1,000 words

So much has been happening lately, lets just go mostly with the pictures, since I'm short on the 1,000+ words to describe it all.

This is a view from inside the new building at MICA (Maryland Institute College of the Arts) on opening night of the MD Film Festival. Dig the onlooking reflected posters.

Why the inside of MICA? Because of these three gentlemen:

Leon Fleisher, Dr. Daniel Drachman and Nathaniel Kahn - all key players in the making of "Two Hands," which was one of the opening night shorts.

This trip back had happy things: the MD Film Fest and visiting family, like my cousin Emerie, who is doing a rousing job staring in the ensemble of Arena Stage's "The Heidi Chronicles."

And my two sweeties together:

It also had sad things, like the memorial for my beloved theater professor Joe Patenaude.

This is the door to Joe's office at Drew University.

This is some of my fellow theatre arts alumni - notice how they taught half of us to keep our eyes closed for the photograph.

My favorite republican, Gov. Tom Kean & I... The first student show he saw as prez was my first play, "Gaijin." We've had a mutual admiration society going on ever since.

It was healing, though, to walk on the campus again and see the beautiful new Arts building - of which I'm totally jealous (we had to rough it in The Commons, a blackbox, and Bowne, a converted gymnasium).

From Drew's college in the forest, to Baltimore's oddities...

Filling up on the East Coast to last me a while on the West.

Bawlmer Boobs

 

It's nice to get a little blurb in the hometown paper:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/bal-to.twohands26jan26,0,5445580.story?coll=bal-artslife-movies

I've now worked on 2 films (The Diversion & Two Hands) in my birthplace, Baltimore, MD, and I'd like nothing more than to shoot my latest feature script "To Do:" there. It's Bawlmer to the core, hon. Set in Roland Park (Anne Tyler country), @ Friends School (my alma mater), Johns Hopkins (my father's long-time workplace), Harbor Place (which was inaugurated on my 10th birthday), O'Brycki's (bang-bang crabs of choice), The Lacrosse Hall of Fame (Ravens, who?), the Visionary Arts Museum (overlooking the Inner/Outer Harbor with inspiration from within), and a whole host of Baltimorons (my favorite geographical designation), complete with a custom-created role for Charm City native John Astin.

Odd/ironic that I had to move all the way across the country to try and get this film made. Folks at the OutFest Screenwriters Lab this summer convinced me that L.A. was the place to be to get this project off the ground, so here I am. Now all I need is $1 million to get everything/everyone else in place. The trick? Funding a romantic dramedy staring relative unknowns. Oh, and the lead character's dying of breast cancer. And they're lesbians. Piece of cake, right?

I guess I have Baltimore and breasts on the brain today. First the Sun article, then my very first mammogram. I count it as good preventive medicine and great research for the script. Nothing says commitment to my writing like having my boobs smashed in between 2 panes of glass. Definitely suffering for my art, here...

ouch!