In addition to the other two cornerstones of the project (temporary and experimental, 'member?), I'm gonna be tossing out quick breakdowns of each part of The Nine, both the play and the conceptions we are approaching them with. (I'm also officially announcing the cast early next week, so stop back for that!) But first, how did this whole idea come about?
Back in 2007, I was one of the founders of a short-lived company called Per Diem. During an early company meeting, as we were getting into the nitty gritty of mission statements and what we wanted to do and why we wanted to do it, we decided to engage in a little exercise. The three of us agreed to each slate our ideal first three seasons. If we had complete artistic freedom and were to program three three-show seasons, what would they look like? We would go our separate ways and come back to the next meeting, three seasons in hand and ready for discussion.
I remember spending a happy hour at Monk's Pub the next week with my best friend and a few sheets of paper, scribbling and talking and drinking. I was tossing around names of obscure shows that I had fallen in love with and weren't being done anywhere, random concepts that may or may not have potential but that had me curious and weren't being done anywhere, and a certain degree of taking the piss, of the sorts of things that just aren't supposed to be done anywhere. You'll note that there was (is?) a running theme of things that I wasn't finding done anywhere else. We sat there going over this list for at least a couple of hours. When we emerged, I had what you might call the fetus of The Nine in my hands. I had separated the difficult concepts from the stupid ones, honed the obscure shows into a good cross-section of work, and come up with what was probably a good 75% of The Nine you see today.
Per Diem didn't last much longer; I had to pull the first show (which was Radio Silence, now Part Two of The Nine) and eventually drop out of the company, largely for personal issues on my end. The rest of the company transformed into Tip Your Waiter Productions and I held onto the scraps of paper with my three seasons. There was so much in that plan that I was excited about, so much that seemed like it needed to be done, so many ideas that I was not seeing offered in a city with soooo much theatre that I couldn't bear to toss it aside as a pipe dream. Another couple of happy hours as well as a number of late night conversations and this three season plot started to become more and more solidified and more and more a single project. I remember at one point talking about where this was all going and saying, "If I could put up these nine shows, I don't really know where I'd go next. This is a whole cycle right here." Somewhere along the line I started talking about actually putting all nine of these up myself and somewhere along the line that turned into an actual decision to do so.
After that decision I did some rearranging of shows to fit the greek cross motif that I had applied (yes, there's rhyme and reason behind that, but that's a whole 'nother blog post) and a couple of substitutions -- for example, Ping-Pong was at one point Peter Handke's Kaspar. But, for better or worse, The Nine was in place. And now that this snowball is a-rolling, who knows where it stops?
So now I'm curious -- if you had to make your own Nine, what would it be? What nine plays/concepts would you limit yourself to? No limits, no holds barred. What's your nine?
Bries.
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