Last night the reading of Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats went incredibly well. I felt sick for the first twenty minutes and sweated bullets throughout the night, but it was well worth it! Every time I've heard one of my other long plays out loud, I've had huge scary rewrites following… Rewrites that involve taking the entire script apart, and trying to put it back together again. They needed the work, and were better after, but there's something unsettling dismantling your baby and hopes that it'll be better once it's reassembled. This was not the case with my Achilles play. Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats is in a really good place. I have some tweaks for sure, and there's some missing information, and my cheers are nearly all confusing and too wordy… But it's staying in one piece.
I got a great response from everyone also on the center piece of this play. Reading the Iliad, and other texts about Achilles, I feel in love with the love between him and Patroclus. Their love story was an important story for me to tell, and I am so pleased with how well it's working. When Patroclus takes Achilles gear and goes out on the football field in his place, some of my readers were getting really emotional. I'm really proud that I was able to do their relationship justice.
The staged reading of Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats is November 9th! And now that she's heard it aloud and hasn't run for the hills, I can announce that the brilliant and feisty Claire Rice will be directing! This will be a reading not to be missed, put it on your calendar!
Thank you again to all you lovely folks who made it out to read for me in Pacifica, and if you haven't checked out Ann Thomas’ yahoo group Pacifica Table Readers be sure to do so! It was a great evening… And the pie was delicious.