“I stand, revealed at last.”

What began with the birth of a god is not yet finished. The debt has not been paid; the Gods themselves are still owed.

“Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know’st it not,/ And all unwitting art a double foe/ To thine own kin, the living and the dead;/ Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire/ One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword,/ Beyond our borders, and the eyes of that now/ See clear shall henceforward endless night.”

The next play in my Thebes cycle is on its way. Look for readings in your neighborhood this spring and fall.

In other news of the strange and wonderful, I spent the weekend of May 5 trodding the cobblestones of my past.

My alma mater, Knox College, invited me back to judge their annual student playwriting award. I got to talk big and present some of my work. It was pretty cool. But the best part was that I got to meet with 11 of the 12 entrants–30 minute 1-on-1 classes basically, and it was just so exciting to be working as a teacher again, talking with these young writers about what we do and how we can do it better. I said it to the profs beforehand, and I meant it: it was no easy task picking the winners. Congrats to all. I hope I get to go back sooner rather than later.

View pics of the event here.

AthroughZ has started releasing behind the scenes interviews with some of the actors in Down in the face of God.

Here’s Christina Jun, who plays Ora, the only girl in town who’s in her 20s because the gods keep her alive in order to have their way with her every night.

And here’s Matt Harbert, who plays Ham, the enforcer and last supplicant to RE, the God of War.

Hey all (if there’s anyone still out there),

I am in the process of trying to get the webpage up to date. If you check the 12/12 Experiment postscript, you’ll get the more recent and comprehensive description of what’s been going on. 2010’s been a productive year and will hopefully lead to an exciting and fruitful 2011.

Thanks for staying in touch and supporting the work.

Be well,

Tim

I wanted to write something about the fact that we started rehearsal this week and it’s going very well and it’s always a joy to see the characters you’ve written alive and breathing before you. And all that’s true and it’s great as well. And I don’t want to get my high horse atop a soap box but I sat down to write this entry and, of course, before I do anything else at the computer I check my email and there’s an email in there from my director, Niegel Smith, and it’s just a headline and a link from the Times: 

“Chechen Rights Campaigner Is Killed” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/world/europe/16chechnya.html)

So now this is what I’m writing about, because it’s the thing my play deals with. You haven’t seen it yet so I’ll fill you in. Terroristrevolves around the 2002 Moscow Theatre Hostage Crisis. In case you don’t remember, this was the seizing of a Moscow theater and everyone inside by about 40 Chechen guerillas, half of whom were women with bomb belts strapped to them. They were demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya or they would blow up the theater and everyone inside it. I started off writing a play that was basically a dramatization of the theater crisis; but as I continued to find my way into it, the thing I became obsessed with was Chechnya and what was going on there and the people caught up in the struggle. I followed it in the news whenever stories would crop up, I started reading the writings of Anna Politkovskaya–one of the few journalists who was actually reporting on what was going on in Chechnya and who was assassinated in 2006 for pissing off the wrong people one too many times. The more I tried to turn all this into the play the more I lost hope about my being able to do so. And the more I thought about it the more stupid I found the whole endeavor. “If you really want to make something happen,” I’d tell myself, “You should actually get out there and start working as an activist.”

Well, I didn’t do that either. I found a way to write the play. I ended up taking a cue from Anna P. who focused her stories not so much on the politics behind what was happening in Chechnya but on the personal stories of the people whose lives were caught up in the conflict. The result is a play I’m pretty happy with. I don’t know if it has the ability to “make a difference.” My best hope is that it gets people interested in Chechnya and asking questions both about what’s going on there and why no one is really doing anything about it. So it’s this constant back and forth for me. Being in the play, and being in the real world, back to the play, but don’t forget what’s actually going on. 

Anyhow, I thought I’d share some of my research, a documentary made by BBC4 that does a great job of explaining what’s been going on in Chechnya: http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/chechnya_the_dirty_war.php

We open in 2 weeks. Fingers crossed.