Struck by Inspiration

Yesterday I went to New York City to audition for the national tour of a very big show. The audition went well (though I don't expext a callback) and afterward, I headed to one of my favorite places in the city: The Drama Bookshop. I go there whenever I am there and spend far too much money on far too few plays. This time, I hit the jackpot. I had a list of plays I wanted to get and got some of them as well as a few others. I got tired of walking a few hours later and went to find a seat in Borders. I cracked open the first play I had bought (The Metal Children by Adam Rapp) and read it straight through. It's fantastic; the plot revolves around the banning of a young adult book in a small town, and since censorship is something I'm strongly against, it was a very interesting read. Then I started July 7, 1994, by David Margulies (which my school is doing next spring) and read straight through, too, and sat crying in the middle of Borders over the sad ending. Then, while waiting for and on the train, I read Sarah Treem's a feminine ending, which is fantastic and I want to play the lead character so badly.

Reading all of these amazing works was very inspiring, especially since I haven't read a play that made me feel any of those things for a long time. I was so inspired, in fact, that I wanted to write something, anything, right then. But I didn't know what to write. I had no ideas. But about half an hour later, a question and a name tiptoed into my head and I quickly noted them in my phone and didn't return to them for awhile, until on the train, all of these ideas started flowing. At first, I only had a tiny snatch of dialogue, which I again typed into my phone. But two hours and one piece of paper later, I had this:

I got home fairly early, so I typed all of this into my computer (with a bit of difficulty- when I'm writing quickly, my handwriting is atrocious, and adding the bumpiness of the train made that entire page almost unreadable.) As of now, it seems like I've got almost all of Act II sorted, and a tiny, tiny bit of Act I. I'm pretty excited, although daunted, as I've already got one writing project I need to work on and three more I'd like to. This will be the fifth project on my plate. But I'm enthusiastic, and that's all that matters, I guess.