Well, it’s my beloved Friday the 13th, which is actually a confluence of weekday and number more to do with fertility than misfortune. This also means I’m thirteen days into my artistic residency at Elsewhere studios in Paonia, Colorado.
I’m here as a playwright, having tasked myself with the authorship of two plays, but I’m finding ways to sneak everything else in too.
In one play, Jackdaw, characters sing original folk songs– I’m fascinated by the way the music sung around campfires can be such a salient carrier of society. The play’s about xenophobia, its main family a thinly veiled stand-in for the United States. I’m here seeking inspiration for how to implicate the audience in the conflict.
I’m writing a play cycle, Three Deities Witness an End of a World. Gaia, Theia, and Nyx, grand beings forged and discarded by the great collision that birthed our moon, watch over Earth’s newest dominant species. Theia’s convinced humanity turns towards light, but we are so wrapped in choice and contradiction that it’s truly hard to tell.
Omega Road, in awe of the peaks. 
The full moon between two peaks. 
Posted: No Trespassing. Keep Out.
At the end of the month (December 28th), I’m putting up a full production: Three Deities, with local actors. It’s going up in Elsewhere’s yard, and I’m also directing and designing by necessity. It will be filmed, so keep an eye out here for clips!
The nature of an artistic residency is that everything else takes a backseat, but Chariot is still coming out January 31st. Some other stuff– some film stuff– is brewing, but that cauldron won’t overflow for a hot second either way. The horizon is full of shifting forms, and come 2020 I can’t wait to get cracking!
BT Montrym 