Story of the Eye, Chapter Two from Tommy Smith on Vimeo.

Warning: Graphic.

(See Chapter One info for project details.)

Story of the Eye, Chapter One. from Tommy Smith on Vimeo.

I’m developing Georges Bataille’s “Story of the Eye” (1928) into an operatic play. Here is Chapter One.

Linguistically, the book is kind of a dare: Bataille keeps pushing offensive images in front of the reader to make him/her squirm. By reading it aloud, I’m trying to overcome my knee-jerk squeamishness to access the deeper themes running through the material.

Warning: VERY graphic language/situations/symbology.

For more info on Bataille:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Bataille
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Blogging is tough. It requires dedication and time.  And, lately, we’ve been short on time.  In addition to board meetings and grant writing, we’ve been casting two readings.  Readings baffle us.  Producing a reading is a pain, but casting a reading is the worst. 

We’ve come up with a haiku, celebrating the hard work and tenacity of the two casting directors who have been working on these readings (The Wife by Tommy Smith, directed by May Adrales; Mother Earth by Andy Bragen, directed by Jackson Gay).  Really, the following haiku is dedicated to all casting directors who, as far as we’re concerned, are the unsung heroes of this business:

Angie, Gwyneth, Reese,
Emma, Meryl, Cate and Madge —  
They do theater, no?

Some theater sites (this one and this one) have picked up the news about Tommy, which is nice (even our favorite picked it up). And this one. Just kidding. One day maybe. A girl can dream.

After almost eight months, we have finally reached a decision and have chosen Tommy Smith as the 2008 P73 Playwriting Fellow.  It was really tough - we received some pretty amazing applications this year.  We were pulling out our (collective) hair, trying to pick our fellow for next year. 

But the collective hair-pulling was worthwhile.  Tommy’s fantastic and we can’t wait to work with him on his play The Wife, a comedy about a Hasidic Jewish wife who falls in with some pretty sketchy characters.  Because Renee Zellweger gave such a memorably nuanced performance in A Price Above Rubies* as a Hasidic Jewish wife (we’re not making this up), we’re going to try to get her to tackle the wife in Tommy’s play.  She’s going to be wonderful.  We only hope that Tommy agrees with this  coup de casting.  I mean, seriously, who is more Jewish than Renee Zellweger.

* The movie’s tagline? ”In a world of rules… one woman is ruled by her passion.”  And it wasn’t even on Lifetime.

Interplay. Townsville, Australia.  Wouldn’t it be nice to workshop one’s play here all the time?

Interplay. Townsville, Australia.