Auditions - Storyteller 2011

Auditions – Storyteller 2011

Auditioning Online till 22^nd May – London Auditions 21^st May

Performing Monday 11^th, Tuesday 12^th and Wednesday 13^th July 2011

For three nights in July Milk Bottle Productions is coming to the New Wimbledon Studio with our new show Storyteller 2011 – and we’re looking for additional storytellers to join the company. 

ABOUT THE SHOW:

This first Storyteller show of the year is called The Natural History of Trolls by Robert Crighton, three stories covering a hundred and fifty years of history, two Queens and their subjects in the fairy kingdom.  Midst this epic timeline is the story of an ordinary commute gone wrong, when a troll-like tramp in an Underground carriage turns out to REALLY be a Troll.

For more background to the show do visit the Storyteller vlog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU732VlOF0Q or check out earlier posts on this blog.

ABOUT THE PROCESS:

Each successful auditionee will be given a two / three minute portion of the story to perform for one night only.  You would be part of a chain of eight-ten storytellers passing the baton of the story to the next person. 

Rehearsals – from 1pm on the day of performance.  You’ll work intensively with Robert and his team on your story for that afternoon and then perform it that evening.  There is no other rehearsal.  Successful auditionees must turn up to rehearse knowing their lines and be ready to work their socks off for the rest of the day.  There may also be an improvisational element to the show for some company members.

Fee – profit share.  We do not calculate this will be a vast amount, due to the size of the company, but it should cover expenses. 

HOW TO AUDITION:

For the next four weeks you can audition online.  Record a video of your performance of the sample script – found below on our blog and upload it to a YouTube or other type site and send the link to us at contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk with a copy your CV and any other info you feel might be of use.

Please don’t send video files to us direct – we won't open them.

Whether you upload your video to YouTube or another site, do keep the upload private / unlisted – we don’t intend to have your video’s judged by the mass media marketplace.  We will not forward or use these videos unless you give us permission. 

For those who are technically ill equipped – or who would like to be seen physically – there will be one audition in London on Saturday 21^st May.  Just send us a CV to contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk (don’t bother about a picture, it is irrelevant to storytellers) and we’ll let you know the time and place of the audition and pass on other relevant details.

AFTER THE AUDITION:

We’ll be working online – so keep an eye on your inbox for initial confirmation of casting.  We’ll send those out on Wednesday 25^th May.  For those cast there will be follow up material, a contract and the text of your monologue.

The show will be returning to London for a six week run in late November – so there may be follow up casting to this short run later in the year – even if you don’t get cast this time around.

KEY DATES:

23^rd April – Online Auditions and Applications Open

21^st May – London Auditions (time and place tba)

22^nd May – Online Auditions close

25^th May onwards – Confirmation emails, general contact

11^th July from 1pm – First Team

12^th July from 1pm – Second Team

13^th July from 1pm – Third Team

AUDITION TEXT:   This is still a draft and so may contain material which will change prior to the show.  For those auditioning on Saturday 21^st May there will be other monologues to play with – if only to stop the audition panel getting very bored with the repetition.

PROLOGUE

Once Upon a Time there was a young Princess

Who encountered a fairy at the bottom of her garden.

Now, being a Princess, this was one BIG garden

And one had to go a long way to find anything living there -

Let alone a fairy.

This fairy didn’t talk, but it could dance in the air

And, most thrillingly, turn itself into ANYTHING

The Princess happened to think of.

The Princess first discovered this little creature

When she had briefly escaped her governess

And gone for a walk in the grounds to think.

It was thinking about stuff that got her highness

And a lot of other people, into a lot of trouble.

The Princess was thinking about a story

She had been reading in a book all week.

As she ran the improbabilities of the story through her mind

She thought she would hear a rustling amongst the trees.

Slowly, carefully a tiny fairy, exactly like in the book, appeared.

She held out her hand and onto it the fairy

Sat, looking at the princess with its miniscule eyes.

But there was something wrong with its form.

The fairy in the book had dark hair, not light brown...

And as she thought it, the hair changed colour.

A lesser child would have dropped the creature

But she had been brought up well and wasn’t fazed.

The Princess simply stared and thought – thought

Really hard

That the fairy should have a beard!

And at the Royal command – the fairy grew a long beard.

The experiment was clear, the creature could change shape.

So the Princess cupped her hands round the fairy

And took it back with her into the house.

From that day till she turned eleven, the fairy

Was a prized companion to her in her loneliness.

The Princess was an important person, she knew that,

There were future duties which scared her family

And that was why her life was very dull indeed.

But in the snatched moments alone with her fairy

She could play and mould its shape and form

Into her hearts contents.

When the Princess was eleven she discovered

That there had been a death in her family. 

She wasn’t all that worried about the person who died

More that it meant that she was now an

Even more important person.

She wasn’t just any Princess now – one day she

And she alone would be Queen.

The future Queen sat thinking about this when

Her fairy appeared beside her.

As she thought about this life changing step

The fairy started to change.  Grow.

It grew to man size – no, her size...

Her shape.

The fairy was a mirror image of herself – the face reversed

As in a real mirror.

Only it wasn’t exactly the same as the Princess.

It wore a crown and fine jewels and held a sceptre

And a ball and there were voices

Chants and prayers

And ceremonies and

It was all too

Much.

The young Princess didn’t lash out as such,

She was too well brought up for that.  She didn’t

Scream or shout or attack the fairy, physically or verbally.

But she did think of a rejection – she did think

With all the passion of a child – that the fairy

Was a horrible, evil, terrible creature and must

GO!

And the nasty fairy, silent and obedient to the last,

Just faded away...

AND WHILE YOU'RE HERE - JUST THOUGHT WE'D MENTION....

Milk Bottle Productions Presents... 

Teaching Gods: The Ultimate Selection

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

With Special Guests – Catherine Eccles and Simon Nader

For over two years Milk Bottle has been touring the multi-award winning Teaching Gods storytelling show – but all good things must come to an end.  Prior to the launch of a new show in the autumn Milk Bottle presents the very best stories from Teaching Gods for the last time.  Including the hilarious tale of The Alternative Seagull, the charming children’s story (not for children) Bink! and the madcap title story Teaching Gods itself.  ABSOLUTELY THE LAST CHANCE TO SEE!

Tickets £10 / £8 concessions

Special Ticket Prices for attendees of The Revengers – See details below.

Show starts at 7pm – doors open 6.45pm.

Sunday 22^nd May at the Barons Court Theatre

Box Office: 020 8932 4747

Baron’s Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14

Nearest Tube:  Baron’s Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)

The Cast:

Robert Crighton

Robert is the author of all the monologues and performs the award-winning Teaching Gods.  He is only entrant in the 25 year history of the Lost One-Act Festival to win three awards in successive years.  A major new talent, Robert is returning to London with his touring production of the best of his stories.  With Milk Bottle he has produced a mix of work, from classical drama to new plays, but returns to a favoured format, the monologue.  His last show was the tour-de-force The Complete Sherlock Holmes, in which he performed every single story over 32 performances.

"… you'd better be quick to catch Robert Crighton enthrall you..." Remotegoat 2011

Catherine Eccles

Catherine’s theatre credits include A Servant of Two Masters, 21st Century Faust and Crave.  She has recently finished filming in Ben Fellows’ latest feature film, Greenwich Village Massacre and plays the role of Witch Guinevere Westmorland in Children’s TV series, Spooked.  She’s a regular performer with The Kitten Club as self devised comedy burlesque character and compere ‘Vixen DeVille’.

Simon Nader

Simon Nader trained at The Academy Drama School as The Stage Scholarship winner. Collaborations with Robert include the previous London runs of Teaching Gods, and Teiresias in BLIND SPOTS (2010). Other credits include BILLY BLISTER’S CIRCUS (Watford Palace Theatre), MAGGIE’S END (Shaw), OF MICE AND MEN (National Tour), THE OTHER SIDE (Gilded Balloon Edinburgh), CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (Union Theatre) and most recently THE REVENGERS (Barons Court). Feature films include: IRONCLAD , Fodor’s HAMLET, FUR MEINEN VATER and THE DEAD INSIDE. TV incl. URBAN LEGENDS (Channel Five) and a daily show on ITV’s Men and Motors Channel as a presenter: CASH LOUNGE.

SPECIAL TICKET OFFER

In association with THE REVENGERS!

* If you buy your ticket for THE REVENGERS and at the same time purchase your ticket in advance for "TEACHING GODS and other stories: The ULTIMATE selection!" which will be at Barons Court at 7pm on Sunday May 22nd, you will get both tickets at the concession rate saving a whopping £4.50! Lovely job? For more info see: www.milkbottleproductions.co.uk *

Orange Grille Productions presents:

THE REVENGERS!

“Following their hit play Maggie’s End, Tyneside-based writers Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood, are returning to London with their dark comedy: “THE REVENGERS!” Katy Dream is a sex-symbol; a kick-ass kung-fu queen who, as Gemma Peel in hit TV show “The Revengers” once killed a man with her tongue… Twenty-five years later she’s plain old Katy West, caring for her wheelchair bound, Castro-obsessed Marxist husband Jimmy. Enter charming but sinister loan-shark Gary to bring more than a touch of drama back into Katy’s world… “An extraordinary dramatic comedy – a shining example of great theatre which should not be missed” Tribune”

May 10th-15th and 17th–21st 7:45pm/Sat mats 2pm £12.50/£10.00

Trolling along on the crest of a wave...

I've been a little quiet in blogging terms for the Storytelling show - but that's partly because for the last week or so things have been picking up speed.  I've been assist directing The Revengers (running at Barons Court in three weeks or so), rehearsing Teaching Gods: The Ultimate Selection, directing Dancing at Lughnasa and generally feeling the get up and go.
Most importantly the final work on the first Storyteller show is reaching its conclusion - partly because it just is, partly because some of it has to be ready in a few days. 
Two points follow from those statements - first point: the first Storyteller show?
Well, Storyteller is the blanket title for any storytelling show I'll do this year, but there will be more than one of these.  The aim is that when I get to the London run over Christmas I'll have two or three different shows which will change every few weeks a. to stop myself getting bored and b. to fit the changing season (something Christmasy, something New Yeary).
Second point: ready in a few days?
Very soon I'm going to open auditions for storytellers and performers for the New Wimbledon run in July.  The first set of auditions will be online and then there will be a physical audition for those who aren't technically minded on Saturday 21st May.  Which means I need to have a section of text performable for auditions.
The main body of the show The Natural History of Trolls is written and bedding in.  It'll change over the next couple of months in little ways - little cuts, rewrites, new words - but nothing needs obvious rewriting.  As followers of this blog will know it's the other sections, the subplots, which are still is disarray - which is unfortunate, as these are the sections the rest of the company will perform. 
I say are in disarray, that's no longer true - they are almost complete.  But there's still a lot of work to do.
Trolls is now structured like this:
Prologue - consisting of four short monologues, with some of the backstory, set in the distant past.
Trolls, Part One - the main bulk of the story, set in the present.
Interlude - consisting of four short monologues, with more backstory, set in the less distant past.
Trolls, Part Two - the conclusion of part one.
I've also created two different openings to the show - neither of which has won me over yet. 
So, it'll be a matter of honing down the Prologue and the Interlude, ready for the auditions to start.
That's where it's at.
Next blog - audition info.
Robx

Reconnecting...

Fabulous news - I haven't been able to mention it as the contracts hadn't been signed, but Storyteller will be coming to London four months early, this July - but only for three nights and - most important - there is no guarantee that when it comes back in November the story/ies will be the same.  We'll be at the New Wimbledon Studio and I can't wait - especially as I'm hoping to work with lots of other people on this project.  I got very tired of being alone for the last show.  But these things are not what this blog are about.  This is to chart the progress of the show - Storyteller - as I write it.  And I'm a little late with my blog this week.  For this stuff got to the vblog http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRobertCrighton?feature=mhum

I've been at something of a disconnect for the last two weeks or so.  That isn't to say I haven't been active, but I haven't quite been in the room.  In the next week or so I'll be gearing up to Teaching Gods: The Ultimate Selection, putting the finishing touches to the first Storyteller show and countless other acts (creative and often not) and so, feeling myself drift, I didn't fight it.  This week I can afford it, next week I cannot. 
Sometimes we are not inspired, but as professional creatives we carry on regardless.  And sometimes you are feeling inspired and the world knocks you off your perch and you lose the moment.  Any strong emotion will tend to bend your will away from the task in hand.  For example, being in love - impossible to work effectively whilst in the first throws.  Deep flaw in the plot of Shakespeare in Love. 
Not that I'm in love or anything - just angry.  It was watching the rolling coverage online of the arts cuts last week that threw me completely off any real progress.  The more I looked, the angrier I got.  I'm not going to get political about this beyond IT'S ALL COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY - WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE - AGGGGGHHHHH!
And then I'd make another cup of tea, sit in front of my laptop in the garage and try to make a passage in Storyteller work better.  The problem looks something like this - you sit down and write a story called The Natural History of Trolls.  You pull this story apart, put it back together and finally rewrite it totally.
Then you have an idea for all the material you ripped out - rework it as a prologue to the main story.  Marvellous.  Should work.  You've got the bones of the story there - cut and paste - brilliant.
Now make it good.
Whilst really angry.
So I did some admin instead - designed a poster - direct a rehearsal for Dancing at Lughnasa - printed off the contract for the New Wimbledon Studio - sent some emails - watch almost every documentary Adam Curtis ever produced - direct another rehearsal for Dancing at Lughnasa - look at a stove - buy a book of stamps - post contract - shoot a lot of penguins late at night when you can't sleep - cut 12 thousand words from The Rivals for a youth theatre production - listen to the rushes for Bink! CD release - re-edit an opening for Teaching Gods - direct another rehearsal for DaL - walk the dog - drink a lot of tea - go to various meetings - notice that it's a lovely day.
Ah.... that's better.  The words move again, progressing on that expressway out of mediocrity and into the city of words that sing.  Well - that'll be for the audience to decide.  I could have set my sat nav incorrectly.
Rxx

Dancing, dancing, dancing...

So, after a burst of creative energy, I've gone into a bit of a slump this week.  Partly because there isn't much more to be done to the first "Storyteller" show.  What has happened since last I blogged?  Well, Encounters with Trolls has a new title and has been completely restructured.  It now involves fewer magical creatures and is firmly rooted in a more real world.  Okay, there are still creatures called - at the beginning - Trolls.  But they are just another form of life.  They are not wholly magical.  Thus the new title... drum roll...

The Natural History of Trolls.  Which is more appropriate.
What this means is that in changing the nature of the Trolls I had to rip the original core idea out of the story.  Ow.  As it lay bleeding on the floor, looking up at me with angry eyes, screaming out: "why me!" I realised all was not lost.  I had ripped it out to put a new story in it's place, but the old story could be re-tooled and put back in as a parallel story to the main one.  Story 1 and story 2, running on parallel lines. 

But, that meant the show would be longer.  My second half would have to go.  Bye bye "After the Fall of the Gods of Commerce" it was nice knowing you. 

So now, instead of getting other storytellers in to join me and tell stories in the second half, now they will join me in Trolls itself.  Story 2 has been broken into chunks and will be that opportunity for new people to join me onstage.

And - and - we will still have a bit of time at the end of the show for a couple other stories that will be completely random funny stories that I like.
There, done, not complicated at all.  Phew.
So that was all done Tuesday / Wednesday when I was posting the vlogs 6 and 7. 
Then, as I rewrote the story to fit in the story 2, story 3 jumped up and said Hello, before going for my face.  So, not so close to finishing this draft, but the show is not definitely one story - plus the odd encore story - and that story (stories) is called The Natural History of Trolls.  Definite. 
And when I haven't been tearing my hair out?
Well, I had some people down on Saturday for a read through - thank you guys - of Amleth, part two, which went well.  It isn't a perfect play, but I went away and was inspired to do some good work on it during the night. 
And we approach closer to the launch of the Teaching Gods CD in May - the launch will be held in London on the 22nd May at our Ultimate Selection show.  Just been doing the posters.

Which are just a rejig of the old poster, but I'm sure no one minds that.  So I've also started rehearsing that in a fairly holistic way.  We'll have a lot more to do on it later, as the show approaches. 

Oh, and I'm also rehearsing at production of Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel for performance in May.  I was going to write more about that, put up the poster and tell you lots of funny stories but that'll have to be in a future blog - I've just run out of time today.  Looking fab, that's all I'm going to say.  Lovely.

Blatent Plug Alert: You may notice it's on on a Sunday, following a two week play called The Revengers.  This is no coincidence, as Mr Nader - who performs Keynote Speaker in TG - is directing the play and allowed us to take the spare night at the end of his run.  Not only that, you can get a discount to the one if you also see the other.  Both The Revengers and Teaching Gods for a snip.  Go, book your tickets now!

Okay, done now.  There are still lots of things I can't write about, so I'll stop now.  Hopefully I'll have a whole lot more to tell you soon.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...
Teaching Gods: The Ultimate Selection

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton

With Special Guests – Catherine Eccles and Simon Nader.

For over two years Milk Bottle has been touring the multi-award winning Teaching Gods storytelling show – but all good things must come to an end.  Prior to the launch of a new show in the autumn Milk Bottle presents the very best stories from Teaching Gods for the last time.  Including the hilarious tale of The Alternative Seagull, the charming children’s story (not for children) Bink! and the madcap title story Teaching Gods itself.  ABSOLUTELY THE LAST CHANCE TO SEE!

Tickets £10 / £8 concessions

Special Ticket Prices for attendees of The Revengers (10^th to 21^st May at Barons Court) – Details below.

Show starts at 7pm – doors open 6.45pm.

Sunday 22^nd May at the Barons Court Theatre

Storyteller Line Up

This blog follows the highs and lows of a week of writing and is a companion to the video blogs 6 and 7 (currently being edited) which appear on YouTube.  Blog 6 is a general round up, blog 7 is a series of clips from the re-writing process of the opening of the new story - Encounters with Trolls of the Northern Line.

Tuesday - late at night...
Right - got it - this is the line up!  Know what the show looks like now.  I've been rehearsing and timing material and I know what the show is.
First Half: Encounters with Trolls of the Northern Line - a fifty / sixty minute monologue which covers lots of themes and ideas, a little sad, a little sweet, a little bit naughty.
Second Half: After the Fall of the Gods of Commerce - a forty minute collection of seven / eight short pieces, all set sometime in a number of possible futures.  They'll all be loosely linked, all set in what becomes of the United Kingdom, and all essentially fantastic in tone.  They're mostly funny, as I want to draw the show towards a light conclusion, even if we pass some darker places.  There's only one of these now to write - though I might jettison one of them, as it's written in the third person, and all the other second half stories are written from one persons point of view.
I now know precisely how I want the show to move - but not only that - I know how I want to stage it.  The second half I'll act as the link between stories, but I want to involve other storytellers and actors in the show.  Hopefully I'll be able to pull together a team of people to do all those stories - though I will have to rehearse them all myself just in case that cannot happen.
This only came to me Monday, recovering from a pretty heavy days drinking at a lovely wedding.  I've spent all of Tuesday pushing the pre-written material into shape, and adding in new stuff where needed.  Now I'll be looking for actors to help me test the material - especially as the deadline for Storyteller has moved ahead by many months.  I was planning to have it done by September, for the main dates.  It is now looking more like July - for reasons which I will explain later.
More follows...

Thursday - lateish...
Spent all day marking up edit points on the audio book recording of Teaching Gods.  Want to get on with other stuff now - like recording the next one.

Saturday Night - similarly late...
Okay - so I wrote that on Tuesday / Wednesday.  It's now Saturday and I've suddenly become unsure.
For why?  Because I've been working on the idea - and then a new idea came up.  An organic idea, so maybe the winning idea.
To explain I must tell you more about Trolls.  It's got a back story to the main action, which I can't tell you about.  But there are two people whose lives effect the story greatly, but who we never meet.  And now, I really want to fit their story into the story of Mr Griffin and his bizarre encounter with a group of Trolls he meets underground.  BUT - to do this I would have to jetterson the second half - "After the Fall of the Gods of Commerce" - which I don't want to do. 
I've been cutting Trolls down, rewritten the opening and removed some of the weirder bits.  It's becoming a bittersweet, sad - hopefully funny - story.  If I were to add another element, the back story, it will become a love story.  So that is now getting there - and I'll keep working on that. 
That doesn't mean I will give up on the Gods of Commerce - I will continue working on those stories and finding a way to do them.  I want to do them because they're a way to share lots of stories at once with lots of other storytellers.  So I'm really torn now and I hate my brain.
I've also been recording some of the word runs I've been doing - so hopefully I'll post the opening on the video blog, in the various stages it has reached this week.  It has changed quite a bit.
Right I'm off now.

Monday Night - reassuringly early...
Having spent a lot of time on Trolls I'm confident that it will reduce well into a fifty - sixty minute piece, including any new material.  That means I'm still on track to create the second half, as noted above.  So this coming week I'll really get stuck into that material, and probably do the same kind of video / comparitive run blog as this week.

Building the show...

First off - the musings of my week.  In between actually doing work I do a fair amount of thinking.  Often, when it looks like I'm watching television, eating toast or shaving, I am simply not there.  Which is why I shave so badly.  This first bit is based on those thoughts about the work in hand.
Right - now I've got a whole load of material, it's all about putting together a coherent show.  It isn't enough to put a load of random stories together and call them a show.  There needs to be a shape.  And there needs to be more than one version of the show.  Some venues will want a shorter format show without an interval - for which the structure of the show, story order and selection, would have to change dramatically. 
I also want to structure in a couple of shorter stories within the show for others to perform - for two very good reasons.  1. Variety.  2.  It gives me a few minutes break.  It also means I get to meet other performers and swap ideas and ways of working, which helps keep me fresh.
So, the bulk of the show will be one large monologue - filling the show in the way Teaching Gods did for the last show.  At present the front runner for that is the newly completed Encounters With Trolls of the Northern Line - which is sweet and a little sad, with not a bit of humour too.  So, how do I arrange the material around this?  Do I use it as a load stone and orbit the shorter stories around it - or do I open with short bits and end with a big slab of story - or visa-versa? 
There is the other contender for long story - The Ghosts of Lavenham - which is slated for performance in October with the other material.  Will I bring that into the touring version, or leave it as a one off for the Lavenham Guildhall event?
I'm also looking at the material and hunting for a theme - something the whole evening, if not hinges on, at least reverberates to.  Maybe the shorter stories should be linked thematically.  At present they don't. 
As I write these shorter pieces, adjust them, rework them, start new pieces, then I hope a theme and angle for the show will appear.
I also have another one-off piece to write - which is a mix of memoir and spoof detective fiction.  Titled "The Adventures of Shermes Hollocks" it covers the funny side of my recent reading show from Christmas.  I'll be doing it June and it might find a place somewhere in the future.

Now, what have I actually been doing.  Well, rehearsing for a start.  Yes, as you will see in the new video blog, out soon, I have moved from my little study into a garage.  This enables me to speak the text aloud, move about a bit and generally through the new stories up in the air.  This is the middle space between writing the show and rehearsing in a proper space, with directors and photographers and other people generally judging me. 
Unfortunately, this means that nothing appears to have happened.  I've read through the stories as writ - but I haven't changed anything yet.  The move has simply enabled me to take in the reality of a spoken text (as opposed to a load of words on a page) and I haven't got to the stage of ripping it to shreds yet.  Yet.  Give it a few more days. 
I also spent much of the last week helping tech a production of Separate Tables, which was jolly nice, as it did get me out of the house.  At this stage of working, you can get a bit house bound.  On Sunday I travelled to London to catch a production of The Seagull, which I was once to have been in.  It was a really sad experience, because - enjoying the show as I did - I felt the loss of being a part of it all quite intensely.  I had started rehearsals, got to know the cast, and then had to leave because of circumstance.  And I hate circumstance.  But the world, and I, move on - and I dived into rehearsing Teaching Gods for recording on Sunday.  I've only got a couple of hours, so I can't risk a few bad takes.  And when that's done, it's off to a wedding.  Which I love to cry at.  Oh no, that's not me, that's a song.  Always getting the two mixed up.

The Ultimate Selection!

I'm a little late again this week - but I think mid-week postings will become the order of the day, as I tend to be much busier during the weekends than on weekdays.
Been working on the story "Much Like..." and "Trolls" this week.  "Much Like..." is very short so I have been able to finish it.  I will leave it now until the next phase - the rehearsal/writing phase - where it will get polished and worked.  So, with "Sleep Inc.", I've got two shorts complete now, and hopefully a couple more by the end of the week.
The way I work on monologues is fairly lengthy - though I have written some pieces very swiftly indeed.  It isn't the writing of the monologue that takes the time, it's the re-writing and rehearsal phase that takes forever.  Let's put it this way - at the moment I'm enjoying writing because the pieces are just coming out, fairly swiftly and without fuss.  However, once I start saying the words outloud, then it get HARD.  There are quite a number of agonies that I will have to go through trying to make a load of words work.  Then I move to phase three, which is the rehearsal proper phase - preparing the stories for performance and fit them into a vaguely unified show.
"Trolls" is taking longer, partly because it is longer, and partly because it's just more complicated.  It is about lots of things - themes, ideas, characters and emotions - whereas a short monologue tends to work on just one or two things.  In the last week I've nearly completed a first draft - any day now and all the sections of the text will have been drawn together.  The only problem is that the rewriting will now take forever.
But I need to get ahead, as the closer I get to summer the less time I will have each day - as other projects butt in and administration for the autumn rears its ugly head.  Advertising, publicity, design work - plus the rehearsals themselves.  No time for writing - or much rewriting - then.
Had a little meeting or two to confirm a few other shows I'll be directing in Suffolk between now and the Storyteller shows, as well as confirming a cast member for "The Ghosts of Lavenham" special in October.  I can now start plotting out the story and look for details from Lavenham's past to create the character of the Ghost herself.

And here's a little departure - I've started to think out a plotline for a story working titled "Just One of My Little Hobbies" which is going to be based on this photo, which was taken (while Mr Simon Nader and myself were mucking about) in a photoshoot for the first Teaching Gods run.  It's sat there, smiling at me, saying "use me" and I've never quite figured out how.  I think I have the germ of an idea for it now.  It should be quite fun.
And, breaking news, there will be a one off, end of the line, performance of "Teaching Gods - The Ultimate Selection", in London in May.  It'll be a farewell to some of my favourite stories for a while before I move onto the new set I'm writing now.  It will also, by an amazing co-incidence, coincide with the launch of the Teaching Gods audiobook, which we're recording at the moment.  In fact, my big task this coming week is to re-rehearse "Teaching Gods" to get it ready for recording, as a couple of slight adjustments may need to be made to carry the meaning in the audio format.  Details on all this will follow shortly.