The first time I did this, I got a lively case of the hots for one of the actresses in my cast, pursued her with an uncharacteristic boldness while I was still in the early stages of re-assembling my heart after a breakup, and ended up getting embarrassed, ignored, and punched in the groin. Ah, the Theatrical Life.

I’m taking an early bedtime tonight, and have downloaded the sound-mixer Audacity for my laptop. The last time, with my old laptop that was a glorified word processor/porn storage device, I lost two hours driving back and forth to Orange County to mix and burn the music and sound cues on my home desktop. When you only have eleven hours to stage a play soup-to-nuts, you cannot just go giving away two hours to LA traffic. I remember almost crying from the CDs not playing in regular CD players, calling to push back my tech rehearsal so I could give it one more shot, and barely making it in time to smuggle the final working versions to the sound operator before tech period closed.

I keep doing these little quick-hitter jobs, and they do scratch the itch; but they also serve to remind me how long it’s been since I got involved in something bigger. I can’t remember any point in my life when this close to 100% of my creative energy was going solely into writing. Maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s going to drive me mad soon. I do know I jumped at this opportunity, and I anticipate enjoying it. I also anticipate you won’t hear much from me Sunday, while I recover.

The students are all running around rehearsing the tech schedule for the shows tonight; walking through lighting changes and furniture moves, last-minute costume approvals, vocal exercises. I have had a big grin on my face ever since I got here; this place is a home to me, and that feeling took me the moment I walked back through the doors. The students are different people but the same types I knew – passionate and determined and still not-quite-formed, awkwardly brilliant and beautiful.

I don’t have any job to do today but plant my ass in the seat with the “Reserved” sign on it, but I am absorbing this hectic electric urgency happening all around me. There’s a show about to happen. Only hours to go.

The last time I visited Bradley was almost seven years ago. The school has always wanted me to come back, and I’ve always wanted to go, but between money, time, and needing a good enough reason to commit the first two things, it never quite happened. Now, to get to see a few scripts of mine on their feet, and talk with this generation of theatre students, and reminisce, and hopefully even coax a few fellow alums down from Chicago for some ol’ times kinds of fun…that all adds up pretty nicely.

And if I happen to pop into a couple of classes to say a few words, and if they happen to cough up a small check, that would make it add up even better. Good luck to that in today’s economy, but I’ll hope.

The second was more difficult. Certainly that many years provides more than adequate emotional distance for re-writing; unfortunately it created more than a little inertia. As in – “the play has existed for this long like this, why should it not stay like that?” This also grows out of the undeniable truth that I was a far worse writer back then, and the script was weak and limp in more than one place. Too many places to salvage in one night? Very possible.

But I have become nothing if not deft. Once I identified the most egregious problem, there was no hesitation; I knew exactly what to scalpel out and replace, and didn’t miss the excised material in the slightest. It is not great now, no, it was not going to be that; but it is…presentable.

Tonight was all the time I had left to generate a third script for tomorrow’s deadline. I came home with an idea and a half-page of scrawled notes. Now after a couple of hours of work/procrastination, I have a half a script. It feels like good stuff – well, it feels consistent to the oddness of my idea. The beauty of the 10-minute play is, since you have far less time in which to wear out your welcome, you can pursue peculiar impulses in bite-sized form. Just throw it up there and see if it plays.

But I think this is all I’ve got for tonight, and I can go to bed satisfied. I think I can make this deliverable with enough time. I might just have to sneak in a few moments to finish tomorrow morning.