2015 is rolling out much as expected with a lackluster Golden Globes ceremony—minus the Cosby comeuppance—and nothing overtly shocking from the Oscar nominating committee as candidates for this year’s golden statue were announced yesterday. Minus, apparently, a snub in the animated full-length category for the LEGO movie; though let’s face it, I’d rather gouge my own eyes out with the little plastic blocks than actually sit through it.

Also, positive reviews, seemingly, for the new CONSTELLATIONS play with local boy wonder Jake Gyllenhaal, who often gets coffee at my place-du-office, sometimes with talented sister Maggie. The love story of sorts, driven by two very sincere lead performances filled with lots of directorial subtlety from Michael Longhurst, tells a tell from the varied perspectives of the multiverse, the quantum physics-inspired infinite universes that many physicists actually believe exist. This play is kind of like PROOF meets something more heady than PROOF. I’m all in!

Annnnnnd, I’m really just happy to be feeling better after suffering from this hyper-flu that has been going around, the one that none of our flu shots protect from, apparently. And it sure didn’t. Last Saturday, I woke up feeling so incredibly ill I could hardly move. Ideally, I’d like to report that all of that down time was creatively productive, but in truth, I spent most of it sleeping or rolling around my bathroom floor thinking Why, God, Why—and not in a fun, MISS SAIGON is coming back to the stage kind of way. And, oh yeah—it is.

Now, I’m playing catch-up on all of my creative spring projects and I wanted to give you a Jim-date. Don’t worry, that’s not a romantic outing, but rather, a “Jim Update” on creative works. First in the mix: ISABELLE, my psychological thriller in development for Broadway, which had its first reading before the holidays at the Creative Studios of Manhattan Theater Club, thanks to Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS Producer John Retsios and starring the incredible Ali Marsh (THE RABBIT HOLE movie) and Off Broadway INDIAN INK’s Ajay Naidu, who teaches on-camera workshops for us here at Manhattan Tour and Travel. In mid-February, which is creeping up so fast I’m getting itchy from stress hives just thinking about it, we’ll present two workshop readings of the play, this time with non-union actors in order to partially stage it and show potential producer/investor-types a bit more of the production. The workshop is being directed by Joseph Mazzella, an amazing film director and friend. Joe and I first met working on an Off-Off Broadway production of THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA more than ten years ago. More to follow on ISABELLE.

I have actually—and I still can’t believe THIS happened over winter—I’ve rewritten my entire book based on feedback from literary agents this summer and fall. I’ve restructured the book somewhat and literally converted every single sentence from present tense, cinematic clipped dialogue to a more traditional third person past tense narrative. Basically, I have two different versions of the same book! I’m hoping the newly resubmitted version will strike a more commercial chord with literary world types. This seems like a lesson and perseverance to me, and I will keep you updated on any news. To give you just a glimpse at how the novel has changed, I’m pasting the first paragraph of the book, below, both how it was and how it reads now:

original text sample

Rain falls on Pupin Hall. Light from the rooftop indicates an event is in full swing up at the observatory, despite the weather. Inside the building, a professor and her assistant linger long after class.

Emily stares ahead, fixated on variations of the same differential equation scrawled across multiple chalkboards. She stands at the helm of an enormous, basement lecture hall. Fluorescents, high above, light only the front of the room; rows and rows of desks sit empty in darkness.
Still well within her thirties, Emily is the professor that scientific calculator-yielding geeks secretly dream about. Her assistant, Bing, a PhD candidate from small town New Zealand, is getting antsy.

“Em, the time…”

“Which time?” she fires back, scanning the numerous time symbols woven into the formula.

“The time. It’s after one.” They’ve had this same dialogue on many nights like this one. Emily puts research ahead of everything—sleep, food… life.

new text sample

Raindrops pinged the copper dome of the observatory, where an alumni fundraiser went on as planned, minus the stargazing. The rest of the building was fairly quiet. Fourteen stories down, an army of empty desks filled a shadowy basement lecture hall. Clouds of chalk dust swirled in the fluorescents bouncing off blackboards. There, in a pool of staid green light, Emily stared glassy-eyed and still, fixated on a single variation of the same equation scrawled every conceivable way. She was the youngest female professor in the department, the one that scientific calculator-yielding geeks secretly dreamed about.

Her assistant, Bing, a PhD candidate from New Zealand farm country, was getting antsy. “Em, the time…”

“Which time?” she fired back, scanning the time symbols scratched across sliding chalkboards.

“The time. It’s after one.” They’ve had this same dialogue on many nights like this one. Research was her whole world.

Lastly—the “Sandal” part—I’m working ferociously with a team of three other people on a new independent film project, a romantic comedy to be shot in Greece ideally within the next twenty-four months. I’m so excited to take advantage of the stunning exotic locations I was fortunate enough to visit this summer. Two of my collaborators are living in Greece, so we have been pitching plotlines and just plain plotting, via weekly Skype meetings. Isn’t technology divine? If Constellations playwright Nick Payne was writing the narrative to my 2015 Spring, I’d choose to the live in the version of my own infinite universes where I have two personal assistants. And a better metabolism. Amen.