bloggie blog

Apropos of nothing, here is a list of published plays that I have read recently (in addition to those in which I have performed):

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
November by David Mamet
Hurlyburly by David Rabe
The Water’s Edge by Theresa Rebeck
‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza
God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
Travels with My Aunt by Giles Havergal / Graham Greene
On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov

I had my first rehearsal today to play the role of Dr. Jim Bayliss in a production of All My Sons, the great Arthur Miller play. More info will be forthcoming, naturally, but since today was my first rehearsal and since I speak first in the play, I thought I’d type up a snippet from the top of the play, including the last bit of prefatory stage directions into the first lines of dialog:

DOCTOR BAYLISS is nearing forty. A wry, self-controlled man, an easy talker, but with a wisp of sadness that clings even to his self-effacing humor.
AT CURTAIN, JIM is standing at L., staring at the broken tree. He taps his pipe on it, blows through the pipe, feels in his pockets for tobacco, then speaks.

JIM. Where’s your tobacco?
KELLER. I think I left it on the table.

I may wear a bow-tie. Stay tuned!

This iPhone photo provides a glimpse of tonight’s wonderful reading of the new play Tombs of the Vanishing Indian by Marie Clements. A great opportunity for all of us actors. Thank you, Marie. Thank you, Autry.

There’s a nickname people have tried to give me a few times over the years. Ashworthy. I’ve never been fond of Ashworthy. I’ve never hated it and insisted people stop using it, but I’ve never been fond of it. And not just because as a nickname, it’s longer than the name it nicks, which goes against one of the main points of nicknames. In fact, one of my favorite nicknames of all time is Kevin Kevin Ashworth, as I was called by several lovely coworkers at Ab Initio Software in Lexington, Mass.

Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve never been fond of Ashworthy is that it’s not a name, it’s not a real thing, it just doesn’t exist. Or so I thought. This week I am reading the play Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson, which fancifully imagines how the screenplay for Gone With the Wind might have been created. The writer Ben Hecht is laughably unfamiliar with the big, famous book and must write a screenplay in just 5 days. At one point he gets the name Ashley Wilkes wrong and says Ashworthy. And there you have it. In print. The existence of Ashworthy.

Not that I want to be called that. Kevin is still fine. Kev is okay. K-dawg, K-Ash, Kevin Kevin Ashworth, dude. So many other things to call me first. Okay?