Stonewall Revival - The first stage reading

All the world's a stage.
Or so sayeth Mr William Shakespeare in As You Like It.
This post celebrates the upcoming stage reading from Stonewall Revival at Firehouse Theatre in Richmond, Virginia.
After the lengthy, exhilarating, frustrating, monotonous, and euphoric process of writing a novel, the following months become a haze of unending possibilities for promoting one's "masterpiece."
Unlike the novel, which has a beginning, middle, and end, the promotion process offers no similar satisfaction. There will always be one more opportunity to build awareness, one more idea for generating interest, one more tool to test, one more avenue to explore. And each opportunity, idea, and test feeds the beast known as "If only I'd have (blank), I'd have sold more books."
Soon, one almost forgets about the book and its inspiration.
Then, a miracle happens. And you return to the beginning - to the book.
In my case, that return to the words and the joy of writing came from an invitation from my friend, Joel Bassin. He's the Producing Artistic Director at Firehouse Theatre and an all-around great guy. After attending one of my readings from Stonewall Revival at 1708 Gallery, Joel suggested a stage reading at Firehouse with professional actors reading the dialogue that I'd crafted.
His offer turned out to be even more generous than I'd originally imagined because it forced me to return to the words.
Though I'd read Stonewall Revival dozens of times during its creation and editing, I hadn't really gone back to it in the last four or five months. Suddenly, I had to get reacquainted with my old friend and decide which portions of her I'd extract and reshape into something suitable to be read from the stage of a theatre.
In the process of deconstructing and reconstructing three chapters for the stage reading, I was able to see things that I couldn't appreciate during the year-long writing and editing of the novel. There were moments and phrases that still thrilled me and made me smile. And there were also passages and word choices that seemed like they were trying too hard. The opportunity to focus on the best parts, reshape the weaker parts, and add some new inventions elicited a renewed sense of wonder. That same sense of wonder that only live theatre can bring.
If you're in the Richmond area on Oct 24th, please stop by the Firehouse Theatre and say hello.