Journal Entry #1 for THE PRENUP by Charles Gershman

I'm very excited about our upcoming Strawberry One-Act Festival, which will be presented at the Hudson Guild Theatre from July 28th - August 7, 2011.  In preparation of the festival I've asked the playwrights to keep a Journal of the process to share with our readers.  I think it will be very rewarding to learn about the process and the journey the artists take to getting their play performance ready for the festival.  I hope that you will join us on that journey.  Share your thoughts.  And if you're in town you can also check out screening of The Video Diaries Project on Monday, July 18th at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, 2 Avenue of the Americas at 6:30pm or Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at Time Warner Headquarters, Entrance on 58th St. between Columbus Circle and 9th Avenue.  For tickets go to www.therianttheatre.com

Here's Journal Entry #1 for The Prenup by Charles Gershman.

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Thursday, June 30, 10:30 am

So. This is the beginning. Finally, we have our cast all set. After seeing more than 45 people audition, we’ve got Sergio Castillo on board in the role of Patrick, Jessica DiGiovanni as Elyse, and George Ridgeway as Mr. Alberts. Jim Fagan (the director) and I couldn’t be more excited. Monday night (6/27) we had our first rehearsal at Roy Arias studios, in a room about the size of a closet. We made introductions, signed contracts, reviewed our schedule, and read through the script. Jim, whose discussion-prompting skills are better than those of many TAs I had in college, led us brilliantly through some textual issues.

I feel particularly blessed, not just to be in this festival, but to be working with a director who’s got not only vision and experience, but has a wonderful way with people. He makes everyone feel comfortable and is utterly respectful of everyone’s work, which is simply awesome.

In the days ahead we hope to secure a stage manager (Jim’s interviewing someone today), and we’ve also talked about including live music in the performance, which would be super-fun. To help deflect costs, we may hold a fundraiser.

Enough rambling for now. The short story is that while there’s a lot ahead of us in the coming month, we’re off to a good start. I’ll be posting new updates periodically throughout the process -- so, more to come soon. Thanks for reading.

Until the next post,

Charles Gershman
Playwright/Producer