Commitment to Unblock: A Progression

I don't know if you can even call what I am experiencing as "writer's block."  That would take me considering myself as a "writer" which takes great psychological effort.  I have to use every new-age like,  psychobabble positive self-talk affirmation I know; "...you are a writer, you are a writer.  You are a writer because you write." Ah, there's the rub!  Because I am quite apparently NOT writing. It's not just days or weeks that go by but months, in deed years. I started writing my play about a fictional Black German character, based on my research into the lives of Black Germans before during the Nazi years, in 2005.  I have to admit I did not have a great deal of confidence in my ability to write a full length play and to write text that was not some what autobiographical in nature.  Prior to this both my excursions (successful excursions I might add) into writing were basically me putting down on paper a re-telling (or acting out) of very specific events that happened to me.  But for this I was doing research and attempting to fashion that research into an actual story that could come together as a whole massage about what I was discovering.  This turned out to be much harder than I had even imagined but there were moments when it looked as if I was on my way.  I won't go into much detail because I still hold onto my ideas as worthy of a play and I frankly I don't want anyone who may be skilled and quicker at adapting material and putting out finished scripts to nick my ideas.  Suffice it to say that feed-back (criticism) I got from 2 or 3 readings of different stages of the piece ended up creating a block where I became convinced that I don't really have a story or whatever story I have is so full of wholes that I can't make it work.  I have literally let it sit for almost three years.  Now I am committing to getting it written as of today.  I want to blog about that progress.

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Bio for Alexander Thomas

Member Screen Actors Guild & Actors Equity Association

Alexander Thomas was born and raised in Albany New York (USA). He has studied acting and peformed in New York City and Los Angeles.

Alexander was a cast member the U.K. stage production of On the Waterfront directed by the esteemed Steven Berkoff which ran in London’s West End at the Royal Haymarket Theatre, as well the Edinburg Festival, Nottingham Playhouse and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

In the USA his self-pinned solo show Throw Pitchfork ran off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop and the Kitchen Theatre before going to on to win Special Honours prize at the Thespis Mono Drama Festival in Kiel, Germany.
 He also co-wrote and performed in Black Stuff, a two-man farce about African-American identity which ran at the Kitchen Theatre and the New York Fringe Festival.
He currently resides in Berlin, Germany where he performed in Utopia/Dystopia (and evening of 10 minutes plays) at the English Theatre of Berlin
Other theatre credits include: After Ashley (Kitchen Theatre, Ithaca); Fast Blood (Beckett Theatre, NY); Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (Cubiculo Theatre, NY); Home (Tour); Tracers (Studio Theatre, LA) and The Blacks (Hillberry Theatre, Detroit).  



His eclectic acting training includes several years studying the Meisner technique under Richard Pinter (now head of the Acting Dept. at the Neighbourhood Playhouse), the Stella Alder Studio in New York, The Sam Christensen Studio in LA, and early workshops of Anne Deavere Smith


Alexander is on the "Usual Suspects" list of artist with The New York Theater Workshop.

'THROW PITCHFORK' is published by Playscripts.com.

What is THROW PITCHFORK about?

Willie Thomas, an overworked, alcoholic, African-American father, passes on a legacy of self-hate and anger to his four sons: Jimmy, Wesley, Cleve, and the youngest, Alex. Each finds his own way to digest this legacy -- Jimmy through hard drugs, Wes through petty crime, Cleve through education and the arts. The older brothers are seen through the eyes of young Alex, who had a pitchfork thrown at him by his father during a drunken rage. He desperately searches for self-definition as he attempts both to emulate and separate himself from his brothers and father. His search crystallizes when his father's true story is revealed -- as a child, Willie suffered a cruel injustice at the hands of a racist Alabama penal system, which virtually robbed Willie of his childhood. Written for one energetic actor, Throw Pitchfork explores serious terrain with much comedy.

What is BLACK STUFF?

Written, developed and performed with writer/performer LeVan D. Hawkins.
An unbiased, often irreverent, uncensored, satirical trip through the sometime murky, often contradictory labyrinth of Black identity.

FOR MORE INFO GO TO: http://www.blackstuff.net/

Walking Black (excerpt from Black Stuff)

I was 14 when I started walking Black. Nobody taught me, I figured it out. I know that’s a little late, but I was kind of a nerdy kid. I was real short, had big feet, gangly arms, a gawky walk and was always daydreaming. I got tied of other black kids telling me I walked like a white boy. They’d stop me just to tell that. “ Hey, you walk like a White boy.” I couldn’t do it right away I had to practice before I took it outside. The only thing worst than a Black guy walking like a White guy is a Black guy walking like a White guy trying to walk like Black guy.

So I figured it out scientifically. It’s in the bop. It’s in the little bop. You bend the knee a little bit and get a bounce and a bop. Then take a step and a bend and a bounce and a bop, step, bend, bounce and a bop. Practice around my bedroom first; step, bend, bounce and a bop, step, bend, bounce and a bop, step, bend, bounce and a bop. Then feverishly, step bend bounce and a bop, step, bend, bounce and a bop. Around the house, whatever I did. (mimes doing house chores: sweeping or mopping) step bend bounce and a bop, step, bend, bounce and a bop. Finally, I took it outside. Downtown in my “hood” I felt good, I felt connected. I felt Black!.

Then I’d go uptown and run into some of my White friends “Hi guys!” They would ask; “Why do Black guys walk like that?” They would give me that look; that,You’re Black, aren’t you’re an authority on everything Black, look. I would say “ The walk. Oh, that. Well, you see, it comes from, ah… Africa! It stems from the cultural tradition of the tribal transition from the boyhood to the manhood of the brotherhood into the jungle-hood…that’s why we call it the hood! They would wipe a couple of strands of hair out of their face, like this, and just look at me. In some unconscious effort to fit in. I too would then wipe hair, which wasn’t there, out of my face. And every move that they made, flipping their hair back, running their fingers through it, I found myself emulating precisely their movements even though I did not have that kind of hair and it wasn’t about to fall in my face. Then I would go back downtown with the brothers and I would go, “Yo…(catches himself wiping hair and stops abruptly) what’s happening brothers?”

(Exits)

A Published Rant About Critics

A couple of weeks ago the LA Times ran an article about the state of cultural criticism, called Critical Condition, which was basically about how critics are bemoaning (whinning about) the fact that their power for making or breaking a piece of work is on the wane, mostly because of the internet and blogs like this where any person can print their response to a film, a play etc. I wrote back a letter and they actually published. An artist got to critique the critic(and get published) how cool is that?!
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LOS ANGELES TIMES - LETTER: PART II
Sunday June 5, 2005

Critic's Credentials

I have often asked myself, "What is the skill of a critic?" "What is her discipline?" "What does he practice everyday?" "What do they do?

When I performed my solo play, "Throw Pitchfork", off-Broadway, it was the result of a daily regimen of writing which turned into weeks, which turned into months. Then a couple of years of flying back and forth to New York for workshops with groups of seasoned professional writers, directors, actors and dramaturges who gave feedback and insights based on their years of activity and experience, forcing me to rewrite and restructure the piece that I had already worked so diligently on.

Then came the rehearsal process, since I perform my work as well. A grueling three weeks of rehearsal at New York Theatre Workshop: seven hours a day, six days a week on my feet going over every moment, every movement.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an artist who got bad reviews and wants to whine about it. In fact, I had many excellent reviews from impressive New York sources, and only one bad one.

But still I asked myself those questions I posed earlier: "Who is this person that comes, sits on their butt for the length of my show, does not talk to me or any other artist connected to the production, does not talk to an audience member (in short, does no work), goes home and writes a not very skillfully written critique of my work?"

"What do they do? What are their skills and discipline?"