Dainty Cadaver Director Postmortem: John Hurley

Rounding out our stellar roster of directors is John Hurley, artistic director of Impetuous Theater Group, whose work I first got to know with last year’s Saturday Night Saloon run of Crystal Skillman’s HACK!: An I.T. Spaghetti Western and then, in short order, Impetuous and The Brick’s production of Crystal’s NYIT Award-winning The Vigil or the Guided Cradle. The humor, sharpness and adventurousness of John’s work in those pieces was translated in full effect to the Dainty Cadaver Team C production of This Is a Brick. This was surely the most avant-garde of the three finished plays, and he totally rocked it. Read on to find out how!

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What projects have you worked on in the past that have prepared you for the speed and strangeness of the Dainty Cadaver process?
I think directing any sort of 'downtown' theatre in this city is a little like operating in an ER during a black-out (but in this case we did it on purpose!). "The Vampire Cowboys' Saloon" helped me get addicted to the speed, but nothing prepared me for the 'strange' (though Jeff tried).

You all found amazing casts who seemed game for anything and completely keyed into the concept behind the project. What’s the secret?
I thought Jordi's answer to this was great (like all her answers) so almost want to say "dito", but... in addition I'll point out the sappy answer-- "trust"--not just actors trusting the director-- but! the all important Director trusting the Actors-- trusting them enough to let them be a heavy part of the creation of the work (even if it's just watching for their impulses and not allowing the actors to censor themselves). I think when actors feel ownership of the work-- they fight for it (even if it's weird). Unfortunately, I tend to just tell actors what to do and then throw fits and sob (which works remarkably well thanks to their empathetic nature!!!). But the prior answer is what I say in public.

What was the biggest surprise you encountered when reading the script for the first time?
The characters kept getting killed off!

What was the biggest challenge you faced when you actually started to stage the plays?
The disjointed structure.

Did you go into the process with any sort of overarching interpretation of what the story and action of the play were about, or did you just let the chips fall where they would?
Yes, (oddly enough) even though most of the pieces had nothing to do with one another-- that (in and of itself) became the "interpretation," or maybe that's just my justification but the wonderful thing about "art" is that no one will ever know (except of course if you read the next answer... drat!).

On a similar note, how aware were you of the individual voices of the writers while you were directing – did knowledge that the script was penned by six different writers affect the staging and performance style?
It gave me permission to have stylistic disunity, and it felt appropriate to alter the 'voice' of each scene as the author's voices changed, but... I didn't keep that as a pure 'concept' (which would have been more academic than anything else). For example, the last two scenes were the only ones (of the six) which used the same characters and setting-- the first of which had a dramatic tone, and the second a comedic. I had altered the tone/tempo of each of the first four pieces, but treated the final two as one tone, one tempo. I think I did a disservice to Mr Comtois' writing in doing so (as I turned his drama into melodrama), but it (for a variety of reasons) was what the evening (as a whole) needed (with all apologies to James). So... the answer is that it made me feel guilty.

If you received the unlikely news that we’d be bringing your Dainty Cadaver script to Broadway or BAM, what would be the biggest budget item you’d want to spring for?
I had to cut the blood f/x out of the show (because of time constraints). I would want blood. I would want a lake of blood (and perhaps a small boat to sail in it when the show's over).

Which dead or super-famous playwright would you most like to include in a future Dainty Cadaver?
Lillian Hellman (as a joke answer). Nikolai Gogol would be fun.

What changes or innovations would you suggest for future iterations of the Dainty Cadaver? Do you think the writers or directors should be given any additional kind of formal restraint?
No, I think it's the unstructured nature of it which makes it fun.

What’s next on the docket for you?
I'm directing something Crystal Skillman has yet to write for "NY Madness" in a few weeks (wait! this sounds like... what!?!?). Impetuous Theater Group is planning on producing Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens by Johnna Adams at some point in 2011 (which is as awesome and epic as it's title!).

Anything you want to add that wasn’t accounted for in these questions? It never ceases to amaze me how much organization it takes to produce chaos (if you want the real quality stuff). I tip my hat to Piper McKenzie (in general) and Jeff Lewonczyk (in detail) for a wild, fun, stressful, and rewarding festival. Thanks!

Dainty Cadaver Director Postmortem: Hope Cartelli

Well, it’s going to be hard for me to write an intro for Hope Cartelli, seeing as how she’s my wife, my creative partner of 13 years and the mother of my impending child. Maybe I’ll just say that she’s the co-Artistic Director of Piper McKenzie, that she’s directed some of our hit shows – most recently Bethlehem or Bust and Jeannine’s Abortion – and that she’s acted in pretty much all the rest. And she directed Dainty Cadaver, Team B. Did I miss anything, honey?

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What projects have you worked on in the past that have prepared you for the speed and strangeness of the Dainty Cadaver process?
Without a doubt, it's my participation as actor, director and producer in the Vampire Cowboys Saloon lo these past four years with Piper McKenzie and, this past season, playwright Crystal Skillman, that most prepared me for the whirlwind timing. Also talking/scheming over numerous brunches and glasses of wine and middle-of-the-workday Gchats with Jeff about how he wanted to try to do this crazy-ass thing.

You all found amazing casts who seemed game for anything and completely keyed into the concept behind the project. What’s the secret?
Promise free donuts and coffee and chocolate for rehearsals. Really though, I've just been damn lucky to constantly find actors who are very open to such projects over the years. I enjoy selling actors on the role I have them in mind for too - it helps me even more clearly define the character for myself. Also, stressing the parameters of such a project up front (the amount of time we were going to have - which can be a great selling point as, hey, it's only a week! - the resources available, and advertising the want to keep things fun and open for everyone involved) definitely helped.

What was the biggest surprise you encountered when reading the script for the first time?
How quickly the conceit that this was all taking place in 1993 was lost over the course of the script. Coming in a close 2nd: how the final scene reduced the cast list to just three characters out of what had previously grown to be 13 people. Oh, yeah, and the fact that the rules are changed completely by a character named The Blue Fairy right smack dab in the middle. Can I pick three biggest surprises?

What was the biggest challenge you faced when you actually started to stage the plays?
Scheduling 11 actors! And striving to present the six scenes somewhat seamlessly in the end - a repeated compliment the end product received from numerous audience members was that they weren't sure where one writer ended and the next started for large swaths of the piece and how enjoyable that made the whole affair.

Did you go into the process with any sort of overarching interpretation of what the story and action of the play were about, or did you just let the chips fall where they would?
The actors and I just let the script guide us and made decisions as questions came up. We were willing to entertain the incongruities and just let the piece evolve from a thriller into a sort of magical realism. It didn't hurt one little bit that the final playwright, Qui Nguyen, gave us the best out ever to explain what the audience just sat through: time travel. Works every time.

On a similar note, how aware were you of the individual voices of the writers while you were directing – did knowledge that the script was penned by six different writers affect the staging and performance style?
I know all of Team B's writers and that knowledge definitely informed how certain scenes were handled. For instance, it was very apparent to me that Matt Freeman's scene, featuring a couple who is brought back to life after being shot in the head, needed to play out as a typical lovers' spat if his (typically awesome) brand of comedy was going to play just right - it couldn't be labored or overly dramatic. But, for all the different places the script went, the writers stayed pretty damn true to the characters throughout, even though those characters were sometimes very different stylistically from each other: Dragnet cops and grungy teens and fairy tale mothers and Jersey truck drivers turned British time travelers. Yep.

If you received the unlikely news that we’d be bringing your Dainty Cadaver script to Broadway or BAM, what would be the biggest budget item you’d want to spring for?
I need the time machine from the final scene to be amazing and real - the fearless time traveler, Al, his "daughter", Lindsay, and the cop, Dellogrosso, need to lift off over the audience in their machine and hover there and then the finale could feature the three of them along with the rest of the characters from the show plus people and creatures from across time singing "Seasons of Love": FDR, Don Mattingly, any dinosaur, the Marx Brothers, St. Joan, Betty White, a Viking, etc.

Which dead or super-famous playwright would you most like to include in a future Dainty Cadaver?
Paying homage to my own Piper McKenzie, it would most certainly have to be Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz.

What changes or innovations would you suggest for future iterations of the Dainty Cadaver? Do you think the writers or directors should be given any additional kind of formal restraint?
I wouldn't change a thing. I realize I got to see a bit more of the process than a lot of the folks involved, but the rules as they were this time around really encouraged the writers to balance continuing the play with putting their own stamp on it, and let the directors and their actors find their own ways through the scripts. It made things challenging and exciting and just plain fun.

What’s next on the docket for you?
First, I get back to a bit of the ol' acting for Trav S.D. in his newest production at LaMaMa in March. Then I'm supposed to, like, chill out and have a baby in mid-April. At least that's what my midwife tells me.

Anything you want to add that wasn’t accounted for in these questions?
We're already figuring out Dainty Cadaver II, Electric Boogaloo. Keep your ear to the ground for more info on that. And thank you again to all who participated in this first one! ROCK.

Dainty Cadaver Director Postmortem: Jordana Williams

Thank you to one and all who attended Piper McKenzie’s Dainty Cadaver! As you may have seen if you attended or read about it on Facebook or whatever, the entire project was a smashing success. However, if you were following this blog, you realize that I didn’t profile the directors of the three teams’ projects. The truth is that their contributions to the project were immense – there wouldn’t have been performances without them, after all – and I wanted to profile them AFTER their work was finished, when they’d had a moment to reflect on the process and the final results.

First up is Jordana Williams, who did wonderful work on Team A’s script, which was eventually called Soul Piper. Jordana is one of the minds behind Gideon Productions, and I actually first saw (and was knocked to the floor by) her work on Mac Rogers’ amazing play Viral. I’ve since gone on to admire her work in two very different Mac-penned Saturday Night Saloon pieces, Mother Sacramento and Control Room. Take it away, Jordana!

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What projects have you worked on in the past that have prepared you for the speed and strangeness of the Dainty Cadaver process?
The 24-Hour Plays and the Vampire Cowboys' Saturday Night Saloon were the best prep for the speed. I've certainly done projects of comparable strangeness, but having the tone and circumstances change midstream was a new challenge.

You all found amazing casts who seemed game for anything and completely keyed into the concept behind the project. What’s the secret?
I guess the secret is sticking around long enough that you know enough amazing actors never to have to work with anyone jerky. I've also learned not to try too hard to talk anybody into doing a project. If someone begins a process grudgingly, that can really bring things down for everyone. Not that people don't come around sometimes, but you can't count on it.

What was the biggest surprise you encountered when reading the script for the first time?
How much sense it made overall. I was expecting way worse!

What was the biggest challenge you faced when you actually started to stage the plays?
Hmm... probably "A PARASITE emerges from DOCTOR FLETCHER’s face. "

Did you go into the process with any sort of overarching interpretation of what the story and action of the play were about, or did you just let the chips fall where they would?
I think I went in with a pretty strong sense of who the characters were and what many of the moments should be, but not much else. There were some thematic through-lines and a bunch of things that almost added up but not quite. Usually I'm pretty rigorous about creating a consistent world that coheres to its own internal logic, but for this project I got kind of jazzed about abandoning those concerns and seeing what the process became in their absence. Basically, in my mind, these characters existed in a world where the ground shifted beneath them on occasion, forcing them to rediscover their footing, reset their expectations and, in some cases, totally redefine themselves. The real trick was how quickly and completely the actors could immerse themselves in the various new paradigms, and I was knocked out by their facility and commitment.

On a similar note, how aware were you of the individual voices of the writers while you were directing – did knowledge that the script was penned by six different writers affect the staging and performance style?
Team A's writers made some valiant attempts to continue with what they were given, so the transitions were often less abrupt than they might have been. In a couple of cases, it seemed more like a writer's voice took over midway through their scene, which was neat. Having six different writers primarily affected the staging and performance style in that it felt like a permission slip to mix things up a bit – to go whole hog with a style element for a while and then abandon it entirely a few pages later, which felt kind of transgressive and really fun.

If you received the unlikely news that we’d be bringing your Dainty Cadaver script to Broadway or BAM, what would be the biggest budget item you’d want to spring for?
I actually really dug the low-fi nature of the production, because this process felt very much about showing the seams. I went kind of purposefully crappy with a bunch of the props and effects - even more so than was necessitated by time and budgetary limits - because it felt right. I wanted to see how truthfully and powerfully we could play these moments when, for instance, you've got a guy talking to a bright green sock puppet inches from his face.

On the other hand, it would be really frickin' cool to have the entire set transform into a full-on spaceship for the last 15 minutes of the play.

Which dead or super-famous playwright would you most like to include in a future Dainty Cadaver?
Maurice Maeterlinck (that one's for Mac).

What changes or innovations would you suggest for future iterations of the Dainty Cadaver? Do you think the writers or directors should be given any additional kind of formal restraint?
I was really kind of blown away by how well it worked.

What’s next on the docket for you?
We're making some decisions about what to do in the next few months and starting development of Mac Rogers' alien invasion trilogy, The Honeycomb. But I'm also going to take a little time off. My house is a damn mess and my kids are covered in something sticky.

Anything you want to add that wasn’t accounted for in these questions?
Oh, I feel like I've blathered on plenty. But I really am grateful that you guys brought me on to direct one of these crazy plays. It was a ridiculous amount of fun and I actually learned a lot too!

Dainty Cadaver: A Salute to Our Incapacitated Comrades

Tonight is the Night of the Century! Team A’s Dainty Cadaver is performed LIVE – ON STAGE – with Teams B and C to follow over the coming days. I have posted all the Mad-Libs interviews that I have in my possession, but I would like to take a moment to honor those playwrights who, for a diversity of reasons – bad weeks at the day job, home Internet connection failures, just generally having genuinely better things to do – have been unable to participate. Here are a few words for each:

Maggie Cino was seriously one of the first people Piper McKenzie met when moving to NYC in 1999. Hope encountered Maggie at a FringeNYC photo shoot for the now-defunct Flatiron Magazine – a shoot that, prophetically, also featured Brick co-founder Robert Honeywell and Brick/PMcK stalwart Richard Harrington among its ranks. Then we, like, hung out and went to each other’s shows and stuff. She’s worked with us as a performer in such shows as Babylon Babylon and Willy Nilly, and I even wrote a profile for Nytheatre.com about how swell I think she is. Now she’s writing for us as part of Team C!

If any playwright I know has forged the way for a middle ground between literate sophistication on the one hand and balls-out whup-ass on the other, it’s Qui Nguyen. His work as a playwright with Vampire Cowboys is galaxy-renowned; his work as a fight director has graced PMcK shows such as Macbeth Without Words and Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury; and his moxie as a producer of the Saturday Night Saloon put our immortal creations Lady Cryptozoologist and Killer High on the map. Now, we offer him the chance to discipline Team B with his blade of steel.

Playwright, blogger, visual artist – Carolyn Raship is a woman of many talents, all of which are tied up in the package of one single kick-ass lady. The Brick has seen her theater work through her contribution to the Baby Jesus One-Act Jubilee and a benefit performance of her play Antarctica, which, when you think about it, has an uncanny amount of overlap with the themes and concerns of PMcK. Support our sister-in-arms – by visiting her blog, Caviglia’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and by clapping for her words as part of Team B!

So yes, Mac Rogers has written fascinating, critically acclaimed plays such as Viral and Hail Satan, produced by his home company, Gideon Productions. He’s also an actor of great notoriety, what with his prostitute-killing turn in Nosedive Productions’ Adventures of Nervous-Boy and other noted theatrical outings. But does any of that really matter here? (shuffles through note-cards) Oh. Yes, it does. Mac is the only Dainty Cadaver playwright who is actually performing in his own work – which gives him the unfair advantage of being able to rewrite his lines on the sly, but such are the vagaries of independent theater production. Come see Team A tonight and try to trip him up!

As for me, well, you’ve heard enough about me this week. I’m a Team A playwright. I produced this damn thing. Come see it. Thanks!

Visions of Dainty Cadavers Dancing in Their Heads...

I attended Team A's tech rehearsal that night, and, in addition to become greatly excited about seeing the performance staged tonight, I managed to snap a few crappy photos! (I am full of quaint and unexpected talents, but photography is not among them.) Of the 80 or so I took, exactly three are usable. And here they are!

Rebecca Comtois, late of Bethlehem or Bust, dressed as a chef. Holding a hammer.


Dainty Cadaver playwrights Mac Rogers and James Comtois, both of whom are performing in Team A. I have no idea who looks more confused.

Jennifer Gordon Thomas and Sean Williams play a scene. That's a steering wheel she's holding. ... OR IS IT???...

Dainty Cadaver To Be Published!

Exciting news! Piper McKenzie's Dainty Cadaver is going to be published by Midway Journal in February! Now, even if you're not able to make it to his weekend's shows - or even if you can, and you're like, WTF does that script even LOOK like - you can pore over every word of these remarkable collaborations in the comfort of your own living room, massage parlor or casino-top penthouse-cum-secret-rocket. Relive the memories! Create new ones! Celebrate life! You can check out the current issue of Midway here. For those of us too lazy to click through to another website, here are a few words describing what Midway's all about:

Just off of I-94 and on the border between St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Midway, like any other state fairgrounds, is alive with a mix of energies and people. Its position as mid-way, as a place of boundary crossing, also reflects our vision for this journal. The work here complicates and questions the boundaries of genre, binary, and aesthetic. It offers surprises and ways of re-seeing, re-thinking, and re-feeling: a veritable banquet of literary fare. Which is why, in each new issue, we are honored to present work by both new and established writers alike.

We are looking to act not only as a bridge between aesthetics (and maybe even coasts) but we are looking to create a sense of place as well. And like any good fair, place is a relative term as the contents and attractions change frequently. So, if you’ve come here seeking the traditional quarterly magazine, well, you’ve come to the wrong place.

So get ready for the excitement - and thank you, Midway, for supporting this strange effort! There will be further updates when the journal is published - in the meantime, do you have your tickets yet for Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday???

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: Rich Lovejoy

Rich Lovejoy has his finger in a number of different pies. I first knew his work as an actor (via Eric Bland’s Death at Film Forum), and then directed him myself in our production of Trav S.D.’s Willy Nilly: A Musical Exploitation of the Most Far-Out Cult Murders of the Psychedelic Era. Then I find out about this whole writer thing, with his work on standout Brick shows Adventure Quest and A Brief History of Murder. He’s also an impresario, a filmmaker, a burlesque performer, and the Most Holy Incarnation of the Messiah for a smallish cult of agrarian-utopian anarchists based in rural Idaho. Team C cannot do without him.

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If I could rewrite the ending to any play it would be Caligula because someone (other than Chairhead) needs to get that elusive fucking moon.

No one’s gonna stop me from doing whatever it is I do in my spare time when I'm anywhere really.

When I first read the Dainty Cadaver scene that came before mine, my initial reaction was "This calls for straightforward naturalism!" Then, I thought "or maybe not." Finally, I enjoyed a sandwich.

The song I listened to most/had in my head while writing my scene was 4'33.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget to floss, for dental hygiene is vital.”

Before I had Piper McKenzie in my life, I was a hollow shell of a human being. Now I am a hollow shell.

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be the power to vomit live fire ants when lonely.

Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying boobies.

The first play I ever wrote was indulgent. After that I indulged.

If I were to finish this sentence it would be largely miraculous due to my desire to just keep fucking going on and on forever as though I have something important to say and that I have to say it using as many words as possible and repeating as much information as necessary to draw the point I'm trying to make out for as long as possible and far longer then is humanly decent because really I could just go on forever and it is only by happy accident (usually in the form of a well placed shiney object) that I even consider stopping once I've started to blather about incessently about things which really couldn't interest anyone unless they were interested in cool things like radios, board games, death and other topics which include food, basbeall and bolagna but certainly not anything that Praust ever wrote about when he said "Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet who one day was feasted at every table, applauded in every theatre in London, and on the next was driven from every lodging, unable to find a pillow upon which to lay his head, turning the mill like Samson and saying like him: "The two sexes shall die, each in a place apart!"; excluded even, save on the days of general disaster when the majority rally round the victim as the Jews rallied round Dreyfus, from the sympathy--at times from the society--of their fellows, in whom they inspire only disgust at seeing themselves as they are, portrayed in a mirror which, ceasing to flatter them, accentuates every blemish that they have refused to observe in themselves, and makes them understand that what they have been calling their love (a thing to which, playing upon the word, they have by association annexed all that poetry, painting, music, chivalry, asceticism have contrived to add to love) springs not from an ideal of beauty which they have chosen but from an incurable malady; like the Jews again (save some who will associate only with others of their race and have always on their lips ritual words and consecrated pleasantries), shunning one another, seeking out those who are most directly their opposite, who do not desire their company, pardoning their rebuffs, moved to ecstasy by their condescension; but also brought into the company of their own kind by the ostracism that strikes them, the opprobrium under which they have fallen, having finally been invested, by a persecution similar to that of Israel, with the physical and moral characteristics of a race, sometimes beautiful, often hideous, finding (in spite of all the mockery with which he who, more closely blended with, better assimilated to the opposing race, is relatively, in appearance, the least inverted, heaps upon him who has remained more so) a relief in frequenting the society of their kind, and even some corroboration of their own life, so much so that, while steadfastly denying that they are a race (the name of which is the vilest of insults), those who succeed in concealing the fact that they belong to it they readily unmask, with a view less to injuring them, though they have no scruple about that, than to excusing themselves; and, going in search (as a doctor seeks cases of appendicitis) of cases of inversion in history, taking pleasure in recalling that Socrates was one of themselves, as the Israelites claim that Jesus was one of them, without reflecting that there were no abnormals when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ, that the disgrace alone makes the crime because it has allowed to survive only those who remained obdurate to every warning, to every example, to every punishment, by virtue of an innate disposition so peculiar that it is more repugnant to other men (even though it may be accompanied by exalted moral qualities) than certain other vices which exclude those qualities, such as theft, cruelty, breach of faith, vices better understood and so more readily excused by the generality of men; forming a freemasonry far more extensive, more powerful and less suspected than that of the Lodges, for it rests upon an identity of tastes, needs, habits, dangers, apprenticeship, knowledge, traffic, glossary, and one in which the members themselves, who intend not to know one another, recognise one another immediately by natural or conventional, involuntary or deliberate signs which indicate one of his congeners to the beggar in the street, in the great nobleman whose carriage door he is shutting, to the father in the suitor for his daughter's hand, to him who has sought healing, absolution, defence, in the doctor, the priest, the barrister to whom he has had recourse; all of them obliged to protect their own secret but having their part in a secret shared with the others, which the rest of humanity does not suspect and which means that to them the most wildly improbable tales of adventure seem true, for in this romantic, anachronistic life the ambassador is a bosom friend of the felon, the prince, with a certain independence of action with which his aristocratic breeding has furnished him, and which the trembling little cit would lack, on leaving the duchess's party goes off to confer in private with the hooligan; a reprobate part of the human whole, but an important part, suspected where it does not exist, flaunting itself, insolent and unpunished, where its existence is never guessed; numbering its adherents everywhere, among the people, in the army, in the church, in the prison, on the throne; living, in short, at least to a great extent, in a playful and perilous intimacy with the men of the other race, provoking them, playing with them by speaking of its vice as of something alien to it; a game that is rendered easy by the blindness or duplicity of the others, a game that may be kept up for years until the day of the scandal, on which these lion-tamers are devoured; until then, obliged to make a secret of their lives, to turn away their eyes from the things on which they would naturally fasten them, to fasten them upon those from which they would naturally turn away, to change the gender of many of the words in their vocabulary, a social constraint, slight in comparison with the inward constraint which their vice, or what is improperly so called, imposes upon them with regard not so much now to others as to themselves, and in such a way that to themselves it does not appear a vice," hey you skipped to the end, didn't you?

Writing for the Dainty Cadaver in this manner worked in concord with my usual process by being a process involving writing.

If I didn’t write plays or do things like Dainty Cadavers I’d probably be nightmarish.

Soylent Green and Soylent Green and Soylent Green: that’s what little girls are made of.

I think the Internet affects the ways we make theater in that it exists.

The jumble of random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs I would use to describe my Dainty Cadaver experience includes the following: The jumble of random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs I would use to describe my Dainty Cadaver experience includes the previous.

When walking down themiscellaneous screen somewhere in Daventry, King Graham picked up a tridentalong the shore. It belonged to Neptune, and King Graham had to return it.

In the beginning God createdsheep. And the sheep floated in the void, bleating into nothingness.

I couldn’t live without my brain, but the part of it I could live without is all that emotional damage.

Have you ever noticed thatthey are always like “Here is an example of how we are awful,” while we are always like “Those guys are awful?”What’s the deal?

Snabfllp nibminimmbinmtt falalaboocheray toddlesmickperfection abbib simblantfermay pobbadooblemirph.

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: Eric Bland

Eric Bland - in company with the aforementioned Crystal Skillman - ranks as one of the very few living writers whose work we've produced (at least up until this project). Though on paper his play Jeannine's Abortion: A Play in One Trimester might seem to be an odd fit with PMcK, it turned out to be exactly the right show at the right time for us, and our co-production with Eric's company Old Kent Road Theater was one of our high points of last year. Of course, we've known Eric's work for several years before then, and we were happy to see so many of our friends and collaborators in his latest moving stage picture, Emancipatory Politics: A Romantic Tragedy. As Team A playwrights go, he's alright, I guess.

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If I could rewrite the ending to any book it would be Ulysses, because _no. ...Welllll, maybe, probably, but I'm not--I'm just, I'm almost definitely...there...I mean, most likely, ish, ishhhh, I'm very "ish" on this--no no no that's a GOOD thing! ...I am soooooo close to committing, you really are everything I ever wanted…baby. --Okay okay yes, for real, let's do it! Yes!

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget slavery.”

Before I had Piper McKenzie in my life, I was a hollow shell of a human being. Now I see Jeff has that wrapped up, so I took to reading the New York Review of Books and accidentally leaving it on my seat at the Brick to carve out a niche.

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be SIDS.

Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That begets modernity, / Freud and his fraternity, / How Prufrock could discern a tea. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of Poundian sound and a Woolf's fury, / Signifying nothing but eternity.

The first play I ever wrote was whatever, I wrote reams of undelivered poetry to girls on the soccer team in high school while listening to Tool and Nirvana. After that I became less privately creepy.

If I didn’t write plays or do things like Dainty Cadavers I’d probably be a better catch and sadder.

The courage to challenge old forms and a remarkable capacity for abstract, digressive thinking and hyper-curious minds that want to be taken to museums: that’s what little girls are made of.

In the beginning God created tarragon chicken salad with macadamia nuts (the macadamia nuts were in error, everyone fails, and the next dinner party was basically a bunch of people telling God how wonderful the whole spread was without directly comparing it to the first one when He put macadamia nuts in the chicken salad and you were like, "What is He thinking?" as you ate this otherwise decent salad only to suddenly arrive at a macadamia nut and it's like, your teeth, are they falling out, have they fallen--is THIS my tooth?!--I mean, each one was like a little terror you had to linger over, could those things, "What are these...small stones? Jawbreakers? Could you not FIND a softer nut at the grocery, I mean, God, did you really--'Suze, hey Suze, shhhh, but did He really do this? Macadamia nuts? I mean I'm not complaining but really, Suze. I mean really, it just makes one understand the concept of pity'")_.

Have you ever noticed that cellos are always like “I'm beautiful,” while cancers are always like “although I'm ravaging your body, I agree with the inexorable beauty of cellos?” What’s the deal?

The next project I'm involved with is writing 31Down's new show Here at Home, a meditation on war, premiering at the Bushwick Starr in May; and later on I will be working on an indeterminate, irruptive piece with Piper McKenzie. Yes!

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: Alexis Sottile

In summer 2001, I worked with Hope and Alexis Sottile on developing a show from scratch, and a week before opening we realized we’d gone off the rails – it was a big, dull, earnest, half-baked disaster. So we went to Veselka and sat there for a few hours breaking the show down to its component elements and then building it back up again – and, as a completely different play from what we had planned, it turned out pretty awesome. It was called A Different France, and it was about two high school girls causing mischief at a mall on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War. Alexis wrote most of her character’s material, and I was like, man, she’s good! Little did we know that 9/11 was around the corner – oops. Sorry about that. She’s most recently been seen as a performer in Emancipatory Politics and The Brandywine Distillery Fire at the Incubator Arts Project. Look out, Team B!

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The song I listened to most/had in my head while writing my scene was, well, to use one that didn't make it into the piece, "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You," by UB40.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget [ED NOTE: I refuse to look up the rest of this quote for you, unless you pay me my hourly Google rate.]

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be vagina dentata.

The first play I ever wrote was "Freedom Song," when I was about 11 or 12 years old, about a girl who is half-swan/half-girl and who sings a song of freedom. After that I probably had a grilled cheese sandwich and swam in my Nana's pool.

If I were to finish this sentence it would be the lyrics to the song "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars.

Writing for the Dainty Cadaver in this manner worked against my usual process by having me hand in a writing assignment ahead of schedule.

Swans and grilled cheese and vaginas: that’s what girls are made of.

I think the Internet does affect the ways we make theater in that it allows me to listen to songs on YouTube whilst I write.

In the beginning God created the New York Yankees, and He gave them dominion over all the birds that fly, and the fish of the sea, and the creatures that crawl upon the earth, especially the Red Sox and Phillies.

Have you ever noticed that people in episodes of Seinfeld are always like “What's the deal with [variable X]?” while people who make fun of The Jersey Shore are always [secretly] like “I wish I too lived life to the fullest like these guidos with their joie de vivre... I am obviously just jealous.” What’s the deal?

Snabfllp nibminimmbinmtt falalaboocheray toddlesmick Brandywine Distillery Fire abbib simblantfermay pobbadooblemirph.

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: John DeVore

These days, John DeVore is known for being a self-proclaimed media whore, with sidelines as a blogger, a Twitter personality and a liberal shill for Fox News. He’s also, to his eternal shame, a playwright; in fact, performing together in his play Tupperware Orgy is the reason that Hope and I are married. (There is actually no truth to that whatsoever.) He’s actually the man who originally dubbed us the Legion of Doom 11 years ago (see the Dainty Cadaver origin story for context), so we keep him around as a kind of mascot. He is the token white guy on Team C.

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If I could rewrite the ending to any play it would be Hamlet because the twerp should live long enough to find out he's an idiot.

No one’s gonna stop me from making an obscure pop culture reference in my car, which you are welcome to get into, once you get out of my dreams when I'm not interested in finishing this, Jeff.

When I first read the Dainty Cadaver scene that came before mine, my initial reaction was Shit, my ten pages is due in three hours. Then, I thought Why did I take that nap! It's due in an hour and a half. Finally, I turned it in at 11:59.

The song I listened to most/had in my head while writing my scene was Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget that time I watched Harold and Maude on acid and cried and cried and then hung out for a month with an older English lesbian who taught me how to read tarot cards.”

Before I had Piper McKenzie in my life, I was a hollow shell of a human being. Now Piper McKenzie is finally going to learn how to fly.

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be super self-loathing.

Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / I can't improve upon or mock this, Jeff. I'm going to move on, if that's alright with you.

The first play I ever wrote was a play about a native american warrior named ravenclaw scalping the cowboys who killed his family. After that I was sent to the school shrink.

If I were to finish this sentence it would be no.

Writing for the Dainty Cadaver in this manner worked against my usual process because I'm not usually use to a strict deadline for a play. Plays are abandoned. This play was snatched from my hands.

If I didn’t write plays or do things like Dainty Cadavers I’d probably be wealthier.

Dreams and hope and sinister plots: that’s what little girls are made of.

I think the Internet does not affect the ways we make theater in that it is not entirely dissimilar from theater. Both are live mediums performed for an audience that can talk back to you.

The jumble of random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs I would use to describe my Dainty Cadaver experience includes the following: I wrote a bunch of dick jokes.

In the beginning God created a couch, before moving on to light.

I couldn’t live without my testicle, but the part of it I could live without is the uncomfortable third one.

Have you ever noticed that playwrights are always like “I'm a playwright” while regular people are always like “so what?” What’s the deal?

Snabfllp nibminimmbinmtt falalaboocheray toddlesmick thank you for including me in Dainty Cadaver, Jeff. It was a lot of fun. You're a good guy, Jeff. Always liked you. Except for that once abbib simblantfermay pobbadooblemirph.

21. The next project I'm involved with is.... well, why don't you follow me at twitter.com/johndevore or friend me at facebook.com/misterdevore?

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: Art Wallace

Last year, I had the pleasure of performing in Art Wallace’s play The Plowman’s Lunch, which as part of The Brick’s Tiny Theater Festival. At the end of 10 minutes of methatheatrical tomfoolery and exhaustive off-centeredness, there was this incredibly long (like a full minute) pause as the lights painfully faded, and every night it was nearly impossible (okay, entirely impossible) for me and my fellow performers not to completely break from the sheer, naked absurdity of it all. This breaking, was, in turn, an integral part of the full vision. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a brief treatise the uniquely left-field work of Art Wallace (who has also starred in many a production, including our own Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury). TEAM A!

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If I could rewrite the ending to any book it would be Huckleberry Finn because it is too long.

No one’s gonna stop me from laying in my piss when Jesus comes.

When I first read the Dainty Cadaver scene that came before mine, my initial reaction was this is bullshit! I don't know what to do! Then, I thought this is really bullshit. Finally, I got it done at Hope and Jeff’s regifting party all wined up.

The song I listened to most/had in my head while writing my scene was Straight Outta Compton.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget It Must be Butt Day Three.”

Before I had Piper McKenzie in my life, I was a hollow shell of a human being. Now my dreams depress me.

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be imitating Pauly Shore.

Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That cloys / mewls / abates. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of bleak afternoon dust-motes / Signifying Cry of Anal Two.

The first play I ever wrote was Abe Blinkin. After that I went on to 7th grade.

If I were to finish this sentence it would be tantamount.

Writing for the Dainty Cadaver in this manner worked against my usual process by making me use a time limit and someone else’s ideas and then there were these other rules.

If I didn’t write plays or do things like Dainty Cadavers I’d probably be waiting to see how God kills me.

Lentils and boiled urine and time shift theories: that’s what little girls are made of.

I think the Internet does affect the ways we make theater in that it allows me to find all about David McCallum and boiled urine instantly.

The jumble of random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs I would use to describe my Dainty Cadaver experience includes the following: chip in head making low thrumming sound shrieks white light abandon.

When walking down the Father Demo Square, Flozell Baines picked up a crayon along the small metal ledge slipping in and out of existence. It was, and was not, he had to possess it.

In the beginning God created itself.

I couldn’t live without torture, but the part of it I could live without is the horrible pain.

Have you ever noticed that opposites are always like “different” while one of these things are always like “Not like the others?” What’s the deal?

Snabfllp nibminimmbinmtt falalaboocheray toddlesmick and with his Vorpal blade abbib simblantfermay pobbadooblemirph.

Dainty Cadaver Mad Libs-Style Blog Thing: Matt Freeman

Matt Freeman has put onstage a man in a lobster suit in deep dialogue with a rabbi, and for that I am forever grateful. He’s also written a number of other significantly interesting and interestingly significant plays (including Glee Club, which premiered at The Brick’s Antidepressant Festival), and he’s a noted, notable and notorious blogger. As the right arm of the playwriting Voltron that is Team B, he aids the Dainty Cadaver in its mission to crush all other exquisite-corpse-style playwriting projects that threaten the sanctity of our forest planet.

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If I could rewrite the ending to any movie it would be Steven Speilberg’s A.I because the Ben Kingsley voiceover made me want to throw shit at the screen.

No one’s gonna stop me from dancing in my underwear when I’m alone.

When I first read the Dainty Cadaver scene that came before mine, my initial reaction was I look forward to punching the author in the face. Then, I thought, “Wow, that’s probably an overreaction.” Finally, I wrote something anyway.

The song I listened to most/had in my head while writing my scene was “Seasons of Love,” and I hate that song.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget the churlish amoeba.”

Before I had Piper McKenzie in my life, I was a hollow shell of a human being. Now I’m more hollow than ever.

The superpower I would least want to have would probably be the ability to go blind.

Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That suckles / brandy / titties. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of cloverleaf mudpies / Signifying the beginning of the war.

The first play I ever wrote was for a fifth grade class. After that I didn’t quit, for some reason.

If I were to finish this sentence it would be an excellent sentence.

Writing for the Dainty Cadaver in this manner worked against my usual process by forcing me to share, which is the opposite of the reason I write.

If I didn’t write plays or do things like Dainty Cadavers I’d probably be rich.

[Expletive] and [Unprintable] and [Censored]: that’s what little girls are made of.

I think the Internet does not affect the ways we make theater in that it is still just a bunch of words and pictures and c’mon, let’s be real.

The jumble of random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs I would use to describe my Dainty Cadaver experience includes the following: a chaotic, weirdly sad, compromise.

When walking down the lane, Charles Ludlum picked up a bucket of buckshot along the way. It overflowed, and Charles had to use it.

In the beginning God created nothing.

I couldn’t live without beer, but the part of it I could live without is farting.

Have you ever noticed that rabbits are always like “Let’s kick it,” while Bears are always like “What gives, Rabbit?” What’s the deal?

Snabfllp nibminimmbinmtt falalaboocheray toddlesmick Slartibartfast abbib simblantfermay pobbadooblemirph.