The Year of Living Directly
Did you know Boston Latin is the oldest public school in the United States?
from the desk of the unknown penguin
2024 is the year of directing, apparently. I didn’t set it out with this in mind, it just happened. WILL Interactive, The Ferberizing of Coral, and Ken Ludwig’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: all directing jobs. I did also write The Ferberizing of Coral, of course but that screenplay has been done for 2 years and the play it’s based on for about 10. So the process of adapting it to the screen has almost entirely been a directorial effort (and certainly is at this point).
So 2024 is the year of directing. Which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
I only started writing to have something to direct. But, at some point, the writing took over. Which may be because you don’t actually need anyone else to write, you can just do that yourself. Getting it produced, that requires others. But writing, that one can do alone.
In any event, it’s a very different muscle, directing. And focusing on that continues to be an incredibly interesting and rewarding process.
Plus, I’m getting paid for all these gigs so that doesn’t hurt either.
- Patrick, 9/11/24 (dictated but not read)
pre-production
The Ferberizing of Coral
Producer Maureen and I have been working overtime getting the bank accounts and SAG paperwork and all the other ten thousand little details one needs to get ready before you can officially start raising money for our short film. You will be hearing about little else from me this month so I’ll leave it at that.
Ken Ludwig’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas at Adventure Theatre MTC
We have a PRODUCTION TEAM! And almost a whole cast! I start production meetings this week and I am ready to start this exciting project. Super excited to be able to tell you who is in on this show (but all the Ts need to be dotted first).
production
Visual Literacy - 2nd Edition
Writing a book is hard and takes a long time. Re-writing a book is also hard but a different kind of hard. But the new version is due in 3 weeks so we shall persevere. Meanwhile I can be found combing the Library of Congress photo library because it’s a book about visuals, isn’t it?
post-production
Shakespeare’s Histories Podcast
How many final mixes can one turn in on a 24 episode audio drama? The answer is, as many as are needed. Because every single episode must be listened to and relistened to and relistened to. Because that is the job. BUT 8 of the 24 episodes are done done, so that’s good.
WILL Interactive
I turned in my FINAL final notes on this project this week. How many notes can be turned in on a project? See above. But the post-production team has been tremendous on this. It’ll be a few more weeks before I get final version because now it goes up to the executives for final approval and they take as long as they take.
live on stage
Sheila and Moby
available on New Play Exchange
Boston Latin School (Boston, MA) - December 5-7
Tinker Bell
available through Dramatic Publishing
Citrus High School (Inverness, FL) - October 3-5
Valley Christian High School (Chandler, AZ) - October 31-November 3
Greenville High School (Greenville, PA) November 8-9
Spring-Ford Senior High School (Royersford, PA) - November 15-16
Prairie High School (Cedar Rapids, IA) - November 22-23
Naperville North High School (Naperville, IL) - December 6-8
Chicago Chrisitan High School (Palos Heights, IL) - March 7, 2025
The Velveteen Rabbit: A Toy Story
available through TRW
Conejo Players Theatre (Westlake Village, CA) - May 2-11, 2025
from the vault
On 1st September 2009, Gmail crashed for 100 minutes. It was a thing and I was making web content in L.A. SO! I immediately lept into action, got Andre Meadows and Burl Moseley to come to my house in Park La Brea, pulled clips from that day’s Buzz Out Loud podcast from CNET, and made this video as fast as we could. I think I over-estimated the impact of the 100-minute outage but we had fun!