Scribbling The Scribbler
During my year-long stint living in Rome, I visited a small under-the-radar museum near Piazza Venezia. It was there I learned about the role of the scrivener in the Middle Ages: someone whose job it was to read and write when no one else could. I thought it would be very funny if that person also couldn’t write and was just pretending. Thus began a five-year process of bringing The Scribbler to life.
I wrote ten pages in Rome. It was a short sketch that I never imagined would turn into anything. Two years later, in the midst of our first big COVID-19 winter, I showed these pages to classmates in a virtual workshop with the Playwrights’ Center. They urged me to keep writing. Thanks to them and the vehement encouragement of my amazing partner Eva, I finished a whole script. I approached my incredible friend and collaborator Kevin, pitching that we perform the show on the beautiful green rooftop of The Bakken Museum for the MN Fringe Festival. That performance served as a proof-of-concept for Spiral Theater and began the journey that we find ourselves on now.
For that first production, we had no money but insisted on paying the entire creative team. Kevin and I wore a million hats to put the thing on [he acted AND directed which he has vowed to never do again]. We stole costumes, borrowed sound equipment, and asked audiences to bring their own chairs. It was hot and humid. Storms threatened nearly every performance. Planes flew directly overhead. With nothing to amplify our voices, we were screaming for sixty minutes straight. But I wouldn’t trade that first run of The Scribbler for anything.
This time around, I find myself stunned at the progress we have made as artists in the past three years. During production meetings, I feel such joy as Carlyn guides the team with their mindful vision. Lee blows me away with his artistic excellence. And I’m so happy Kevin gets to focus on projects within the company that he’s always wanted to prioritize. It all feels so real.
Spiral gets its tagline Elliptically Clever and So Dumb from a review left from that first run of The Scribbler. We’re bringing that energy wholeheartedly to the Phoenix Theater in May. But no planes this time.
I’m filled with gratitude, so I want to thank some people without whom this upcoming production and Spiral Theater would not be possible. My mom and dad, my sister, my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, Eva, Fiona, Kevin, Griffin, Brennan, Sela, Teri, Laura, Lucy, George, Liv, Noah, Lydia, Davis, Joey, Michael, Iris, Carlyn, Anya, Anjeline, Alec, Mar, Asa, Maggie, Isa, Angie, Zeke, Jake, the city of Rome, Theater Mu, the Playwrights’ Center, the Bakken Museum, Camp Dudley, the kid who sold me the van, everyone who has ever attended a Spiral show, donated, and so many others. I love you all! See you in the old times!
