breakinglight11 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
breakinglight11) wrote2021-09-01 02:05 pm
breakinglight11) wrote2021-09-01 02:05 pm
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Reflections on 31 Plays in 31 Days 2021
And that’s my tenth year of this silly jaunt. :-) That’s pretty cool.
I didn’t have one particular project I was trying to use the challenge to help me complete, the way I have in recent years. Bernie and I decided we were not going to debut the next Mrs. Hawking play, but instead do a staged version of Gentlemen and a recorded version of the first one, so I was kind of on my own recognizance for what I felt like working on.
The projects I worked on this time:
Dream Machine - 9
Forever Captain - 7
Hawking - 11
Adonis - 4
The characters I included this time:
I usually end up writing about between thirty and forty different characters, so that’s fairly typical. Twenty male to fourteen female, which is skewed more in favor of men than usual. Ryan Dresden and Steve Rogers featured most frequently, with 7 scenes each, followed by Leah Lucchesi at 6, Nathaniel Hawking and Mary Stone at 5, then Aidan, Victoria Hawking, and Clara Hawking at 4. Nathaniel basically always makes it into the top five. While Mrs. Hawking still has the most 31P31D scenes of all time, she’s only in the top ten this year.
Last year I also started to pay attention to the characters who have actors associated with them. Yet again I’m writing a lot of scenes for Eric Cheung, as he plays both Ryan and Justin Hawking, totaling 8. Between Leah and Malaika Shah, that’s 7 for Naomi Ibatsitas, 5 for Christian Krenek as Nathaniel, 5 for Circe Rowan as Mary, 4 for Cari Keebaugh as Mrs. Hawking, 4 for Jackie Freyman as Clara. There’s also some roles I haven’t officially cast but have people I’d love to see as— like Arielle Kaplan as Veronica Dresden, and maybe double cast as Miranda Barrymore as well, which if you total those up with Mrs. Frost comes to 6.
Favorite scenes for this year? Hmm, I was generally pretty happy with what I generated. It’s in need of a lot of polishing, of course, but I feel like I was getting at good ideas in the overall majority of pieces. Occasionally I feel like I am just screwing around wasting page space, but that didn’t really happen this year. But I’m not sure what I thought was really head and shoulders above the rest. I thought there was some real power in #15 - No Regrets. #2 - Sit Up and Beg came out much wittier than I expected it would upon short notice. And even though I don’t even know if I can use #20 - Bannock in whole anywhere, I think it has some real tenderness to it. And #13 - Man Cave came out very clever and funny, actually close to the particular combination of humorous and vulnerable I was going for.
Favorite lines? I liked in #22 - Recon Mom, when Steve asks if Rishun can sneak two little kids past a strike team, her answer of, “Grant. I have two toddlers. Compared to a church or a toy store, this is nothing.” I also thought I was onto something in #30 - Brazen, with Justin’s “With that pink in your cheeks? I think I’d like to see it up to the roots of your hair.” Justin always gets good lines. But honestly the best is probably “They must have passed you around like a wineskin at a wake,” from #26 of the same name. It manages to be snappy, raw, and in the idiom I was going for— a very tricky thing to achieve. Apparently I’m into the naughtiest ones this time!
So, yeah. I’m pretty happy with the result. It didn’t feel hugely burdensome, and I got some nice work out of it. And looking at my chart of ten years solid is really, really satisfying to me.
I didn’t have one particular project I was trying to use the challenge to help me complete, the way I have in recent years. Bernie and I decided we were not going to debut the next Mrs. Hawking play, but instead do a staged version of Gentlemen and a recorded version of the first one, so I was kind of on my own recognizance for what I felt like working on.
The projects I worked on this time:
Dream Machine - 9
Forever Captain - 7
Hawking - 11
Adonis - 4
The characters I included this time:
- Ryan Dresden - 7
- Steve Rogers - 7
- Leah Lucchesi - 6
- Nathaniel Hawking - 5
- Mary Stone - 5
- Aidan - 4
- Clara Hawking - 4
- Victoria Hawking - 4
- Veronica Dresden - 3
- Rishun Hayward - 3
- Meredith Barry - 2
- Cedric Brockton - 2
- Devon Chambers - 2
- Elizabeth Frost - 2
- Tony Stark - 2
- Jeremy Allison - 1
- Zach Barry - 1
- Miranda Barrymore - 1
- Elizabeth Carter - 1
- John Colchester - 1
- Marlon Dresden - 1
- Gan Jhao - 1
- Hamba - 1
- Justin Hawking - 1
- Don Hayward - 1
- Joxer - 1
- Derek Kaplan - 1
- Vivian Newell - 1
- Pavilla - 1
- Ken Rafferty - 1
- Red Tyrus - 1
- Malaika Shah - 1
- Arthur Swann - 1
- Zagora - 1
I usually end up writing about between thirty and forty different characters, so that’s fairly typical. Twenty male to fourteen female, which is skewed more in favor of men than usual. Ryan Dresden and Steve Rogers featured most frequently, with 7 scenes each, followed by Leah Lucchesi at 6, Nathaniel Hawking and Mary Stone at 5, then Aidan, Victoria Hawking, and Clara Hawking at 4. Nathaniel basically always makes it into the top five. While Mrs. Hawking still has the most 31P31D scenes of all time, she’s only in the top ten this year.
Last year I also started to pay attention to the characters who have actors associated with them. Yet again I’m writing a lot of scenes for Eric Cheung, as he plays both Ryan and Justin Hawking, totaling 8. Between Leah and Malaika Shah, that’s 7 for Naomi Ibatsitas, 5 for Christian Krenek as Nathaniel, 5 for Circe Rowan as Mary, 4 for Cari Keebaugh as Mrs. Hawking, 4 for Jackie Freyman as Clara. There’s also some roles I haven’t officially cast but have people I’d love to see as— like Arielle Kaplan as Veronica Dresden, and maybe double cast as Miranda Barrymore as well, which if you total those up with Mrs. Frost comes to 6.
Favorite scenes for this year? Hmm, I was generally pretty happy with what I generated. It’s in need of a lot of polishing, of course, but I feel like I was getting at good ideas in the overall majority of pieces. Occasionally I feel like I am just screwing around wasting page space, but that didn’t really happen this year. But I’m not sure what I thought was really head and shoulders above the rest. I thought there was some real power in #15 - No Regrets. #2 - Sit Up and Beg came out much wittier than I expected it would upon short notice. And even though I don’t even know if I can use #20 - Bannock in whole anywhere, I think it has some real tenderness to it. And #13 - Man Cave came out very clever and funny, actually close to the particular combination of humorous and vulnerable I was going for.
Favorite lines? I liked in #22 - Recon Mom, when Steve asks if Rishun can sneak two little kids past a strike team, her answer of, “Grant. I have two toddlers. Compared to a church or a toy store, this is nothing.” I also thought I was onto something in #30 - Brazen, with Justin’s “With that pink in your cheeks? I think I’d like to see it up to the roots of your hair.” Justin always gets good lines. But honestly the best is probably “They must have passed you around like a wineskin at a wake,” from #26 of the same name. It manages to be snappy, raw, and in the idiom I was going for— a very tricky thing to achieve. Apparently I’m into the naughtiest ones this time!
So, yeah. I’m pretty happy with the result. It didn’t feel hugely burdensome, and I got some nice work out of it. And looking at my chart of ten years solid is really, really satisfying to me.