Showing posts with label Perils of Francois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Perils of Francois. Show all posts

Saturday, March 05, 2016

Dead Tuesday

Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!

The StageCoach Theatre Company's next production is an interactive murder mystery written by yours truly entitled DEAD TUESDAY. The show will be performed over the next month in venues around Virginia and the Washington, DC metro area, previously uncharted territory for one of my shows.

DEAD TUESDAY is not a new script of mine. It has been re-titled from its original, THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS, which debuted in 2014 (see previous post: CROAK AND DAGGER)  If this is the first you've heard of it, the show tells the tale of an international philanthropist playboy who is the one who can solve the mystery of a prominent New Orlenas socialite during Mardi Gras, even though he's hampered by his own problems. A voodoo curse is turning him into a frog. Yep, it's a strange story to say the least. Most of the characters are based on the paintings of artist Jann Harrison. I was commissioned by Melanie Roady of Mel O'Drama Theater in Nashville to create a script using her creations and voila, here it is. It is such an odd duck of a show, I had my doubts whether or not it would see the light of a stage again. But thanks to Jerri Wiseman of StageCoach Theatre Company, Francois hops again.

Jerri asked if I would consider a name change since the original isn't very marketable. This is something I've toyed with myself, using the rather awful but compromised alternative MARDI GRAS MAYHEM in my own solicitations. This being a purely commercial venture, I'm totally flexible with this change and have no problem with her suggestion of DEAD TUESDAY (a riff on Mardi Gars' Fat Tuesday). Back in 2013, the Great American Melodrama asked to change the title of my melo from SONG OF THE LONE PRAIRIE to TALES OF THE CANYON KID. I opted for SONG OF THE CANYON KID to coincide with the novel version I had just published. (That play will now be known by that title alone) Theaters wishing to make changes to a work should be flown by the author and I appreciate the integrity of an organization having the respect to do so, especially for an independent like myself.

So welcome back, Francois. Let the good times croak.

For more information of the StageCoach Theatre Company production of DEAD TUESDAY, visit their website at stagecoachtc.com and their Facebook page 

To read an excerpt or find more information about  DEAD TUESDAY aka THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS, go to my website. WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY

Performance rights are available. For more info, e-mail at writtenbysc@gmail.com





Monday, October 12, 2015

Beam Me Up, Scotty

The following revolves around the creation of an interactive murder mystery that has since been re-named MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER.


                Space...the very last place...these are the voyages of the Star Truck...Innerthighs...

So begins the latest interactive murder mystery comedy written by someone who needs no introduction, but is near and dear to all of your hearts...and if he isn't, he soon will be because...that's the kind of guy he is.

It's me, damn your eyes! Yes, I'm at it again or at least I was a few months ago when I first wrote this here piece o' work that is debuting this month for Mel O'Drama Theatre in the one and only Nashville, TN. (Even though this is my second time in Music City, it's so mind-blowing that something I wrote is playing in that iconic city)

The show in question is indeed STAR TRUCK; THE WRATH OF COMIC-CON. Set at a sci-fi convention called Imaginacon, a tribute to the classic TV show STAR TRUCK is underway with members of the cast including Leon Portnoy, the actor who is forever known as First Officer Mr. Spark, Jean Roddenreel, widow of the show's creator Dean Roddenreel and of course Captain James Tyrannosaurus Kork himself, the inimitable Wilson Chadwick. Also appearing at the convention is the star of STAR BOARS, Carrie Fishwich and someone who may or may not be an alien.

As you can tell unless you're not paying attention, this is all fodder for jabs at STAR TREK, STAR WARS
and basically all things in the geek universe which, in this day and age, pretty much everything. Of course. I include myself in these ranks, having been a geek since the day I first crawled the earth back...well, none of your damn business.. It is also a gold mine of comedic opportunities that I take as full advantage of as I possibly could given the parameters of the murder mystery format. There are digs are the aforementioned STAR shows as well as DOCTOR WHO, THE WALKING DEAD, LORD OF THE RINGS and so on and so forth. Plus I have concocted some of the very best (or worst) puns I have possibly ever concocted. If you think punning is lowest form of wit, well, you're half right. Which half, I don't know.

The inspiration for STAR TRUCK derives from the underrated classic GALAXY QUEST (1999), which brilliantly mined some of the same tropes, Mad Magazine's classic parody STAR BLECCH (love that title) and, of course, the SNL "Get A Life!" sketch starring William Shatner. The latter is undoubtedly the Genesis Project for the whole enterprise (wow, two references for the price of one!) Not only does it set up what I wanted to accomplish with this script, but it was also a turning point for Shatner himself. This was when he reinvented himself, understanding that he knew he was the butt of many a joke and now he was in on it too. He could make fun of himself and do it better. Oh yeah, he was Captain Kirk but now he became in full caps WILLIAM SHATNER and he never left. Therefore the victim of my murder mystery just had to be the William Shatner character. It was like MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Who killed Richard Widmark? Everybody! That's the spirit I wanted to convey. Who wants to kill Wislon Chadwick? Everybody! Hopefully, not the audience too.

The icing on this cupcake was that when I wrote in Shatner's voice, in his cadence and his goofy sensibilities, I had as much fun as I ever had creating a character. I love this guy and sure hope that it shows. I had some struggles concerning the passing of Leonard Nimoy that I wrote about earlier this year. (See blog post:  HIGHLY ILLOGICAL) Some of the other characters proved a bit more difficult to put together, but fortunately not Dewey Osgood, the host of Imaginacon who turns out to be the hero of the piece. I based Dewey on comedian Patton Oswalt, a kindred spirit and King of All Geeks. Patton's recent book SILVER SCREEN FIEND is a fantastic movie memoir, not unlike my own IN THE DARK but light years beyond in both style and substance. Carrie Fisher who has had a long gestating and ridiculous feud with William Shatner is obviously the model for Carrie Fishwich. Majel Barrett is Gene Roddenberry's widow, but I based her character on the role she played as Deanna Troi's mother on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. And I paid homage to Portland home-girl Katee Sackhoff's BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA Starbuck persona for Nirvana Nightengale.

Thanks to producer Melanie Roady of Mel O'Drama Theater for giving me another shot after last year's PERILS OF FRANCOIS. Recently Mel accepted the position of Executive Producer of the theater at Events on 3rd in Nashville. Good on her.  And a big shout-out to director Andy Johnson who played Pierre Perrier in FRANCOIS and another fellow geek, a perfect fit for this show. Finally to a cast that I'll not only never meet but never see perform my work in front of a (hopefully) live audience, I can only say in the grand tradition of theater...break a leg.

For myself, I'll hoist a toast on opening night from across the country. Here's to another original script under my belt. This is also the fourth production of one of my plays this year, one more than 2014. I would have had five, but the theater that had scheduled the show met with some very hard times, a result of the recent flooding in South Carolina. I wish them and everyone back there the very best.

It's been two years since I was first contacted by the Great American Melodrama to have one of my scripts performed which has led to this sudden resurgence as a playwright. It appears that the third act of my life I've been searching for is one that I'm writing myself. Imagine that.

So beam me up, Scotty. Oh, wait. That's me.


MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER IS NOW AVAILABLE AT OFF THE WALL PLAYS

Performance rights are available!

For info about my other scripts or even if you just want to send me a mash note (look it up, young 'un),
please e-mail me at: writenbysc@gmail.com

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Suddenly, This Summer

It began with a frog and ended with a deer.

Such was the summer of 2014, definitely one for the archives. Book-ended by two separate Cherney Journeys, the months between May and September became one extended round trip, one I'd gladly sign up for again.

In May, THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS, the first play I'd written in almost 2 1/2 decades, began its run in Nashville, TN courtesy of the Mel O'Drama Theater for my new friend, producer Mel Roady. This was one mind-boggling experience that prepped for the rest of the season.

This was immediately followed by a return visit to Denver (relayed in the blog: THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE RED) to visit my beautiful Coloradan family who resides there with a grand birthday celebration for my three year old granddaughter Aefa.

In June, SONG OF THE CANYON KID (re-titled from SONG OF THE LONE PRAIRIE to coincide with the book of the same name that no one seems to want to read but if you did you would laugh your spurs off if that's your idea of a good time) premiered at the Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville in Oceano, CA for a summer-long run.

At the same time, the Footlight Theatre Company in Northern California's Jamestown planned to produce SONG OF THE LONE PRAIRIE under its original title at the end of August. Both shows had the same identical closing dates.

Visited in Oregon by more family members from down Santa Barbara way-my step-daughter Tracey and now sweet sixteen granddaughter Kardena-was a sweet week-long visit that had been a long-time coming but so very nourishing for the heart and soul. Just before their stay with us, they had traveled to Oceano to see THE CANYON KID, something else to boost me into the stratosphere. Kardena's favorite gag in the show was one I didn't write, a Harry Potter reference. Oh well.

Many had suggested that I find some way to see the show myself, either in Oceano or Jamestown. I actually didn't think it possible. Somehow that desire had been sent out to the universe because a trip indeed was in my immediate future.

I've known Ed Thorpe for most of my born days. We met in 6th grade at Grover Cleveland Elementary in Stockton and have been not just best friends, but the brothers we never had...and we both had brothers. We've shared laughs, tears, anger, up, down, overs and outs...including a woman. I devoted an entire chapter of my first book IN THE DARK to Ed who I call Max and who calls me Max because we're Maxes to the Max. He's also the one responsible for my foray into melodrama in the first place. He brought me out to Pollardville where we were both gunslingers, asked me to co-write our first melo LA RUE'S RETURN and arranged for me to attend the grand finale reunion when the Ville closed once and for all back in 2007.

Max felt I should see my show and made it a point to fly me down there in order to do that very thing. It is one of the finest gifts I could ever imagine. I don't know how I warrant all this love and generosity from people. It's not false modesty and me playing Harry Humble. I am honestly baffled. Grateful, but confused. It was Max's intention that we head to Oceano which involved me flying into San Francisco and the two of us driving down in our own version of an Alexander Payne road movie.

At the same time, my wife had decided that this would be a good time to visit her mom and sister in the Bay Area, so we made arrangements to depart PDX within minutes of each other-she on Southwest landing in Oakland, me on Alaska to SFO. And we made it just in the nick of freaking time. Nothing like an ass full of stress to start the weekend right.

So Max greeted me at SFO once I landed and down Hwy 101 we drove, yapping up a storm the entire way and not shutting up until he dropped me back the airport Sunday night. We relived the past, even those things of which we dared not speak.We mulled over the present. We outlined the future. Most importantly, we repaved our common ground which over time was well-worn, full of potholes and needing some necessary repair. I got my brother back and Max got his.

Once we hit Pismo Beach, our base of operations, the world pulled back into focus. It wasn't the town, per se, it was the beach...the California coast that I longed to be near again. The sound of the waves breaking is my mantra, my safe place when life begins to go south. The Oregon coast, beautiful as it is, can't hold a hourglass of sand next to the state of my birth.


The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville in the main attraction of Oceano, maybe running a close second to the Dunes, the only state park in California where vehicles can be driven on the beach, bu tit certainly is the most popular business known all over the Central Coast. When we arrived Saturday night, it was an event that had to be documented, so I posed wherever I could. Standing before the window display of my show) featuring a stuffed version of The Canyon Kid's horse Thunder), Nova Cunningham, the artistic director of the Great American who chose my script, approached  and greeted me with open arms. She brought me into the theater before the show where the cast was warming up with vocal exercises and introduced themselves one by one. What a good looking group this was and surrounding me around the swell set of the THE CANYON KID. This was the set I didn't have when my show premiered back in '87, that's for sure. No wonder I looked like a proud papa in those shots.

As the show began, I noticed the changes they made right away. Additional songs were obvious as well as some altered lines (more than just Harry Potter references). This made my mind race back to a time at Pollardville when Tim Kelly, one of the most prolific melodrama playwrights in the the business, had been flown up to Stockton for the opening night of THE RATCATCHER'S DAUGHTER. it was one of those miracle opening nights when nothing worked all Hell Week long, but once we got in front an audience, the magic happened. When I met the author in question, I was so giddily excited that I grabbed my copy of the script to show him what we-actually mostly me-had done to it.

"Look! We cut this scene and that scene. We turned this character into a male. This character here we just cut completely out. Totally unnecessary!"

I asked him to sign it for me and handed it to him. Stone faced, he scribbled the name "Kelly" and thrust it back at me.

Oops.

Well, whatever goes around... Thirty years later, here I sat watching SONG OF THE CANYON KID minus a character, lines changed, songs added and I could not have been more delighted. Their adaptation was wonderful, doing justice to the material and giving life to a show that not seen the light of day in this century. Lee Anne Mathews' direction ran circles around mine. Her staging of certain scenes, particularly the attempted hypnosis of The Canyon Kid by Nastassia Kinky (Emily Smith) became a delirious tango in her hands and choreographed brilliantly. Some of the changes improved the show, while others, to be frank, did not. (My fight scene kicked major ass. Nyah!) But the cast was top notch all the way. Andy Pollock and Christine Arnold totally embodied The Canyon Kid and Darla Darling. There is an extension to their first scene together that was not in the original 1987 script. I added it later when I published it and has never been performed. I had to wipe a tear from my eye because in their hands, it was pretty damn touching if I do say so myself. But I have to say that the show was sent into the stratosphere by Katie Worley in the role of Charlene Atlas. She totally transformed this character, hysterically stealing each scene to the point that I couldn't wait for her next entrance to see what she do next. I would have to say Katie gave the best interpretation of anything I've ever written and one of the finest comic performance I've ever seen on the stage. And to top it all off, she'd only been with the show for a couple of weeks after her predecessor had to leave the cast unexpectedly and Katie, a veteran Great American performer, Amazing. When the curtain fell on SONG OF THE CANYON KID, I leapt to my feet and gave this fine cast a triumphant standing ovation I believed they deserved. I was probably clapping for myself as well. My step-daughter Lindsay would call this "a victory lap".

It turns out that the cast have triple and sometimes quadruple duties at the theater outside of performing. They seat the audience, run the concession stand, then when everyone has cleared out, they clean the auditorium. There's no way in hell we would have done that back at the Palace Showboat. Maybe these guys are paid better, but I personally it to be a major pain in the ass to be the Major Domo before I stepped out on stage as MC. Sure, they are probably paid far and above whatever we were making, but still...

After being treated as King for a Day-or Night, rather- I gave my hail and farewell to these fine folk and hugged each and everyone of them  I even sought some of them out just say they too could have a genuine Scott Cherney embrace. They really were quite a special bunch. Damn kids anyway. The evening ended in true California style at the In-n-Out Burger drive-thru for a Double Double after show dinner.

The long drive back to the Bay Area on Sunday afternoon culminated when Max and I wrapped up the weekend with a huge honking steak dinner before we made our goodbye. We went our separate ways, but forever entwined in true brotherly bond that was reinforced with cement by the incredible gift of his for which I am eternally grateful.

I returned to PDX with a smile on my face that some day may have to be surgically removed, Hopping on the Economy parking lot shuttle in front of the terminal, I, along with my fellow weary travelers, were welcomed back to Portland by our driver, Bob, whose voice sounded like an older version of Chris Farley's character Matt Foley character. It was apparent that he couldn't wait to back to his van down by the river. And for some reason, he decided to toss in a little shuttle driver humor along with the ride.

"What do you call a deer with no eyes? No eye deer."

While the other passengers chose to ignore this, but I just had to chuckle. Yep. I was back in Portland alright.

I drove home in my wife's VW Bug and was just around the corner from I where I live when something slammed up against the car on the driver's side. It was louder than it was forceful since I didn't lose any control at all of the steering. I didn't see a thing and thought I ran over something, but I checked the mirrors and saw a flash of brown fur galumphing away and disappearing into the night.

Apparently it was a no eye deer.

Fortunately, I was unharmed. Unfortunately, the car has a broken fender, a severely dented door and a broken headlight. Bambi? I haven't a clue. Couldn't find him, but somehow I think he was going to feel that bump the next day.

And just like that, summer ended and fall fell.

Curtain

Saturday, July 19, 2014

More Yin, Less Yang


Here we are at the mid-point of summer already. Time flies when you’re not paying attention.


Prop from THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS
Life is a funny thing with that yin, yang and the whole dang thang. On one hand, it’s a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions…Malaysian airliners shot down or just disappear altogether, Iraq is back, my hometown of Stockton turns into a sequel of the film HEAT adding much tension and chaos to natural disasters such as fire season, drought and hey, are the locust on stand-by? Mix this up in a blender with the stresses of everyday living in the 21st century and you’ve got the draft of a suicide note ready to be posted in your Facebook status.
Then…there’s the good stuff, the things that fortunately are weighing in on the good side to provide balance in this cockamamie world-family, friends, home and everything that floats our collective boats

AND…THE BLESSED EXTRAS…

For me, it’s been the production of my plays this summer, something I’ve been striving for since the dawn of the planet of the Cherney. 

THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS just wrapped up in Nashville TN for the Mel O’Drama Theater company. My thanks again to the cast, crew and especially producer Melanie Roady for this unique opportunity. I’d never written a script on spec before, let alone a murder mystery. It was also a challenge trying to collaborate from opposite sides of the country, but apparently, it all came together.  Me in Nashville…who da thunk it?


Andy Pollock and Christine Arnold in SOTCK, Oceano style
Then there’s SONG OF THE CANYON KID at the Great American Melodrama in Oceano, CA that is currently running through September and has picked up three…count ‘em…three great reviews.

The fact that I’m not mentioned in any of these write-ups is beside the point. However…
SONG OF THE CANYON KID WAS WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY
So there
.
What was really nifty, keen, cool and boss-o was that these two shows were running at the same time. Never happened before, but hopefully will happen again.
In the meantime, the same show, SONG OF THE CANYON KID under its original title SONG OF THE LONE PRAIRIE or POEM ON THE RANGE is set to open August 29 in Jamestown, CA for the Footlight Theatre Company at the same time the Oceano show will still be playing. In fact, they close on the very same night.
Quite a coup, eh wot?
It would be even sweeter if I could just garner a few decent sales for the novel version of said play, SONG   
OF THE CANYON KID, a western comedy romance. This sucker has FLATLINED.It’s a goddamn shame. I think it’s a good piece of work and I haven’t been able to even give it away. (That’s not true. There is a giveaway for a free copy on Goodreads. See below.) It even got a good review all by itself.

CANYON KID BOOK REVIEW 
See?
There’s that yin and yang again.
So there’s been a lot of yin this year, but far too much yang. I’m grateful any yin I can have or can get, but to provide balance and that I don’t go sliding into a big steaming pile of yang…