Wilkes University’s Own Urban Cowboy

Matt Hinton has a lot to shout about.  After completing his MFA last year, his thesis project, a play titled Quiet Cowboy, hits the stage at  Lackawanna College’s Mellow Theater in Scranton next week.  A script that began almost three years ago is coming to fruition with the help of the Gaslight Theatre Company.  I spoke with Matt to find out exactly how it feels to see your work come to life.  And if our interview is any indication of this playwright’s energy, audiences will be anything but quiet.

Me: Tell us a little bit about Quiet Cowboy… Where the inspiration came from, why a western? Would you define it as a western drama?

Matt: Quiet Cowboy is the story of Wally and his family life.  After the death of his father and the sudden absence of his older brother, Wally takes to the American hero-figure of the cowboy for prairie-grown advice on life, it’s struggles, and how to handle himself under fire.
The inspiration for this play came from my own childhood obsession with cowboy movies and shows.  I would often spend hours a day locked in my room, the television blaring away with a thousand gunshots.  My parents didn’t really know about this.  They weren’t neglectful, but I was (and am) more an introvert than I let on.  I had secrets.  Instead of posters with cowboys, what they more likely saw papering my walls were maps of Arizona, Nevada, and the like (desert maps, really), printouts of conspiracy theories, aliens, the Bermuda Triangle, and the occult.  I was a weird kid.
Western Drama?  Maybe.  I’m not that hip on titles, but that’s appropriate enough.  I’ve always been partial to the term “Cowboy Play” because there are so few of them that are well known, even amongst the theatre brood; and besides, it’s fun to say.

Me: How long have you been working in this play? how many variations of the play did you have to create before you felt it was ready for the stage?

Matt: The earliest version of Quiet Cowboy came about sometime in 2008.  I was in the MA portion of the Wilkes University Creative Writing Program at the time, and had a few decent ideas for my project, but nothing that really burned in my chest with the heat of a thousand suns.  So, I started doing some writing exercises (it’s never too late to return to exercise prompts – if anything else, to limber up, to test oneself, to take ridiculous chances).  One of the prompts demanded that I write a compelling opening – one of my favorite challenges – and I came up with this man chain-smoking in his underwear in the wee small hours of the morning, the flash and bang of a cowboy movie dancing on his face, the walls, etc.  I could hear the gunshots, I could smell the cigarettes, the gunpowder.  Soon enough, my simple opening had grown to 15 or so pages, and I showed it around to Juanita Rockwell and Jean Klein, both instructors in Wilkes Creative Writing Program, as well as a few others.  Then, I took copious notes: questions from myself and others, thoughts, experiments.  Before long, the television was a full-blown character and I had a memory play on my hands.

There were countless revisions, of course.  Before completing the program, I’d say the entire work went through anywhere from 8-10 full drafts.  Then, while attending a workshop at the Norman Mailer Colony in Provincetown, MA, I eliminated an entire character and essentially scrapped Act II.  I should digress to mention that by this point David Reynolds was tapped to direct (though really, he volunteered with great enthusiasm), we had already cast the play, organized a few table readings and some light scene work with the actors, and were well into planning the venue (Lackawanna College’s Mellow Theater in Scranton) and holding production meetings to discuss choices in sound design, lights, and so on.  So, when I came back from P-town with a complete rewrite of the second act, it kept everyone on their toes.  There were still a few minor line changes we came upon in the rehearsal process, but this is natural.  In all, I’m extremely happy with the script and what the entire ensemble has made of it, though I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some things I would ’tweak’ if I could.  But the production draft is complete, and that’s a good feeling.

Me:  How long have you been a playwright? where you an overly dramatic toddler?

Matt: Charles Bukowski once said,  ”Nobody one ever realizes they’re a writer.  They only think they’re a writer.”  Novelist Marlon James and poet Jim Warner talk about needing permission to write; which comes to the budding artist via the revelatory work of another writer, artist, etc.  I suppose I think I’ve been a playwright since I got permission from the likes of Sam Shepard, Mac Wellman, Douglas Messerli, David Ives, and the incomparable Juanita Rockwell, whom I often refer to as my “spirit guide”.  But really, I’ve been writing for a long time.  I used to write terrible stories (poems, too) about space cowboys, commanders, and a little series about a private detective who was constantly drunk, all of which I hid from the world.  And then, of course, there were the various skits and stories that I made with the family camcorder.  My actors were Lego people, neighborhood kids, friends, the occasional cameos by my parents (unbeknownst to them), and, thanks to some slick camera tricks, voices, and costumes, myself in multiple roles.  The results were bizarre and sometimes looked like a seizure of visual non-sequiturs, but they were never boring.  Anyway, those were my earliest “scripts”.  What truly captured me, though, was a 7th grade encounter with Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.  Clichéd?  Maybe.  But I felt like I “got it” right away.  I understood his poetry and craved it – it became a well that I still draw from.

Was I a dramatic toddler?  I don’t remember much about my toddler years.  I mostly remember injuries.  When we lived in Arizona, I sat on a cactus as my father washed the red Nova in our Tucson driveway – 30+ needles drove right through the diaper and I’m told I didn’t cry as my parents removed them one by one.  Chasing a large beach ball, I fell into the pool while the cover was still on – that was also in Arizona.  Then, in Springtown, PA, my ring finger managed to mangle itself in the track of an opening garage door (a long story).  I’m told the word for all of this is “precocious”.  Once I got into the public school system, I think I finally began to get a feeling for audiences.  THEN, I became dramatic.  I acted out, lied like a salesman (always smiling), got into fights, and made my voice heard in hallways, classrooms, and eventually, the stage.  In a way, public school was the beginning of the end for me.

Me:  What do you hope people take away from Quiet Cowboy?

Matt:  I hope that people take away some semblance of American family life as it might be portrayed through the cowboy genre.  I hope they take home various interpretations of the poetry of the prairie and the homestead.  Garrison Keillor once told me that “with plays, you give them an evening!”  So I guess that’s what I really hope for – that they have a memorable time.  But then, bad times are often the most memorable.

Me:   What excites you the most about this upcoming production of your work?

Matt: Wow, what a question … the act of collaboration is where the real “art” of theatre takes place.  There have been several production meetings, each with decisions to be made about soundscapes, opportunities for tone poems, designs on the set and lights and look and feel of the props (a cowboy needs the ‘right’ revolver, you know), furniture, and location, and posters, and ads.  All of these have been guided by David and myself, but it’s really a true ensemble – real teamwork.  Then, we have the talent.  Each actor brings his/her own thoughts, interpretations, questions, and answers to each role.  They have shaped and guided the play more than anything, and in the end, Quiet Cowboy ceases to be work by Matthew S. Hinton and is instead ‘authored’ by the cast, crew, and director, as well.  The show itself, live and electric and before an audience, is the final act of collaboration.  The audience is the final contributor – laughing, crying, gasping, clapping, or getting up and leaving mid-show … that’s where the real art emerges.  Theatre does not take place inside a vacuum.  The unknown is exciting to me.  No matter the result, I often run headlong into dark rooms.  That sounds stupid when I step back and re-read it, but for me the western frontier and outer space are two of the three great mysterious adventures to get wrapped up in.  The third is humans.  There are probably more.

Me:   If Oprah was running this production, what would you like to see her give away to the audience? I’m thinking guns? you get a gun, you get a gun! Everyone gets a gun!

Matt: Haha.  Great question!  Guns are a good idea.  She’d have to include a bandolier, holster, poncho, spurs, chaps, lasso lessons, and possibly a horse (with saddle) for me to be really impressed.  Maybe she could launch a cowboy channel named after me too.

Thanks, Matt for answering my questions!

On a personal note, I was lucky enough to catch a dramatic reading from Quiet Cowboy last June at Wilkes University, and not only was I blown away by the intensity of this play, but Matt managed to quiet an entire audience of fellow writers.  (Not an easy feat!)

Quiet Cowboy will be at Lackawanna College’s Mellow Theater, beginning Friday, January 7th and running through Sunday, January 9th.  There will be a special preview Thursday, January 6th at 7:30 PM.

Tickets start at $8.

For more information, you can visit Matt’s Facebook page or his blog!

The Cast:
WALLY – Sean McKeown
RICKY – David Isgin
MA – Liz Powell
THERESA – Anne Rodella
J.W. – Paul Rodella
COWBOY – Rob Klubeck
FEMALE V.O. – Meghan Fadden
ANNOUNCER V.O. – David Reynolds

Directed by David Reynolds
A Gaslight Theatre Production

The Mellow Theater - Lackawanna College
501 Vine St., Scranton
www.gaslight-theatre.org

Ghost Grandma

Today’s story comes from a poet!  (YAY!)  Kim Loomis-Bennett recalls her supernatural encounter with her Grandmother, Gladys.  Sit back and enjoy the ghostly encounter!

“Ghost Grandma”

By

Kimberly Loomis-Bennett

Every little girl needs a grandma that teaches her to quilt, shows her how to make an apple pie from scratch, or sits by her bedside when she’s sick. But you don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never had it.

I didn’t have a grandmother or grandfather on either side of my family. All four had passed away before I could remember any of them clearly. I didn’t even know what I was missing until I went to preschool, and saw kids with old people who hugged and kissed them even more than their parents did.

At the time I met my grandmother, from the beyond, it was the early 70s. No Ghost Hunters, no Paranormal Activity. The only thing I knew about ghosts were that they were friendly and had a weird names like Casper.

Like many little kids, when we were sick we were sent to bed even before the sun set. On this particular occasion, I remember tucking myself into bed and seeing weak light coming in around the edges of my Funky Fairies in Mushroomville curtains. It was hard to sleep because my five brothers and two sisters were making a racket down the hall. I settled into bed, pulled the covers up to my chin, and turned over to face the wall.

I closed my eyes, and a moment later they snapped open. I was sure someone was by my bed. I expected it to be my mother. But sitting there was an old lady, out-lined in white, every detail highlighted as if she were drawn in chalk on a blackboard. I could see her wire-rimmed glasses, a flower pattern on her simple dress, her wrinkled face, and her kind smile. She was sitting, turned and smiled with a surprised look on her face and simply said, “Hi Kimberly.”

I blinked and she was gone. I was confused, but it didn’t feel like a dream. I had no point of reference to be scared. I didn’t know ghosts could be ghouls. I fell asleep, feeling very comforted.

The next day I asked my parents to see some pictures of their parents. They opened an old cedar chest and took out dusty albums. When my father flipped open to a page of a lady with a fishing pole standing alongside a tall man, he told me it was his mother, Gladys, with her third husband. I recognized her: she was short and chubby with glasses and thin, pulled back hair. But what was most familiar from my millisecond encounter was her shy smile.

I don’t think I said anything to my parents about seeing Grandma Gladys’ ghost, but it made sense that she would take care of me, her precious Kimberly. (Oh to have the self-adoration of a six-year old!)

I remember this ghostly, family encounter every few years. I don’t remember it as frightening or even all that bizarre. But what I do find curious is how did that little woman lug a chair all the way from Ghostville? Next time she comes around, I’ll be sure to ask.

So, Who is Kim Loomis Bennett?

Kim Loomis-Bennett was born and educated in the Pacific Northwest where she still resides with her husband and two children. She earned her MA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University and is working toward her MFA with a concentration in poetry. She works as an adjunct writing instructor at Centralia College East in Morton, Washington. Her poems have appeared in The November 3rd Club Journal and The Legendary. She is currently seeking publication for her first collection of poems, SOILED DOVES, a historical sequence centered on a 1910 Seattle brothel. You can reach her at kim.loomisbennett@gmail.com

Animal Song

This week’s guest post comes from an enormously talented woman, Gale Martin.  While I am a city girl through and through, I have to admit, Gale creates a world that even I would not mind living in…(maybe only for a night, and with tons of bug spray).  Gale is another Wilkes alum.  I hope you enjoy her piece as much as I did.

“Animal Song”

By: Gale Martin

I grew up on a forty-acre farm with a pond on the property. We didn’t have air conditioning in our farmhouse, but no one did back then if you lived in the country. For six months out of the year, my bedroom window hung open at night. Lying quietly in bed, waiting for sleep, I’d listen to the animal songs. I heard them nightly—the cooing, the peeping, the croaking—long before I knew who was doing what. Each spring after the sun went down, the invisible chorus would begin their serenade. I thought they were crickets rubbing their hairy legs together so hard they could make music between them like some boys at school could blow on a blade of grass and play notes. I felt silly when my dad told me it was the spring peepers keeping me up at night. I still didn’t know what kind of animal a peeper was. My granddad used to sing corny songs like, “Jeepers, creepers. Where’d you get those peepers?” I knew peepers could be eyes. I just imagined hundreds of pairs of eyes outside my window that made music whenever they blinked, like twinkling stars.

Then one day, I captured this frog no bigger than my little toe. “Dad,” I said, opening up my Mason jar, “look at this little guy, would you?” He looked at me with a furrow in his brow and in a tone more serious than I liked, “That’s a spring peeper.”  A peeper was a frog? I had a lot to learn about the world. How could such a tiny frog fill the night air with his singing? Even if there were a thousand frogs, the peeping part itself was probably the size of a pinhead. How did all that sound come from such a little throat? It was easy to look at the big bullfrogs—when it rained they hopped themselves up to my dad’s putting green—and see why they made such a ruckus, when they puffed out their necks as big as the best bubble I ever blew.

Another animal song I grew to love in childhood was the coo of the mourning dove. Such a delicate bird to begin with its slender neck and body. It had a sorrowful cry that perfectly matched its coloring. I always thought God got it right when it came to the mourning dove. I couldn’t imagine such a sad sound coming out of a bright orange bird. The funny thing about being a kid, at least for me, was that it took me a long time to realize other people didn’t have the same experiences you did. One day the smartest boy in twelfth grade, who was a whiz at everything, drove me home after play practice, and he pulled behind the boxwood hedge in front of my house that my dad let grow about twelve feel tall to keep the world out. While we sat there talking about nothing, a mourning dove cooed. This perfect boy had perfect pitch, and he imitated it like he’d heard this bird sing every other day of his life: cooOO, coo, coo, coo. I laughed but then I laughed at almost everything he said because he was funnier than anyone I ever met. “Was that a groundhog?” he asked. Had it been any of my other friends, I might have scoffed at such a silly question, but my heart felt so full of something I never felt before, all I could do was coo myself. And he leaned over and kissed me—a sweet, lingering kiss—and I knew I’d be in love with the mourning dove’s song the rest of my life.

So who is Gale Martin, you ask?

A lifelong reader and former junior-high English teacher, Gale Martin has been writing creatively since 2005. In 2009, she received first-place in short fiction from Writers-Editors International Writing Competition and first place in the Scratch short fiction competition. She also received her first Pushcart Prize nomination in 2009 for a short story published in Greensilk Journal. Her work has appeared online and in print in various publications such as The Christian Science Monitor, Sirens Magazine, Duck & Herring Company’s Pocket Field Guide, and The Giggle Water Review and in several anthologies.

She recently completed her master of arts in creative writing through Wilkes University and has just completed her third novel, DEVILED BY DON, a contemporary comedy of manners about a small-town opera guild whose lives mysteriously skew to the quirky contours of Don Giovanni, the opera they are struggling to produce. She and her husband Bill live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a setting that has richly informed her writing.

Gale is also the creator of Operatoonity, a wonderful blog dedicated to the world of opera.

Me Write Pretty One Day

In an effort to change things up a bit, and since you are probably sick of listening to me ramble…  I have asked my fellow writers to send me their wonderful stories to share with you.  If all goes according to plan, you will see a new piece from a new writer every Monday.  This week I bring you my first victim, Ally Bishop.  I sought Ally out after listening to her wonderfully entertaining creative nonfiction pieces at the Wilkes University Creative Writing Residency.  I know you will love her voice as much as I do.

“Me Write Pretty One Day”

By: Ally Bishop

Our handwriting is unique to each of us. The law says it solidifies our legal commitments. Psychologists insist it expresses our personalities. For fraud investigators, it defies perfect copies. A learned skill, children take to it with curiosity and determination; dotted and solid print guides coach their awkward loops and swoops until  their unsure strokes coalesce into smooth, fast sketches of thoughts and imagination.

When I was little, I drew with my left hand. It was natural to me. I picked up the crayon and colored in my coloring book, forcing my rubbery fingers to grip the bright wax tighter, to follow the thick, black lines without trespassing over them. To this day, the memory of my mother’s astonishment at my insolence remains vivid:  Her mew of distaste, her hasty correction, wrapping my right hand around the crayon and bargaining with me for new markers if I promised to only use my right hand. Left-handers grew up to be criminals she told me. I didn’t want to be like my lefty grandma, did I? Of course, I immediately questioned if Grandma was a felon, but my mother shushed the question, her dark golden curls shuttering in embarrassment.

So began my journey to learn to write the “right way.” A torturous experience, difficult and immense that never seemed to get any easier. I hated using penmanship for anything. I never developed the personal cursive stylings that came so easily to others. I groaned over written assignments, avoided long-hand whenever possible and requested a typewriter for Christmas. I studied others’ ease of writing with fervent jealousy, sneaking away with torn sheets from their notebooks, pouring over every detail of their fastidious inked curves.

I handcrafted consonants and vowels in many different styles, copying the bubble letter-writers with rounded hearts over their i’s. I imitated the rare talent of crisp cursive flattening against an imaginary hard line at the bottom. I offered flowery first letters for each new paragraph, a parody of the elegant old Bibles hibernating on our living room shelves. I wrote in all caps, mirroring the sharp angles of my absentee father; in bold, leaning script, though may anyone be cursed to suggest it looked anything like my mother’s; in a mix of cursive and revamped print letters teachers complained were barely legible.

It occurred to me as a high school graduate that while I’d learned many things during my education, I hadn’t figured out my signature. Always an overachiever, I set to the task. The pen tip scratched viciously at the porous surface until I’d fashioned a sign-off so sloppy, not a single letter was identifiable. Store clerks gasped at my swish of pen and smack of ball point. Endless scrutiny of my hapless signature entertained me, but a niggling embarrassment over my incompetence to create an attractive presentation of my name stayed with me.

Throughout my twenties my handwriting inevitably switched from an unpredictable cursive script slanted this way and that, to sloppy capital letters. Frustrated and unable to pinpoint the main issue, I stopped writing any more than I absolutely had to. The invention of ATM/debit cards eliminated my need for checks and the rising popularity of digital greeting cards enabled me to convey a variety of sentiment, without once smelling the sweet tang of ink. My dirty secret was safe.

It still bothered me. Our handwriting defines so much about us, but mine never did. Soon I discovered this impasse was a mirror of my reality. I didn’t have an identity:  The kind most have fashioned by the time they reach my age; a part of themselves that is simply “me.” The exterior behavior and motivations may change as we age or circumstances alter, but that inner source remains stolid. I didn’t have that.

That void posed a threat to me. Without that “me” center, I’d spent my life conforming to what others demanded of me. Once, I described myself to a suitor as a chameleon, never locked into one boring personality. It never occurred to me how pathetic I must have sounded, to attempt to cover up my missing pieces and pretend that I was whole. This behavior had led me into several abusive relationships. My psychologist during my years of therapy, never saw the link. But I had; and I would fix it.

And so I did. I became my own person, with the inner “me” carved into place until her razor-sharp edges established her boundaries and her velvety armor assured me of her presence. An easy process? Hell, no. But worth every rage, sorrow, and tear demanded to sculpt who I am. My center honed into what was the essence of my identity, and something no one can ever erase or take away.

Now in my thirties, I watch my own hands clutch a pen like a child, the ball point move over the paper, releasing its indelible mark as it passes. I’m never quite sure how the letters will appear, though I’ve settled into a writing pattern that at least feels like me. While I still get nauseated at the idea of taking notes or writing a longhand letter, I manage to get through. People often comment on how neat my handwriting is; how distinct and appealing it appears on the page. Secretly I smile at their innocence. That is not my handwriting they are seeing – it is me.

WHO IS ALLY BISHOP?

Born in Melbourne, FL, and making her childhood along the eastern seaboard, Ally Bishop spent her early years pounding out stories on a Brother typewriter and imagining the days when she would be full-time writer. Until her eleventh grade high school teacher said, “You’ll never be very good at writing. How do you feel about math?”  After finishing high school, she took every major in college that looked half-way interesting, as long as it didn’t involve writing and literature. Graduating from Albright College summa cum laude with a degree in psychology, the writing bug finally bit again. Her passion for wordplay returned, and Ally soon enrolled at Wilkes University, earning her M.A. in creative writing, and is hard at work on her M.F.A.  Ally has published several articles in newspapers and online journals. Her first novel, Blood in Gilead, is currently in the revision stage.