The second draft of "Bloody Treason" has a new title, because it has a new focus. Shakespeare is back in the center of his play, where he belongs. The draft has been cut and rebuilt, perhaps 50% of it all new dialogue. One character is gone, just gone. This has been an intense month!

I'll get a chance to hear "Shakespeare and the Heart's Desire" very soon. Mark Graham and I will be having a reading of it next week. I'll post again on how the reading goes and what I've learned from it. Katie Sparer is a towering Queen Elizabeth, and almost took over the play in Draft I! I haven't cut a thing of hers; in fact, I've added a long speech at the end of one scene. But the placement of what she says has solved the problem of over-featuring what is a major but not THE major character of the play.

My actors are wonderful. And Mark Graham has a miraculous eye for placement. If only we had a light grid/and light board. I keep writing my plays as if they are full productions, in a theater with a lots of lighting options. That's how I see the play. Mark can make it work, though, even without the complex lighting I keep on writing into the stage directions.

When it's in full production, though, this play will explode!