Big gay play from small university town

Small town theatre artist Graeme Gerrad has gamely answered Praxis Theatre’s call for guest bloggers. In a series of posts over the next couple of months, Gerrard will be documenting the production of his company’s new play Going Back In & Getting Dragged Out – which premieres at Toronto’s Factory Theatre in January 2008.

The production diary starts here
By Graeme Gerrard

I guess I enjoy sitting and staring blankly at my computer screen, because, yes, I have decided to attempt to write a blog during the process of producing my next play.

I suppose I should start by explaining who I am. I’m basically a small town guy, coming from Emsdale. If you look it up you’ll find that it truly is a one-horse town, especially now that the highway has bypassed it.

I studied theatre at the University of Guelph and when I graduated I decided that I wouldn’t follow most of my fellow students to Toronto, but I would remain in Guelph, which – while no Emsdale – is certainly manageable to someone like myself, who admittedly has trouble with crowds.

In 2004 Pam Thomson, a recent fellow graduate of the University of Guelph, decided to produce Going Back In at Guelph, Ontario’s eBar, where she worked. It was a play I had written three years earlier while in university, produced during the winter break, and Pam had liked it.

Guelph-based theatre maker Pam Thomson.

Pam’s production of Going Back In was a success, and plans were made to follow it up with another. The result took Pam up on stage, and put me in a writer/director roll, for 2005’s Some Play.

Pam and I moved away, I came back a year later, and it took a while to mount the next production, but this April’s The Hardly Boys: My Brother’s First Time was our company’s first venture without Pam, and our first production brought to Toronto.

With each subsequent production I’ve attempted to add a new challenge. Bringing The Hardly Boys play to Buddies In Bad Times Cabaret was an extension of that.

Remounting the old
When I wrote Going Back In I had always intended to write more for the characters – in the form of a second act. I took a few stabs at it, as early as 2003, with little success. Eventually, in the year I lived away from Guelph, I wrote a second act, and called it Getting Dragged Out, which, I feel, complements the original nicely.

Going Back In is a story of a gay undergraduate showing up at his sister’s house for dinner with a date. This night however his date is a woman that he has tricked into believing he’s straight. Or has he?

The second act, Getting Dragged Out, is about the same brother and sister duo, but is more a discussion about drag and issues of identity. Both are a mixture of silliness and serious discussion.

I decided with this production our new challenge would be to publish the play. Some people call it vanity press, others consider self-publishing to have a respectable history. I choose to think of it in its best light, and decided it would be a good way to get my words into as many minds as possible.

So that’s how this production begins. Calls were made, emails written. I assembled a cast and crew, booked the Factory Theatre Studio and Guelph’s eBar, contacted a graphic designer to create a poster and cover image, set a performance and rehearsal schedule, and begun the arduous task of getting the word out.

I’m also happy to say that GBI & GDO will once again feature Pam Thomson and an amazing cast of University of Guelph alumni.

Putting the script in print
Self-publishing a play isn’t the most difficult thing in the world, but if it’s your first time, it’s got some challenges. I knew about getting an ISBN number, a process that is incredibly easy, but I didn’t, until the eleventh hour, know about the CIP data. The CIP data is the cataloguing in publication data which you see at the bottom of the publication information page, and it’s basically a tool for sorting books. The process of getting this number was also surprisingly easy, requiring a bunch of information about the book and copy of the title page.

Jay Dart is a great designer and really handy with his computer. His assistance with the assembly of the book, cover and back-cover design were instrumental and basically the only reason it is actually happening.

He has done the poster design for all of the productions Pam and I have done at Guelph’s eBar. I love seeing another artists representation of what I’ve written. It amazes me every time; how a single image can capture an element of the plot, or a moment, or whatever, and create intrigue of it’s own. I love it.

Well, I’m getting tired of looking at this computer screen, at least it isn’t blank any longer. I am excited though, about this project developing, and about writing about it. So, if the play, or book of Going Back In & Getting Dragged Out has you interested, check out this blog in the coming weeks, or feel free to contact me by email.