So, here it is! 20 years in the making. I’m going off script today to not talk about playwrights or plays or theater but instead to announce the release (Kindle format) of my book.
I started writing this book, or a version of it, when I was an undergraduate in college and it was fully underway by 1995. The book has been professionally edited on two occasions, substantially re-written at least three times, professionally reviewed by Kirkus_online_020115, and the cover art done by the talented Amanda Almon. My photo for the book jacket was done by Steve Mastroianni, another talented friend, and my good friend Jared Bendis has assisted in too many ways to enumerate. I’d also like to thank Atbosh Media for publishing the work and taking the leg work out of all the formats, isbns, lc numbers, etc. And last but certainly not least, my wife Kirsten, who read the book more times than she probably liked and who contributed significantly to my consideration of layout and design elements.
The print version of the book will be available from both Ingram and [amazon_link id=”B00TCI8ZVC” target=”_blank” ]Amazon[/amazon_link] in the next several weeks, and then I will begin attempts at consignment distribution to local stores and I’ll start pushing for it in local libraries.
I went to Sachsenheim Hall on Tuesday night to observe the rehearsal of my dear friend Peter’s play The Gyntish Self.
One rendition of the play was produced at Carnegie Mellon as Peter’s thesis play a few years back, and I had the opportunity to see it. While it has changed with re-writes and a newly emerging production, the play has lost none of its comedic bite.
Peter’s play is based on the Ibsen play Peer Gynt, which is based on the Norwegian fairy tale Per Gynt. Apparently at the time Ibsen wrote it there was a hullabaloo about the thing, with a bunch of pissed off Norwegians, and I’m sure they’d all be even more incensed by what Peter does with it. However, just like the Ibsen play, Peter’s creation moves seemlessly between the world of today and the deranged lunacy that is Peer Gynt’s mind. Of spontaneous interest to me was that Edvard Grieg wrote
In the Hall of the Mountain King for the play and when I was visiting Mike Geither last Friday night for his birthday his son was playing that very song on the piano.
