I don’t know why it should be so, but I have to say that after cutting another 20 pages out of the script in the last day, I feel vaguely and entirely beaten up.
Seriously.
We’re down from 174 to 154 pages (and really only one paragraph at the top of 154, but who’s counting).
I feel that anything below 150 feels non-insane, although I want a solid 120 by Tuesday.
Why Tuesday?
Because that’s the day I’ve decided to have a full-fledged script reading, my first in a while, and definitely my first in San Francisco, at the temporary home of Val & Clark.
In NYC, I had about four million of these –– either just in my loft (ranging from 5 to 15 actors and 0 to 20 guests) –– to huge events of 150 at the Harvard Club or even in full-fledged theater spaces like Playwright’s Horizons or that West Village space where NAKED BOYS SINGING played forever.
And, of course, in NYC I know tons of actors, many of whom have Obie and Tony-awards in their back-pockets.
If we were doing this in LA, I’d have my producer, arguably the best casting person in film.
But here … well … I do believe we’ll find some amazing folks for the leads –– especially given the project’s pedigree –– but it’s pretty much starting from scratch.
By the way, I’d say that a good 95% of my motivation is not so much what I will learn from the reading, but that I know having scheduled it, and invited a dozen guests, and casting another 5 to 7 actors means only one things –– I will be finished and it will be 120-ish pages by Tuesday night at 7pm…
No matter how bruised that leaves me on Wednesday morning.
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