RED RIVER SIDE TRACK

I'm in the midst of working on a new play that will be produced either in August of this year or late 2008. That's something really nice about working for people that own their own theatre, I can say "my play is going to be produced either ____ or ____" instead of saying "well, I'm going to give it another polish and then send it off. Hopefully, if someone likes it, it might see the light of day this decade." (On a side note to this side note; I am in the process of polishing up "3 Stories From Middleville" and then I'm sending it off. Hopefully, if someone likes it, it might see the light of day a second time this decade.)

The new play I'm working on is called "The Red River Kid" and, as you might be able to infer, it is a western. I think it's a neat idea, of course, I'm far from partial about my work. It's about an outlaw who is supposedly killed, but lives and sets up a new life in a small town in New Mexico. But when the town is bought by the railroad with the intention of destroying it, the outlaw goes back to robbing trains to run up their bounty enough to buy back the town. Meanwhile, the marshal that had "killed" The Red River Kid comes out of retirement due to the fact that The Red River Kid is very much not dead. It's got some humorous parts in it, but it is very much a serious attempt at doing a western.

And it's got two female leads. The Red River Kid and her sidekick Grace Bishop are both women. I wasn't originally going to write them this way, but it was a fun little challenge given to me by Mike, one of the theatre owners, as a way to give some of our actresses more meaty roles than the "girlfriend" and "maid" which they've been getting stuck with lately.

Writing for female characters hasn't been too difficult yet. Of course, all of my characters usually sound exactly the same for the first two or three drafts, so this might be a problem I run into later on. However, I had some of the script read out loud for the first time last night and I've learned two things that are important to keep in mind when writing for women.

1) If you have a man as an outlaw called The Red River Kid, people will assume he is from an area called Red River. If you have a female as an outlaw called The Red River Kid, people are going to assume she is constantly on the rag. The Kid's new name is currently up in the air.

2) If you have a man as an outlaw called The Red River Kid, and he has a partner named Bishop who he calls "Bish", people will assume that is his nickname for his partner. If you have a female as an outlaw called The Red River Kid, and she has a partner named Bishop who she calls "Bish", people will assume she is calling her "bitch", possibly because she is constantly on the rag. Bishop will be known as "Grace" from here on out.

That's what I've learned so far in this experiment, I'm sure there will be more. Also, if any of you have ever seen a western done on stage, would you mind leaving me a comment on how they staged horses? I'm curious to see if it's even possible.