Showing posts with label bay one-acts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bay one-acts. Show all posts

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Confessions of a Copy-Editor @ SF Theater Pub Blog

One reason that postings here have been so intermittent is that I've been busy this summer copy-editing two anthologies of plays:
  • the Bay One Acts anthology, which will be available for sale in the lobby and is also a reward for our Kickstarter donors. A $25 donation gets you a ticket to the festival AND a copy of the anthology. Such a deal!
  • Heavenly Bodies, an anthology of plays from the 2011 Olympians Festival, including my own Pleiades. Needless to say, I'm really excited about this one, and will post more details (publication date, etc.) as I have them.
And, for my latest Theater Pub column, I decided to write about my adventures as a copy-editor of play anthologies. Read all about it!

I've spent so much time copy-editing lately that it affects the way I see the world. I've become ever more conscious of typos in the things I read for pleasure. Moreover, after I read that New York Times article about new research indicating that Shakespeare wrote some 325 lines of The Spanish Tragedy, my takeaway was "Just think, if copy-editors had existed in Jacobean England, we wouldn't have this proof." (The text of these lines is riddled with errors and misprints, but the researcher thinks that most of them came about because the printers had trouble reading Shakespeare's messy handwriting.) So perhaps I shouldn't beat myself up if an occasional typo slips into the books I edit? Writers' typos and errors are unique, personal signatures; and as a copy-editor, you develop a very intimate relationship with the text.

And two different friends recently sent me that Onion article about "4 Copy Editors Killed in Ongoing AP Style, Chicago Manual Gang Violence." Thing is, though, I'm a freelancer. I have no stylebook. I make my own rules. I'm an outlaw gunslinger, and it's a lonely world.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

La vie est ailleurs

Having one of those insanely busy weeks where I am being hit with about a dozen deadlines at once, so even though there's a lot of stuff I'd like to blog about here, I'll have to put that off. In the meantime, you can find me elsewhere:
  • I'm conducting interviews with the Bay One-Acts (BOA) playwrights for the BOA blog. First two interviews (with Bennett Fisher and Anthony Clarvoe) are up now -- more are on the way!
  • Twitter! Yes, I finally joined. Find me @MarissaSkud.
  • I'll be at the Cafe Royale tomorrow night for the Super Secret Kickstarter Fundraising Party for BOA! OK, not sure why the event title includes the word "secret," because we want LOTS of people to show up and help us reach our Kickstarter goal! And if you're not in the Bay Area or can't make it tomorrow night... you can donate online here.
And a little music before I go: French-Canadian singer Coeur de Pirate performs "La vie est ailleurs" (which means "Life is Elsewhere" -- like the Kundera novel)

 

Monday, March 19, 2012

My Copy-ous Free Time

Expect radio silence from me this week as I work hard on copy-editing the BOA Anthology. (And also take the time to attend some fun events, which I hope to blog about once we've delivered the anthology to the printers'.)

In the meantime, if you're free tonight, come to the Cafe Royale to see SF Theater Pub 3.3: The Odes of March! Including my contributions, Ode to the Props Master and Ode to the Costume Designer. (related post)

And remember that a $25 pledge to the BOA Kickstarter campaign gets you a copy of the play anthology.

And yes, I did write this post just so I could title it with an egregious pun.


Saturday, March 17, 2012

BOA 2012 on Kickstarter



Check out this video to see me saying some rather intelligent things and doing some rather silly things, all in the name of convincing you to fund BOA 2012 via Kickstarter!

I am the dramaturg for BOA (the Bay One-Acts) this year and am excited to be part of this festival, which brings together many of the Bay Area's best independent theater companies. Performances start April 22. In the meantime, I'll be working behind the scenes and also assisting with publicity.

Donate just $25 and get a copy of the BOA anthology, lovingly copy-edited by yours truly!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Dramaturg/Thaumaturg


You're probably sick of this meme, I know.

But I'm just beginning my first official gig as a dramaturg -- festival dramaturg for Bay One-Acts 2012! On Tuesday morning, I fielded my first question to the effect of "Dramaturgy? What's THAT?" And on Thursday morning, I saw this. So I laughed.

Plus, someone else told me this week that the word "dramaturg" always makes him think of the word "thaumaturg," which makes the image of the wizard/alchemist dude even more appropriate for the "what I think I do" part of the meme!

Now to decide whether I want to spell my new job title with an "e" on the end or not...