I am back in the country. Vacation is over.

Vincent’s Yellow is CAST.

Let me say that again and allow myself to celebrate one last time before the onslaught of everything else I have to do drowns out the sound.

I HAVE ACTORS! YIPPEEE!

It also looks like I have a co-choreographer, a props master, a media director, a technical director/co-costume designer, and a stage manager along with my lovely co-director. I know, it’s craziness. It’s good though, because let’s face it — as much as I’d like to do everything on this show myself, I need help. I wish I were a giant octopus who could design, direct, act, choreograph, produce, and make re-writes simultaneously (and still have one hand  free to make a living and put food into my mouth), but alas, alack, I am a terrestrial mammal with two arms. But let’s face it. It’d be hard to produce Vincent’s Yellow under water. And the good news is I’ve got a lot of  hands on deck now. Which is good cause this is a Big Boat.

I also heard the script aloud for the first time in our first rehearsal last night. (Also a Yippeee moment) So this is the first time in my life that I’ve sat down and written a script all by myself, and then heard it read aloud by actors. As a writer, it was indeed a bit more difficult than I anticipated (I already want to cut big chunks out of it, and will start doing so tonight), but it was also really awesome to discover new things about my story. Like, for instance — it’s got some laughs! I think my snarky sense of humor couldn’t help but pop in, but I was happy to hear some laughter from my cast.

Last thing I’m gonna tell you (later this week or maybe next week I’ll post the photos of my lovely actors) is that I bought a few things in Ecuador.

The first thing I was really looking for was just a huge amount of yellow fabric. I need it for…. you know. Well I can’t tell you! Come see the show if you want to know. It was really cheap in Ecuador so I got tons and tons.

I’m sure you understand that there was no other way to show it to you other than to put it on top of my head.

I got 35 meters. That’s about 120 feet. It’s very light-weight, translucent, and falls like a feather. It’s peeeerrrrrrty.

And, then there was one other thing I searched for…

Self-Portrait, 1887.

Thanks to vangoghgallery.com

And found…

teehee. I am pretty pleased with myself.

See you next week, fellow lovers!

She buys the suit she will dive in.

She chooses one that will move well, that will move well with her, one that is best suited. In this case, the color was inevitable. It must be functional though, and it must be right. When she saw it she thought of the peasants, your peasants, Vincent, and she knew it was right.

After all, she is a worker, a reaper of beauty.

I am gathering together my creative team. I am within a week, probably, of posting an audition notice and getting my business cards printed (finally!) and soon I will be looking at possible performance spaces. Diving boards. They must be the right size and made of the right material. The rest is details.

I also bought my first set piece. The space will look like an artist’s studio when the audience enters; there will be painter’s materials scattered. They will make our theatrical building blocks. Some of those things include paintbrushes and little bottles used to hold pigment. In the Van Gogh Museum I saw the little bottles you would have, Vincent –

Photography by Timothy Caldwell

So when I saw these bottles from an old chemistry set on sale, I knew they were perfect, and I bought them.

I will be in a mode of preparation until rehearsals begin at the end of May. May through July will be the time to practice. And then, the jump, the perfect dive, will happen 18 times between July 27th and August 31st. That is really how I see it, deep down.

I am very excited to be commencing with preparation. I’ll still be studying and planning, the script is not done, there is in fact much to do still with the script, but I am taking this moment to step back. I’ve been writing and editing non-stop for about six weeks. The juices need to marinate. I read through the script, from beginning to end, for the first time the other week. It was exciting, terrifying, disappointing, and inflaming. There is a lot of work ahead.

I take a moment, catch my breath, see the whole. It will be great, but boy oh boy I will sweat a lot between now and August.

I welcome the storm, the journey, the work, with grinning teeth.

And mostly, I remind myself over and over where I’ve come from, and where I’ve been.

“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”

Vincent, 22 October 1882, letter to Theo

I’ve always thought my play about Vincent and I would be a perfect summer show: it’s uplifting, it will be beautiful (and about beauty), and lastly, I’d love to be able to step outside with my audience during the show, letting the fresh air into our lungs and gazing at the stars in wonder — imagining and, indeed, conceiving what it was that Vincent saw in them. I want to look at real stars and speak his words, if possible. And since I’m putting it up in Chicago, that means it’s got to be the summer.

So then, this past July when I started this website, I had already started my quotes project and so I became aware of the anniversary of Vincent’s death (July 29th)  and it happened to be the day of my first entry. I think it was around then that I realized I wanted my show to also open on July 29th. Then a series of ideas flooded my brain: my birthday is August 31st, so if the show closed that day it’d have a nice five weekend run, which is plenty of time for the word to spread and to have reviewers come and actually review it. (For those of you not in the theater business, most shows by young theater makers only run for about a week, which in a way, is like shooting yourself in the foot. A great start, but you can’t really get enough attention. And besides, since I’ve been working on this for over two years and moved to Chicago to make it happen, and have in every other way put all my eggs in this one very yellow basket, why not go all the way?)

So then it became TRUTH: Vincent’s Yellow will be running in Chicago July 29th – August 31st 2010! (yes, I know the closing is a Tuesday, it’ll be a special evening followed by a birthday party for me)

2010 is also nice because then it’s been 120 years since Vincent’s death. It’s not quite as cool the centennial of his death, 1990 (note the millions of projects and retrospectives that were dated for that year… okay not millions but you get the idea), but it’s pretty awesome from where I’m sitting. The show starts with his end, and ends with my beginning. Sounds perfect to me. (Did I mention I will be turning 25 years old?)

So this past week I’ve been working a lot on the play, and I plan on typing up all the last revisions to finish off my first full draft today (super exciting! and I met my self-imposed deadline!). Which means, this evening, I will have ONE document that is my play. This is very amazing, because the building blocks are scenes I have been writing entirely separate from one another over the past two years.

So now where has the plan taken me? I have arrived at the fact that I have an enormous show to put up and a lot of work to do in the next six months. If the show opens at the end of July, I want to start rehearsing at the end of May, which means I need to do auditions in April, which means the script MUST be done by then. But that part is easier. What’s more complicated is that, as a friend called to my attention this morning,  I need to get a creative team together asap and I need to start hunting for my perfect performance space.

I am very excited, slightly overwhelmed, and most importantly, I am inviting you, yes you, where ever you are right now, to my show. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Now, I don’t normally think one theatrical experience is worth flying to a city to see, whether it’s my work, or anyone else’s, but I have been fighting and will continue to fight to make this show the absolute pinnacle of everything I believe in, to make it a theatrical experience that cannot be had, seen, tasted or felt anywhere else, to make it the most perfectly tuned expression of everything Vincent has taught me, to make it a gift that you will take home with you in your heart, in your gut, and in your mind. I am aiming to give you everything, personally, from my hands to yours.

Plus, Chicago is awfully beautiful in the summer! :)

Image courtesy of chicagophotos.blogspot.com

So I’ve planted the idea in your head: come to Chicago in August for Beauty. Roll it around in your mouth, fiddle with it between your fingertips. I’ll be returning to this in later entries.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to get back to work! But I will leave you with a little Vincent before I go.

Vincent often imagined himself as a worker similar to a farmer, a sower or a reaper, as yet another common man who slaved outdoors all day. The farmer’s work was taxing, but very important. So Vincent worked with the same unwavering strength and determination.

His admiration also drove him to paint them.

Image courtesy of vangoghletters.org

First and foremost, when I’ll be able to pay more for models, and female models too, I’ll make further progress; I feel it and I know it. And I’ll probably also succeed in being able to do portraits. But that depends on working hard; not a day without a line, as Gavarni used to say. (January 1881 to Theo)

Not a day without a line, my friends. Until next week.