trunks of memories still to come."

And there's always that last moment, when the show is over and the set's been struck, and you're done with cleaning up the trash and boxing up the pieces, when you're alone in the theatre for the last time and have to turn out the lights. That moment belongs to the producer alone. That moment can be worth the journey.