Mike Mariano

Seriously, folks; I have started at least three weblog entries this year and abandoned them. Here is the process:

1. I attend a play.
2. I think of a funny anecdote to say about it.
3. I write it down in this weblog.
4. I leave it as a draft for a week. In the meantime I tell my anecdote to everyone I know.

By the time I’m ready to post, I’m sick of the story!

So let’s post something quickly: playwriting notes! New notes for a play written over a year ago!

I need more rap in It Takes A Nation of Norwegians to Hold Us Back!

Obviously, the title comes from Public Enemy.

But I was jazzed up on Dead Prez and KRS-1 when writing the play. I wanted to get in the following lines and have them spoken by Stockmann:

“You would rather have a Lexus or justice? Some cash or some substance?”
– Dead Prez “Hip Hop”

“I tell my kids to watch the education they give ‘em. Because it’s really all about street wisdom.”
– KRS-1 “Get Yourself Up”

And now tonight I heard Mos Def rapping in Black Star’s “Children’s Story.”

“Why you sellin’ lies to our wives and children?”
– Black Star “Children’s Story”

All three of those lines could conceivably be spoken by Stockmann, with maybe some minor alteration.

Notable is that all three of these songs are hip-hop self-analysis.

Once again I have set out to fail at National Playwriting Month. But now I’m doing it in public!

Here’s the experiment: I am using Google Documents to write Plantnapped!, something that may or may not become a Bill/Marley Show type play. Google Docs has a nifty feature that allows you to share the work in progress.

So if you want an up-to-the-minute current copy of Plantnapped, simply click on through. Enjoy all of my bad writing habits up close and personal.

Just don’t expect a play by the end of the month.

I think I have to see Pygmalion just so I can get the music out of my head.