"You Can Call Me Eve" Play Reading

Two weeks from today is the reading of my first full length play "You Can Call Me Eve." The story of a latina woman who changes her identity to help deal the pain of her past.

When: Monday, February 23, 2009
7:30pm

Where: Write Act Repertory
6128 Yucca St
Hollywood, Ca
www.writeactrep.org

Update:

The play reading was such a success. I truly want to thank Wil Bowers
Everyone who was there gave amazing feedback. They all seemed genuinely touched by the words. The actors themselves brought so much to the reading as well. People were laughing and crying...it was moving. And sitting there listening to everyone and seeing the looks on their faces made it all worth it.

A few days later Wil told me the Sr. member of the Write Act Repertory said the feedback from the audience, and the actors, and the director was good so they'd like to produce it! So, now I need to take the feedback from the reading and sit down and make the necessary albeit important changes to the play. This is, of course, a great thing. I've waited four (4) years even for this step.

So thank you to my actors:

Eve: Liliana Montenegro
Rosa: Lucia Solares
Danny: Vance Roi Reyes
Carlos: Cameron Bender
Maria: Melanie Cruz
Erik: Tim Bell
Narrator/Danny (14): Casey Dickerson

Thank you

February 09: Bazhe

1) What is the biggest challenge facing writers today?
The readership that is shrinking as the global warming is expending.
The greedy publishers that want only commercial books to sell like soap.
The need of books that readers can read without using their brains.
Simply, the need of books that won't make the readers smarter, yet dumber.


2) Where do you find your inspiration to write?
Everywhere I go I can get inspired easily. I travel a lot and that helps.
I just absorb any details of any place, or of a situation I am in.

3) What current projects are you working on?
I am finishing one fiction book, and one art book.

4) Who are some of your favorite authors?
Many. Currently I read and study: G. Orwell and A. Huxley.

5) What's your favorite genre/medium to write in?
I like to experiment with different genre as I create new work.
I think writing the same way all the time is dull.

6) What is your ideal writing sanctuary?
In a train that goes somewhere, or in my basement.

7) English isn't your first language. How is growing up in Yugoslavia affected your view on the world? How has it affected your writing?
Knowing more than one language can only complement my writing abilities.
I am glad that I am able to use my knowledge of different human systems.
This only enriches my writing, and makes it more powerful.

8) What s your next project?
The book that I am finishing is a Americana-fiction-book.
It deals with the all timely problems that we are facing now.

It deals with: the financial and the healthcare crisis;
the banksters bankrupting America; and
the collapsing of the auto industry.

I write about the heads of these institutions begging for money
and at the same time screwing the American people royally.

It is a satire about the manipulations done by the elite groups
and the people begging God for help.

9) As of right now, what are you most proud of with your writing?
The all great feedback that I received from the readers.
This motivate me to write more and better.

Bazhe

I Am Important

I am important!
I get on my cell phone as I exit the gym
because life cannot wait until yoga is over.

I am important
as I sit contemplating the universe
sucking on a double espresso chai half-caf latte no whip extra foam.

I am important -
my Prada suit,
Armani pure leather jacket,
Donna Karin alligator belt,
and Louis Vuitton handbag tell I am.

I am important!
When I jump in my in my C-class Silver Mercedes Benz
and valet park at the Ivy where I meet my friends for lunch
and dine on eggplant and tofu parmiggean
smothered in a red-wine vinaigrette
followed by a soy-based low-fat vanilla bean ice cream.

I am important.
I arrive fifteen minutes late to Pilates
because there is nothing more dramatic than a grand entrance
and since leaving yoga class early
interrupted my state of enlightment
and I must reach it or my heartbeat will continue to rise
and I will break out into a sweat
causing my grape seed facial peel to counteract
and cause a rash.
I am important.

I am important!
Between Feng Shui and Rhinoplasty -
I am important.
Between Abercrombie & Fitch,
Fred Segal, or Dolce & Gobana -
I am important.
Between movie premieres
or that raging party that was thrown by
my best friend's cousin's sister-in-law's dog walker -
I am important.
Between Lexus' or BMW's;
between Sunset Boulevard or Hollywood;
between auditions or the casting couch - -
I am important.
I am important.
I. Am. Important.

© Michael Coulombe

January 2009: Veronica Craven

1) What is the most challenging thing facing writers today?

The most challenging thing writers face right now the the fact that every time you think you have something original that no one has ever thought of or done before or said quite how you've said it, you find out it has. And better.

2) Where do you find your inspiration to write?
I find my inspiration in my life experiences or fantasies I could never act out other than on paper. There will always be some of my reality in everything I do. I think that's true for most writers.

3) What current projects are you working on?
Right now I am in pre production on a film I wrote called "Zombie King". Michael Norman Mann helped me on the screenplay. It's a post rapture party story of a lonely little zombie trying to hold on to her humanity while going on a 'Wizard of Oz' type journey to find the Zombie King who can 'cure' her.

4) Who are some of your favorite writers?
I love Stephen King. Love, Love, Love him. If I were a man, I would be Stephen King.

5) What's your favorite genre/medium to write in?
I tend to gravatate towards Erotic Horror. My writings have always been dark and pretty graphic. I've had to edit them significantly to fit an outline or treatment.
Now if you are talking about what do I like to use to write with. I have my note pads, shiny pens and pencils. I have tons of notes on scenes or characters, or general outlines. Only when I have somewhat of a complete item, will I use electronics.

6) What is your ideal writing sanctuary?
In my bedroom, or on BART. Love BART for writing. Much fodder for the mind.

7) How has working in cable influenced your writing?
Writing for television is much different than writing for the silver screen or a publication, or even a webzine for that matter. It requires a different skill set, or, rather, the force of you developing one fast! You have to be able to divorce yourself from your 'baby' it is not yours and they will tell you when they want it changed. They always want it changed.

8) As of right now, what are you most proud of with your writing?
Two peices pop into my mind: an horror erotic short titled "Sam Knew Better", it was published in a San Francisco underground magazine last year; and the "Zombie King" script. Those two I am very proud of.

These UnUnites States

My oldest nephew sometimes likes to sit with a journal and compose his thoughts...he read this to me on Christmas Day. I thought it amazing coming from a 14 year old.

These UnUnited States

This word is an overpopulated mental hospital
Everyone walking around like zombies with chains
Everyone is thinking with invisible brains
We have all these
Damn poets who need to play with words to keep themselves sane
Another activity.
Another Activity!
Is what they need
So caught up in their so called work
If they stop they hypothesis that they'll bleed
Another elixar
To stop the contimplation
So stand united in this so called nation
It used to be
Now its just an age old apparation
A ghost
An excuse to boast
From coast to coast
Even the most
Intelligent raise it to a toast!
What will it take
To make this nation true
Its enevidible
Everyone is fake!
Everyone is saying how their so special
What the fuck am I supposed to do
Bake them a cake?
Now we have the government liein'
They're not even tryin'
They say they care but take a look at all the soilders
They are all dyin'
This shithole nation is so caught up in war
The population dont even know what they're fightin for

TJ Baumchen
Dec. 25, 2008

You Can Call Me Eve

I called up my graphic designer Armin and asked him to create a new book cover for me. I've been contemplating the idea of turning my full length play into a book. I am in the process of finding a theater in which to workshop the play and as I research information on the Latino community in the early 80's to sort of bring depth into the play I thought having the cover done could give me the inspiration I would need.

As always he did an amazing job!

What do you think?:

December 08: Erik Powell, Sr.

1) What is the biggest challenge facing writers today?
The biggest challenge writers face is discovery and acceptance of their masterpieces! I tried to skirt snobbish editors and money-grubbing publishers by self-publishing Chicago Love Tapestry. I still had creative differences with them, however, because they wanted a dollar to correct THEIR mistakes! My colleagues at Genre expressed shock at sweet ole Erik chewing nails and spitting battleships with my publisher. I will never use them again and have told them so several times.

2) Where do you find your inspiration to write?
I am inspired by personal pain. That's why I prefer writing comedy--or dramedy: laughing makes me feel evuh so much bettuh. My son told the play audience he believes I should write drama, however, because he knows I can.

3) What current projects are you working on?
I am researching and writing a Civil War novel, Devour the Widow's House, the reason I moved to northern Virginia four years ago. It's about a German-American farming family in the Shenandoah Valley during Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862. It's about disinheritance and ostracism by one's family and by one's government. It's all caused by forbidden love between a planter's daughter and a German farmer, and between two closeted rebel soldiers loved by a discerning belle trying to choose between them. All of them detest the federal government which has displaced them.

4) Who are some of your favorite authors?
I have an eclectic choice in writers. I particularly love the nineteenth century American Romantic era: Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott and Harriett Beecher Stowe. Dickens is a favorite. My favorite popular novelists are my cousin Gore Vidal, Frank G. Slaughter, MD, and Herman Wouk. David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose are top history writers. I can chow down on Carson McCullers and Flannery O'Connor.

5) What's your favorite genre/medium to write in?
My favorite genre is comedy. Plays are fun to write for the dialogue. Woody Allen and Neil Simon are two of my influences. You can still pack in serious themes via sudden pensive, wistful monologues, like a piece of noisy classical music winding down, before cranking it up again with the fun. The comedy must go on!

6) What is your ideal writing sanctuary?
My ideal writing sanctuary is the bungalow I rented atop a cavern at the northern terminus of Virginia's Skyline Drive. There, I completed Tapestry and began the play within a play for the sequel. What a view: the mountains, the river, the wildlife! The drinking water was from the cavern below me and had so much calcium, it eroded the hot water element at least once a month! My cabin was well-stocked with replacement elements.

7) What s your next project?
My next project is a Tapestry sequel, The Merry Dancers, title derived from the Scottish Highlanders' term for the Northern Lights. Michael's play is performed in song and dance at the Shubert in New Haven, and the minor characters in Tapestry are featured.

8) As of right now, what are you most proud of with your writing?
I'm most proud of a surprise phone call Friday from my publisher, who said they'd gotten a good response from my book appearance at the recent Frankfurt International Book Fair. Consequently, they want to place Tapestry in the major book store chains. I got my first royalty check last month! YAY!!!!