Writer Brain, Producer Brain, Nina Brain

Nina Alvarez, writer/producer

Here it is. A bulleted look inside my mind as of early July, 2012. 78 days till showtime. Or what I like to call "a feeble attempt to organize Chaos Brain."

Writer Brain

• I feel a lot of self-imposed responsibility to put on a great production. I hold myself to a high standard and I want everyone involved in this project to be proud of it. That is what is giving me the most anxiety these days.

• In June I was determined to re-write the story to something I really thought was much better. But I am a perfectionist and scared out of my mind that the revised draft still wouldn't be good enough. So scared that I pulled out every writing resource I had.

• Researched for hours a day the real people that my characters are based on. (Discovering that my characters WERE based on real people was half the fun.)

• I was forced to sum up the story BEFORE it was completely written so I could explain it to our logo designer as well as submit the synopsis to Fringe. (Will definitely tell that story in another post) But this this turned out to be a benefit because:

• Using the summaries, visual cues collected for designer, and a sense of unmitigated urgency to understand my story's tone, structure, and theme BEFORE rewriting. (What I used to think was the last resort of uninspired writers but now see has great merits.)

• Rewrote Leo Wool into a new story line. Tighter, better drawn, cleaner structure, less pyrotechnics. GO DEEPER, NOT WIDER was the mantra in my head. Took me at least a month. But I love the new script. And my beta reader loves it. (sending it out to a couple other readers this week)

• Showed the new script to the actor for whom I wrote Leo. He DIDN'T love it. Likes Leo, but thinks the point of the story isn't clear. Not enough exposition and the arguments might be too literary. Agree with most of what he says. Taking what constructive criticism I can and revising this week.

Producer Brain

• Need to run auditions, which means I need a director first.

• Waiting to hear back from potential directors who may want to see the script and direct the play. Starting to realize this part of the process is much harder than I thought. Probably because of the time commitment on the director's part. Thought I would have a lot more opportunities to be choosy, but getting the sinking feeling that with directors you may have to take what you can get.

• Need to cast in enough time to have at least 20 rehearsals, which means we need to run auditions in the next couple weeks and get start very soon after.

• Need to find a place for us to rehearse. Want to rehearse at Writers and Books, where the performances will be, but that will cost us money. Need to pitch them some sort of long-term rental deal and see if they go for it.

• Either way, this is an expense on top of the honorariums I intend to pay my cast and crew, so need to launch a sponsorship/crowdfunding campaign to raise at least $1,500.

• Vacillating between hand-wringing and giving it all up to a higher power. Reminding myself multiple times a week to stay focused on the heart and soul, the vision and energy. Let the right people come to me. The right director will show up. The right actors will show up. As long as I stay focused on the joy. As long as I remember why I am doing this. Love over fear. Again and again and again.

Nina Brain

• I knew that putting on a play would be a huge project, but I'm in that phase where I'm putting hours of work into it every day and still feeling behind.

• Trying to do all this on top of running my editing business, doing a huge pro bono publishing project for a local homeless shelter, and teaching week-long youth writing workshops for the first time. 

• Thank God I have friends who want to help me - and people I didn't even know before stepping forward to help me as well.