David Templeton’s “Polar Bears: A True Story About a Very Big Lie,’ will have three WARM-UP performances in Sonoma County before heading to New York City where the show will be performed at the United Solo Theatre Festival on Oct. 25 TONIGHT: Thursday, Oct 13, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 7 p.m. – donation at the door SATURDAY, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m. (with 6:30 reception) at Artaluma in Petaluma ($25-$30) – DavePokornyPResents.com WEDNESDAY, Oct. 19 – Main Stage West in Sebastopol, 7 p.m. (MainStageWest.com)
Performed by the author, this hilarious and heart-breaking solo show tells the story of a young father, eager for his kids to believe in Santa longer than he did (he was four when he recognized the polar bear wrapping paper “Santa” used on his Christmas presents), who becomes increasingly obsessed with all the details of the perfect Christmas experience. When a family tragedy strikes, he puts his Christmas creativity to work building a new life with his kids, but when the Santa-adjacent fantasy he so meticulously created starts to spiral out of control, everything takes a surprising and unpredictable turn.
Well, in one week, I will be in New York City, where an industry reading of my play ‘Galatea’ will take place at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center on Thursday, Sept. 8.
Directed by Bob Ari, the reading features a cast that includes a couple of legends: Caroline Aaron (who plays Shirley Maisel on “The Mazing Mrs. Maisel”) and John Rothman (whose many memorable on-screen moments include being the librarian to whom Bill Murray says “Back off, man! I’m a scientist!” in “Ghostbusters”). Mel House and Ben Mehl complete the cast.
So what, exactly, is an “industry reading”? It’s where theater folks from the NYC area and beyond are invited to a professional presentation of a new (or new-ish) play, which is not fully acted out with costumes and props and sets and blocking, but simply read aloud from the script. If you have never been to one, they are a lot of fun, a blend of words and imagination, and very effective at giving people a sense of what this play could become when fully staged. And that, of course, is the hope: that someone in New York will see the necessity of “Galatea” being given a full production off-Broadway in the near future.
I will be attending, thanks to Mr. Ari, who is hosting me, and to some friends who’ve offered to underwrite the expenses of flying to the East Coast. As it so happens, this is be just the first of at least two trips I am taking to New York this fall, since I will be returning there in October to perform my solo show “Polar Bears” at the United Solo Theatre Festival at Theatre Row on 42nd Street.
Link to Polar Bears GoFundMe site
I intend to post often throughout the next several weeks, updating supporters on what I’m up to and how things are going. I will try to include photographs (when I remember to take them!). Meanwhile, you can support me by sharing this blog/website with others who might be interested, and by visiting my GoFundMe site where I continue to raise funds to make all of these projects possible. Thanks, as always, for your participation in my adventures.
By the way, stay tuned for information about the Polar Bears warm-up performances I will be giving in mid-October in preparation of my trip to United Solo at the end of the month. Currently, it looks like I will be giving at least four performances in the weeks before I leave, in Petaluma, Sebastopol, Healdsburg and Napa. Information coming soon.
I am, on occasion, asked why I write plays (instead of say, movies or television shows, which I am certainly open to doing), and specifically why I write about the things I do: ghosts and monsters and robots and deities, outcasts and rejects and dreamers and losers, aging heavy metal fans and foul-mouthed parrots and people who fall in love with each other while playing Dungeons and Dragons. My answers, as if somehow channeled directly from the sweet, damaged dreamers that so often end up with featured roles in my stories, are as lofty and noble as they are foolish and over0reaching and ultimately unachievable.
I write plays, — stories created specifically for live theatrical presentation — because theater is intimate and dangerous, because it’s one of those wildly beautiful artforms where you are in a room breathing the same air as the people who are making the art for you (a much scarier commitment these days than perhaps in the past). I write plays because I believe they have a unique power to calm people and soothe people and delight people and scare people. I want to rattle people so hard, or make them laugh so deeply, that they need a chiropractor in the morning. I also want to pass them a couple of ibuprofen and a diagram of stretches they might want to try before going to sleep that night. Basically, I want them to leave the theater a slightly but detectably different person than when they entered and took their seat. Plays can do that, in a way I genuinely respect and enjoy. As for why I write plays about the curiously offbeat characters I do, my answer is simple. I love them.
If there is a better reason to write about anything, or to write at all, I’d like to know.
David Templeton 