One Foot in the Grave

Death follows me wherever I go.  You might say I've made a career out of it.  So, when Theatre-Hikes needed someone to write their October show, I quickly applied.   I'd worked with Theatre-Hikes before, and I had a sense of how their shows worked.

The task:  adapt five local macabre tales for the "stage."*

The task, part one:  choose those five macabre tales.

Here is some local lore I considered adapting but decided against:

Bachelor's Grove Cemetery

Why?  

Probably the most haunted place in the Chicago area, this place has dozens of little stories of hauntings and mysterious phenomena.  One of those stories is about a disappearing house, and one is about a horse that jumps out of a lake.  Perfect!

Why not?

Special FX budget limited.  Too many little stories; no big throughline to hold onto.

US Airways Flight 191

Why?

In 1979, there was a plane crash just outside of O'Hare followed by mysterious phenomena in the local area, like knocks on doors.

Why not?

Are you scared of knocks on doors?  Also, plane crash.

The Fort Dearborn Massacre

Why?

Important historically.  Gruesome.

Why not?

Important historically.  Gruesome.

The Eastland Disaster

Why?

What a crazy story--a ship capsizing before it even set sail, right here in the Chicago river.  One of the biggest ship disasters in history.

Why not?

I could even add music!

Devil in the White City

Why?

The best-selling book, Devil in the White City, covers the history of Mr HH Holmes, in whose death castle dozens of people were allegedly murdered and disposed of.  There's even a curse following his death, and the "castle" burned down under mysterious circumstances.

Why not?

Oh, Pooh Bear.  Maybe if I add some honey to your tea, you'll be able to sleep tonight.

John Wayne Gacy

I work with kids, damn it.

The Trolley of Death

Why?

Trolley.  Death.

Why not?

I have no idea what happens in this story.  I just like the title.

The Red Lion Pub

Why?

Chicago's most haunted pub.

Why not?

The most famous tale has to do with people fainting in front of a stained glass window.

Inez Clarke

Why?

This story is famous.

Why not?

This story is made up.

Hamlet

Why?

No royalties.

Why not?

No royalties.

Superman

Why?

Flying.  Superpowers.  Romance.  It's got everything.

Why not?

Do we really need another Superman movie?

Nightmare on Elm Street

Why?

It's infamous and was shot locally.  Also, we can probably find a cool Freddy Krueger mask and glove.  I loved those things as a kid.

Why not?

The original was shot in California.  Only the remake was shot around here.

Poltergeist 3

Why?

Poltergeist!

Why not?

3

Home Alone

Why?

This Christmas classic brings everyone  . . . Christmas classic . . . Christmas . . .

Why not?

Ahh!

So what local stories did I pick to adapt?

Resurrected will have its first reading this Monday, July 7 at 6 pm in the Theatre-Hikes rehearsal space.  If you've read this far, consider yourself invited.

Come . . . if you dare.

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* By "stage," I mean "forest."

Represent!

Acting is a lonely profession.

Wait a minute.  No, it's not.  Acting is one of the most social enterprises a person can undertake.  Your job is basically to talk to people.

Unfortunately, by "talk to people" I mean "ask people to help / support / believe / house / feed / represent / tolerate you," and a lot of those people say "no."  Auditions are an obvious example.  Actors, if they're worth their salt, spend a great deal of time standing in front of people they may not even respect, having the way they play pretend^ judged^^ and knowing that after they do so, they will probably be told "no."

Sometimes they don't even get that far.  Sometimes as an actor, people say "no" to even considering you as someone they might say "no" to.  Sometimes people won't even talk to you. When it's really going badly, even Santa's elves tell you to shove off.*

So when you get a "yes," it's truly a splendid turn of events.  Yesterday, I got a "yes" from Ambassador Talent--which means I now have someone who will connect me with hundreds of new people who will mainly say "no" to me.**  I love this job.

Susan and Ed, let's make history together.  Or at least some Empire Carpet commercials.

--------
* Or literally shove you off.
^ Fun!
^^ Not fun!
** Literally, it means that I've signed with a commercial agent.  Two of them, actually.

Remy Bump-who?

Remy Bumppo:*

The theatre community is interested in having a conversation with you.

Wait.

The Chicago theatre community is interested in having an in-depth conversation with you.

Wait.

Oh, bother.  Sorry for all the false starts.  It's just . . . this is my performer half trying to write^, and he's more given to talking than writing.

The truth is, I'd like to talk to you, but I can't.  All you've given me is a mysterious phone number with instructions never to call it except for two hours out of the year (specifically, from 3 to 5 pm last Saturday).  This, as far as I understand, is the only way to reach you other than showing up at your doorstep.^^

The imagination runs wild.  Does the telephone number in your audition notices ring up a disposable cell phone?  Is somebody in a trench coat--a really temporary worker--standing by a pay phone for .02% of the year, filling audition slots with his back turned to the ignorant masses?  Or is it something even bigger and more magical?  Are you the very pinnacle of an itinerant theatre company, disappearing and reappearing at your fickle will like the FOR MADMEN ONLY space in Steppenwolf?**  (If that's the case, can I please sit in on one of your rehearsals?)

The madmen theory makes the most sense.  What is the defining characteristic of madness if not the inability to functionally adapt to the world at large?  People prone to anxiety, for example, devise irrationally specific rules for the way they'll allow others to interact with them.  Isn't this diagnosis accurate in regard to your audition policy, one which expects any interested party to make not you but the possibility of you the #1 priority for two hours of their weekend (or until they get an answer at your tardis)?  One which asks the actors of Chicago to subjugate our rationally-designed, well-balanced schedules to your narcissistic demands?  One which eliminates any working actors who have Saturday afternoon rehearsals from your audition pool?  (I can see why you'd want to exclude actors talented enough to be in shows currently.)

Maybe I sound a little dramatic.  (This is my actor half writing, after all.)  Let's be simpler about the issue:

Your policy, whether intended as such or not, qualifies as a power play.  It saves you the trouble of sorting through headshots and resumes, of replying to emails and mailings, of doing much other than sitting by the phone and waiting for us to genuflect before you.  In short, it makes an already difficult process harder, but not for you--for us.  Life as an actor (here comes the drama again) is hard enough with the adversity we face outside our industry.  So please drop the golden palace act.  You need the groundlings more than they need you.

I've heard nothing but nice things about you from the people who work with you.  But why is it so hard to work with you?

I'd love an answer to that question between 1 and 3 pm tomorrow.

Oh.  You'll be in the middle of auditions at that time?

Damn.  I guess we just missed each other.

------
* (if that is your real name)
^ You should see my writer half try to perform!
**Hey!  That would be a cool name for a theatre company.
^^ Also strictly forbidden.

My Most Famous Work

Look at this!

Those are the top ten posts, by readership, from this very blog.   As you can see, 1,024 people have viewed #1.*  That's more than three times the number that have viewed #2 and fifteen times #10.  And it's not slowing down.  Post #1 is outperforming its colleagues not only overall, but monthly, weekly, and daily.  It gets about 2 hits every day.  It has at least ten times more readers than my first novel and a hundred times more than my next book.  More people have read that blog entry than have seen any of my plays.  That's one winning post.

Now, look at this!

That's the post in question.  Which leads me to ask:

WHO'S READING THIS SHIT?

Excuse me.  What I mean to shout is:

WHO'S READING THIS SHIT OVER AND OVER?!^

I'm up nights over it.  I mean, I've written from time to time a worthwhile post on this blog.  One was recently reposted to several facebook walls.  Another was shared in the comments section of a review in the Chicago Tribune.  If those posts had gotten over a thousand hits, I'd be delighted.  But this shit about chocolate?  What the fuck is going on?  Is someone fucking with me?  Did someone accidentally set that post as their homepage?

It occurs to me that maybe internet users are googling something that brings up my post among the top search results.  To experiment, I googled the following:

"John Michael Manship"
"John Michael Manship blog"
"John Michael Manship naked"
"I will be famous soon"
"Cambridge Street"
"Second City Conservatory"
"Second City Conservatory Manship"
"chocolate"
"Chicago chocolate"
"Chicago chocolate tours"
"porn"
"tits"
"sex and prozac"
"Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"
"reasons I hate chocolate"

The only search term that discovered my stupid blog entry anywhere was the last one.  So I have to ask:

Is someone out there googling "reasons I hate chocolate" and then reading my blog?  If that's the case, then know that my next three blog entries will be called "Peanut Butter Coupons," "Parenting Tips, Pre-Schoolers," and "Two Women Having Loud Crazy Sex."

Don't worry, though.  The content of those blog posts will remain impeccably high quality.  As always.

-----
* 924 of them might have been me.  I'm not sure if I turned that kind of thing off, and sometimes I sleep-surf.
^ Still might be me.

Dear Graduates

Dear Graduates,

I haven’t been asked to give you a speech today, because frankly, who am I?  I’m thirteen years out of a prestigious private university, and everything I have done in my life is in the broadest view completely unimportant.

My BS in psychology is lost.  I literally don’t know where the diploma ended up, nor have I used most of the rote knowledge I gained from earning it.  If you gave me the tests I passed 13 years ago, I would fail them, I think.  If you asked me to write the essays or do the research and projects again, I’d balk at the idea.  If you showed my psychology career on paper to my professors from thirteen years ago, they’d probably balk, too. 

This is not to imply that I’ve done other things with my life.  I haven’t, in fact, done too much in other career fields, either.  Most of my time I’ve spent teaching children, performing, or writing.  I haven’t in this process earned a teaching degree, nor have I ever taught full-time.  I haven’t performed anywhere that more than a half a percent of the population has heard of, and fewer than 200 people have read my writing.

I have backed out of, messed up, and failed at things.  The aforementioned diploma was probably left with my ex-fiancee when I moved out.  I’ve moved five times since then and kissed no fewer than a dozen women, most of whom I hoped would like me.  Like, really like me. 

Professionally, I’ve dropped out of the Second City Conservatory.  I’ve been rejected by theatre companies too small to even register on the Boston scene and not landed roles in student films clearly desperate for actors.  My first and only sketch comedy group stayed together for two years.  That’s more years than we got laughs from an audience.  I have a collection of rejection letters from agents, publishers, and play festivals.  One told me my book was exactly what they were looking for—then they read it.  I have also almost daily chickened out of stand-up comedy. 

So, no one has invited me to speak to you at this important time in your life.  Instead, they’ve probably invited someone wealthy and reputable who may have also attended your university, someone who wants to give back or serve as an example of all that your hard work has set you up to deserve. 

Which of us are you going to trust to advise you on your way forward?

If you’re smart, you’ll choose neither, because neither of us can say with any true certainty what happens for you from this day on.  Neither of us know what your life will be like.  In fact, nobody knows what your life will be like. 

Nobody, for example can predict with any certainty that if you are smart and persistent, you will generally get what you want.  Nobody can promise you that if you get what you want, you will be happier.  It may be the opposite.  Nobody can safely advise you to behave if you want to stay out of trouble.  Good behavior is sometimes rewarded with cruelty if not mild disrespect, and bad behavior may well go unpunished or even rewarded.  People who tell you to be patient are lying to you and maybe to themselves.  There may be absolutely nothing ahead of you, nothing worth waiting for, no light at the end of your tunnel.  You may never see the end of the tunnel.  After all, strictly speaking, nobody can guarantee you that the sun will rise tomorrow.  One day, it won’t.  You may or may not be around for that day.  Nobody knows.     

Probably you will need or want to get a job.  If that’s the case, you will probably have to choose between your financial standing and your personhood.  Most jobs that promise monetary success come from social factions that are in some way exploitative.  Of their employees.  Of their customer or fan base.  Of the poor.  Of the weak.  Of the innocent.  Of the environment.  Of me.  Of you.  I can say with some certainty that you already have and will continue to be asked to support exploitation in your career path.

If you choose instead to go out on your own, to reject the support of any exploitative elements of human culture, then I imagine that most of your projects will fail.  This may not be true.  You may make major financial gains for yourself.  You may achieve recognition, respect, and honor.  These things may bring you great happiness, and swiftly.   

Probably not.  Probably, your ego will be beaten to death by an ever-growing population that doesn’t find you nearly as special as you have been brought up to believe you are.  Consequently, I hope you don’t believe that dreams come true.  Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they don’t.  Often they kind of come true.  Usually they change. 

None of what I just wrote--depressing, uplifting, or otherwise--is certain or reliable.  If there is a logic to the fate of individual humans, it has proven itself for centuries to be well beyond our collective comprehension. 

What, then, can I (the man who has not been invited to speak to you) guarantee you?  If there is no promised connection between your choices and how much freedom, pleasure, and privilege you receive in return, then what is the purpose of making choices at all?    

Hermann Hesse wrote a possible answer into the pages of the iconic novel, Steppenwolf:  

“You have a picture of life within you, a faith, a challenge, and you were ready for deeds and sufferings and sacrifices, and then you became aware by degrees that the world asked no deeds and no sacrifices of you whatever, and that life is no poem of heroism with heroic parts to play and so on, but a comfortable room where people are quite content with eating and drinking, coffee and knitting, cards and wireless.”

In this passage lies a priceless and timeless truth:  that the world needs heroes, and that you, so long as you are in charge of your mental capacities, will have the opportunity to be one.   

It doesn't take much.

You can be heroic in looking at human need when others are looking at their bank accounts.  By responding with patience when met with angst.  By guiding intolerance with the eye of acceptance.    By meeting adversity, whatever form you face, instead of sidestepping it for the sake of convenience.  In the personal truth with which you live your life.  In the forgiveness of self and others. 

Heroism happens in the gaps between moments and is rarely noticed on a wide scale.  But it happens.

There are many people, most of whom will appear or claim to be socially superior to you, who will encourage you to aim your heroic impulses at the immediate and the simple, to build ant hills instead of empires, to undersell yourself because, really, what is heroism going to get you?   You, dear graduates, do not have to listen to those people.  You can throw that idea right back in their face and go on and be heroic anyway.  As a reminder, probably no one will notice your choice or congratulate you.  Your life might suck from a material stand point because you didn’t put yourself on the auction block.  Your ego might ache. 

Sound fun?  There’s a reason people try to turn away from heroism.  And yet, there is also a reason it follows them:  because it is one of the only reliably true things this world has to offer any of us.   

This graduation speech may seem like a pathetic and depressing one.  If it strikes you as such, consider two things.  One, no one asked me to give a graduation speech.  Two, consider a second passage from the same book by the same well-commended author:

“The image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity . . . even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity.  In eternity, there is no posterity. . . It is there that we belong. There is our home.  [And] our only guide is our homesickness."

I hope that you, now that you are no longer away at college, will always feel a little homesick. 

Luke Father, Luke Son

*heavy breathing through mask*

*copyrighted laser sword swing from the darkness*

*parry*

*fight leads onto a barely-explicable bridge*

FATHER: Tell them.  Tell them the truth that you know.  Tell them publicly.

*parry*

*fight resumes*

*SON hits FATHER on shoulder with copyrighted laser sword*

FATHER:  Ahh!

*FATHER cuts off SON's hand*

SON: Ahhhh!

FATHER:  There is no avoiding it.  The truth must be made known.

*Son begins to back away down metal beam*

FATHER:  Why are you fighting with me?

SON:  I'm not.  Not in real life.

FATHER:  Then why here?

SON: Because it's a device.

*FATHER swings copyrighted laser sword*

FATHER: Like this device?

SON:  No.  A literary device.  To engage a reader's attention and present information in an interesting way.

FATHER:  Well, stop it!  Stop fighting me!  Join me.  Together, we can own amazon.com.

SON: I'll never join you.  But I'm only saying that for dramatic effect!

FATHER:  If you'd only publicly announce what you know about me.  If you'd only search your brain and share what you find there with the world!

SON:  I've shared enough.  I've shared that you've read some novels.

FATHER:  NO.  I wrote a novel.

*SON's face gets all scrunchy and weird.*

SON: NO!  That's so unlikely!  It's as unlikely as almost the entire cast of the original Star Wars coming back to do a seventh movie!

FATHER:  That is also going to happen.  It's coming out around Christmas of next year!

SON:  That's not news!  Everyone already knows that!

FATHER:  Then get back to talking about my novel.

SON:  I can't.  I can't utter anything intelligible.  I'm shocked and missing a hand.

FATHER:  Then I will talk.  The ebook of A Journey to Reality is available for only $5 here on amazon.com.

SON:  Amazon?  That's where I bought my worm factory!

FATHER:  Yes.  Yes!

SON:  You can buy a worm factory and an ebook on the same website?  My mind is blown!

FATHER: And you can also get both my book and your book for about 1/10 of the price of a worm factory!

SON: THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

FATHER:  You know it to be true.

Per Procurationem

You've certainly heard the news by now.  The Sovereign Statement, by Bilal Dardai, has been nominated for a 2014 Jeff Award honoring New Work.  In other words, some people* on a committee believe that Bilal's work was one of the five best new plays in Chicago between April 2013 and April 2014.  Those people are correct.

But this blog is not entitled "Bilal Will Be Famous Soon."  Bilal is already kind of famous.  He has 1,218 friends on facebook.^  This blog is about me.  Me me me me me.

Me.

So let's talk about what exactly Bilal did to get nominated for this award.**

First of all, he chose to become a writer, or at least answered his calling.  Then, he wrote a bunch of scripts.  A bunch of scripts.  Then he re-wrote a bunch of scripts.  A bunch of scripts.  Then, he wrote this script, The Sovereign Statement.  Then, he re-wrote this script.  Then, he re-wrote this script.  He re-wrote this script until he felt he had the right English words in the right English order as to convey the images, thoughts, and questions he wanted his audience to consider.

In the end, the play we performed had 24,894 meticulously-chosen words.  And guess what?  341 are my name.  And no.  My name is not "is" or "the."  I'm talking about my last name--Manship--which appears 332 times in the soon-to-be-famous script, alongside 1 use of my first name and 8 uses of a nickname that I'm not at liberty to share on this blog.

That means that my name alone is 1.36% of The Sovereign Statement.  Which means that I am 1.36% of a Jeff-nominated script.  Which means that I am 1.36% Jeff-nominated.

In case anyone's counting.

Now, am I enough of a pompous asshole to presume that my name's presence had anything to do with the impending continued wild success of Bilal's script?  Of course not.^^  I'm just mightily thankful that as Bilal was adding and subtracting words from this little beauty, he never*** edited me out of the thing.

Accordingly, I'd like to give a brief 1.36% nomination-acceptance speech.  It goes like this:

"I'd l . .. "

Music already?

Well, shit.
-----

* Mainly in their 70's from what I can tell
^ He does not, however, have any "like"-rs.
** Hint: It has to do with me.
^^ In the first draft I received, with which Bilal was presumably less satisfied than later drafts, my name appeared only 311 times.
*** Never say never.