MAX: to me - YO STEVO.Just checking in to see how you're holding up. How your summer was..Keep in touch, MAX. P.S. How's the real world.

Me, to MAX,

MAX
Life is sweet. Graduated from college. Did absolutely nothing this summer, which was SWEET. Got a job at a theatre (www.PegasusPlayers.org) and I'm currently looking for apartments in downtown Chicago. The real world is, you know, real. I'm really broke. I'm really looking for other theatre jobs to supplement my income. I'm really loving making a living doing what I love to do, and I'm really loving my low paying job at Pegasus, because I get to help inner city highschoolers find their voices, and because Pegasus is a SWEET theatre. This year, our young playwright's festival is HUGE, and our three highscoolers are all individually getting their own professional playwright mentor to help them during their workshop process. I have a feeling the end result is going to be a bombshell, and I'm really excited for writers, because I won this contest years ago and I don't think they have any idea of what's in store for them. I'm afraid I haven't been writing as much as I'd like to. It's mostly because I don't have a writing community yet (I just moved back to Chicago August 1st.) But I'm keeping in touch with my writer friends and I'm about ready to start some big projects. I've had a full length on the boiler for a while, and I'm about ready to knock together the first draft sometime before halloween. I'm also working on a few ten minute plays, one of which I plan to send to ATL for their ten minute contest. The only problem is that my sig-oth (SIGnifican OTHer) is one of their lit interns, so I think I might have to send it under a pseudonym so as to avoid a conflict of interest. I'm also supposed to write a libretto for a friend as a wedding present (which I think will be a robot musical) but I haven't done much more than a rough sketch on it. My si-goth also got me into basketball, and after she wrote a basketball ten minute she said I had her permission to write a full length about basketball if i thanked her on the notes page. That said, I haven't been nearly as prolific lately as I'd like to be. As far as music goes, man, maybe that's another reason why I havent been writing much. Last year I wrote a psuedo-sequel to the moops album, a solo album about the movie JAWS and my breakup with my ex (you know, the one who cheated on me while I was in Denver with you groovy cats) and I'm finishing up another solo album about leaving Iowa City for good. I also got a chance to collaborate with a playwright named W. David Hancock this past spring, and I wrote the music for a play of his that I acted in while he was visiting Iowa. It was called THE PUZZLE LOCKER, and although it got bad reviews (where are online) it really was an amazing play. So all and all, in the past year I've recorded 4 albums and a few singles. My friend Peter, who wrote most of the Moops album and arranged the sequel, is moving in with me for the year and we're planning on starting a music blog together. The idea is that every edition we'll produce at least one complete pop song, based on challenges that come from our readers (example: make a late Pink Floyd song about cabbage without rhyming.) We're tentatively calling it SONGBUSTERS until we come up with a better name. As for the future, I'm planning on applying to grad school again (and again and again until I get in) and I'm working on a couple shows around Chicago to make friends in the area and to find somebody to direct or produce El Dorado. I joined a theatre ensemble called "the shared ensemble" which with its subsidiary "BIG Theatre company" is producing a play by Sharman McDonald (Keira Knightley's mom) called BORDERS OF PARADISE. The play is really cool, its about surfers in England, and we're doing it sight-specific in a new Cafe in Chicago using furniture and alley junk to create an urban landscape that mimics the rocky cliffs of southwest England. I'm conducting the band and designing/running the sound, and I think the show's going to be a hit. So that's it for me, really. How are things going for you? How's Denver? How'd the 'wrighting gig in NY go? How are all my Curious sisters and brothers doing? You graduate this year, don't you? Where are you applying? Most importantly, what have you been writing? *KEEP IN TOUCH*
Stevo