"Crowns" and Cassie's Moving Home!!

Last night (Thursday), Mark and I joined my writing partner, Paul, at a performance of "Crowns" at the Burning Coal Theater on Polk Street in downtown Raleigh. It was an amazing performance about a young girl from Harlem who is sent to live with her North Carolina relatives after her brother is murdered on the streets of New York. It's a gospel musical about hats -- thus the name "Crowns" -- and it's about how fundamentally different african-american culture is in the rural south as compared to the city streets of Harlem. It was hilarious at times, and touching at others, but it was a great contrast to the Spamalot (Broadway-style) show we saw Sunday night. This was "theater-in-the-round" and the entire play was done in a 50'x50' space with chairs ringing the stage.

We went to see the performance because we are 98% done with the play we're working on and we are scouting out this theater for the possibility that they might try it out for us. Any play that is being developed needs a test run or two so the playrights can get feedback and make some tweaks before either publishing or having the play produced. It turns out that we couldn't talk to anyone last night, but we did find out that the New Works program actively runs through new scripts on a monthly basis.

So, Paul is going back to the theater on Monday night to see a new play being produced as part of the New Works program, and we will both be going on May 5th to watch live actors work through 10+ pages of our script. I'm secretly hoping that we can get more than 10 pages done, but we'll see! We're also going to get a theater group at one of the universities in the area to do a full run-through for us. It's beginning to look like the writing part is coming to a close and we're getting closer to getting the play produced locally! :)

The other exciting news is that Cassie is moving back to the area! After 2 years in Boone, attending 4 semesters at App State and working at Banana Republic in Blowing Rock, she has been offered a position as Assistant Manager at a Banana Republic at Southpoint Mall in Durham, which is less than 45 minutes from our house! We are very excited for her and it will be great to have her around more often. Her starting salary will be $3/hour more than she currently makes, which she is also very excited about. Now all she has to do is find a place to live, which looks like it will be easier than we originally thought -- she's meeting a potential roommate tomorrow who has a 2-bedroom townhouse less than 10 minutes from the mall in Durham. As long as she can have her dog, it should work out well!

Sunday, we are taking the ladies from the GSE team to Beaufort, North Carolina to see the coastline and the incredible history in that area. Despite the high price of gas, we expect to have a great time! The ladies are wonderful and we have never been to Beaufort in the 10 years we have been here, so it should be a great trip as long as the weather holds. :)