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| photo: 7 Seas |
Brian Copeland had been kicking around the idea for a Christmas story based on some things that happened with him when he was about six in Oakland in 1970, and he and his co-developer/director David Ford decided this last fall to go for it. Copeland hadn't written it yet. He got that going right around...November. A bit rushed, as these things go, sure, but, unlike some solo shows I've seen and have worked on in the last eight years or so, this one actually had a beginning, middle and
an end -- Woo-hoo! -- even before Cope sat down to write the thing.
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| photo: courtesy Brian Copeland |
"The Jewelry Box" was presented, with fair warning, to a few audience in December, script in hand. I designed sound and light. It was, I thought, a sort of reader's theatre
deluxe. It was clear in the first weekend that we had a good story and a pretty solid form already. As the phrasing around here goes, it was "in good shape" already. By the end of the ultra-short run of performances, the sudden growth of asses in seats (g'head...visualize that...) told me there was street buzz on the show almost immediately. Mind you, this new piece was deliberately
not marketed for shit. Absolutely no media coverage was solicited. It was shyly stuck out in front of strange people to see whether it
could work. In spite of the distinct lack of effort to interest the local market, we seem to have another hit on our hands. We'll see how it goes down in the 2013 holiday season.
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Meanwhile, we're about to remount Brian Copeland's
"The Waiting Period" (yeah, that guy again). That one we started workshopping over a year ago, and its opening night was last February. Ran it all last year until that holiday story quickie. This February, we'll be doing an encore and No Really We're Not Kidding limited run of Copeland's flagship show
"Not A Genuine Black Man". If you have the least interest in seeing "Genuine", better go this time.
No, really. By autumn, the stage production will be retired in favor of a full television live performance video production currently in early development. Details here as that moves along, but the director on board has a few Emmys under his belt for theatrical telecast productions.
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| photo: 7 Seas |
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Hitting the ground running with "The Jewelry Box" and succeeding as well as we did just infuses further confidence into what's becoming both a body of work and a product line. It's a nice feeling, and makes ya wonder just how much you can push and dance and and leap and still land on your feet.
