I really liked this morning's dream. In it, I had written a children's play about fairies who hadn't gotten their wings yet. On reflection, it's pretty damn close to the Cutie Mark Crusaders from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. But it's a dream, so I'm not going to be too hard on it for being a bit of a rip-off.
It was hard to tell from the dream whether I was watching the play, in it as one of the fairies, or stage-managing it. I remember that there were 3 fairies who had yet to get their wings and were very frustrated about it, and one fairy who had her wings, but couldn't fly, which was really embarrassing. There was one bitchy fairy who was a total bitch at the other four for not being able to fly, and she had this sort of lackey character that she could drag around and feel superior to. That's really as developed as the story every got - at least in the dream. After I woke up and thought about it a bit, I realized it would probably work better with fewer fairies. Two without wings, tops. And bitchy fairy's lackey shouldn't have wings, either. Because then there could be a plot thread that would allow one of the fairies to realize that she was actually just like the lackey, who was like a pixie or sprite or something - she wouldn't be getting wings, but she could do fucking magic, which kind of made up for it. It's a children's show, these kind of things totally make sense, I promise. Also, spoiler alert: bitchy fairy couldn't fly either. She was just being a bitch to hide the fact that she was just as flummoxed by the whole flying thing as the non-flying fairy was. And spying on non-flying fairy to see if she can figure out the trick first. But they all learn a Valuable Lesson about stuff at the end.
The set was awesome. There were poles set up stage left, painted green so they were like flower stems, that the actors would swing around. Um... kind of like pole dancing, my brain has just pointed out, but more fanciful and fun, and a whole lot less smutty. Apparently dream brain is much less smutty than awake brain. Or more so. ANYWAY, the fairies would swing around on the flower stems and pretend they were flying, and it was all a whole lot of fun for them. There were trampolines strategically placed around the stage, so that fairies that could fly could jump on the trampolines and fly through the air without having to get into any of the complications of a fly system, which, I'm given to understand, isn't any fun for actors. Besides, it's fuck-off expensive. Look at that Spiderman musical. Even when I'm asleep, I'm completely focused on low-budget theatre. The first play I was ever in was A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which I played the fairy Cobweb. We used trampolines to fly, and it worked really well. Plus, it was wicked fun.
I even dreamed up a meeting with the costume designer, as we tried to figure out how to do the fairy wings. The initial idea was to use those lame wings that you always see on bad Halloween costumes, but we ended up coming up with something much better. The actors would wear a lightweight harness that held a pair of thin, curved PVC pipes (or something similar) at their shoulders, that were draped with colorful ribbons to make it all look fluttery when they moved. Trust me, visually, it was epic.
Even though I know that I'll probably never get around to fleshing out this dream into a fully-staged play, unless I get a co-playwright to work on this with - I am not good with kids, you guys - I like that a part of my brain is still thinking about theatre, and wanting to be involved in it. It's been hard going to school for 9 years, high school and college combined, and having your whole world revolve around the stage, and then only working on two plays in the 5-6 years after you graduate. I have this hope that starting next year, things will change and I'll be able to do a lot more of that type of thing. The ultimate hope is that I'll be able to create a career out of it eventually. I'm just stuck right now.
UPDATE: I just got confirmation from a 100% legitimate and not-completely-perverted scene designer that my flower stem poles are the way to go. So take that, smut!
