I have a Rolin Jones death fantasy.
It takes place in the near future. Always in the near future. Rolin is leaving the Emmys or the Oscars or the Tony's in his smart but sloppily worn tux. I am shuffling by in my holey stocking cap and urine-reeking pants. I recognize him, as you, reader, must certainly also, by his cool glasses and knowing smirk, both of which I'd like to knock right off his face.
But just as this thought is formulating in my fists, he is whisked away to glamorous afterparties as I am bludgeoned by police nightsticks. Blackout. Curtain.
For those of you who might not, for some reason, recognize the name Rolin Jones, he is the Obie Award winning playwright of the Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. He currently writes for television, like so many of the hot young playwrights I admire. Rolin writes for Showtime's Weeds, starring Mary-Louise Parker. I wouldn't watch it even if I did have cable. And it isn't because of Mary-Louise Parker, though it certainly could have been.
You see, Rolin Jones cut short my promising career as one of those hot young American playwrights splitting time between New York and L.A. He barred my entrance to the fold. Pulled something of a playwriting cock block on me. And the worst part of it is, he doesn't even know my name.
Here's how it all went down
In January 2007, my 10-minute play, On the Night Stubbin Watts Jumped the Hedge, was produced by the Actors Theater of Louisville, along with nine other short plays, including Marco Ramirez's Heideman Award winning, I am not Batman. Marco's in the cool kid club for sure. Rolin had no beef with him, apparently.
The royalty for two productions was only $25, but if you look at it in terms of minutes, that's $75 dollars an hour. The coup of breaking into the renowned Actors Theater, especially on my first try, was reward enough.
My colleagues collected $300 for my travel to Kentucky, and I blew most of it the first night at a small and shady strip club in Louisville's quiet downtown with a couple buddies who'd flown in from Kansas City, leaving just enough for White Castle burgers and cheap drinks at Freddie's for the remainder of my visit.
One month later I was traveling through the mountains to Gunnison, Colorado, in my 91 Tercel to attend a reading of my first full-length play, El Blanco. The engine was sputtering, and the heat was broke. I asked around for a cheap place to stay but ended up at the Western Motel on Highway 50.
The motel had brown shag carpeting stapled all the way up the baseboards. The lamp cast the dusty bedspreads and dingy wallpaper in a dark yellow gloam. I stowed a 12-pack of High Life bottles in the minifridge and drank from them steadily. The playwright on the road. I felt like Sam Shepard. No - I felt like a character in one of his plays.
El Blanco was up against some guy's golf play for the $500 prize at the Rocky Mountain Theater Association 2007 conference, and was, I figured, a shoo-in. El Blanco is a tragic contemporary comedy about identity crisis in the American West. It is daring and edgy and provocative.
And it lost out to the frickin golf play.
Having spent my whole wad on two nights at the motel, I was destined to drive the long road back to Denver in the cold dark after the award announcement. But by glorious serendipity, I met up with an actress who'd mesmerized me in a piece from Suzan-Lori Parks's 365 Days/365 Plays, and she invited me to spend the night with her, so I came up a winner anyhow.
Broken heaters, dive bars, seedy motels, alcohol-fueled sex: Ah, the exalted existence of the playwright on the road. This, I decided, is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Meanwhile I was writing grants, selling concessions, and running lights for a small theater company in Denver. They, too, read El Blanco in their spring reading series, and I felt that I was living the dream. Making my way.
And then came the big call - well, the biggest call yet. City Theater of Miami Florida had come across Stubbin Watts, and they were picking it up for inclusion in their 2007 Summer Shorts Festival. The royalty was $20 each for 18 performances for a total of $360. They drew up the contract and sent it to me. I signed it and sent it back. My name was on the press release. I started looking into airfare.
A few days later, the artistic director called to break the bad news that due to an unforeseen casting change, they were going to have to drop Stubbin from the lineup. She said she was terribly sorry.
I was shocked into dumbfoundedness at first, which soon gave way to righteous indignation. I emailed the director a nasty note demanding the $360 royalty payment in full. I'd signed a contract, after all. They were going to have to pay to reject me.
The director was shocked herself, I think, by my rancor, but she assured me my check would be cut along with the rest. And it was. Meanwhile I learned that Stubbin Watts had been replaced with a little play called Rob Bobby Had Too Big a Heart by one Mr. Rolin Jones.
On the tottering brink of greatness, and then Rolin Jones stomps a heavy boot in my face. Whether City Theater dropped my play because of casting difficulties or simply because Rolin Jones was a hotshot Pulitzer Prize pretty boy, I would never know.
Now, rejection is as familiar to me as it is to most writers. Maybe even more so. I'm not sure why this one left such a lingering sting. I retreated to my theater desk job and even started writing play reviews for the Denver small press. My climb to the top of the theater world had been suddenly dashed, and I slipped into a creative malaise that would last two long years.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't Rolin Jones's fault. Maybe if Rolin Jones had never been born, my play still would have been bumped from the Miami production at the last minute. Is Rolin Jones to be blamed for the insecurity and self-doubt that cripples me (and all writers) from time to time? He's just another artist, after all, trying to make his way.
This February, I hurried to write and submit a monologue for consideration in a New York theater's spring production - an evening of monologues about money. I got something off at the last minute and felt good about doing it, even though I was certain it would be too western and hokey for the New York crowd. It was the first playwriting I'd done since the Miami debacle.
To my surprise and delight, Axial Theatre picked the monologue up. My friends have again collected money. The plane ticket is paid for. I will be there opening weekend to see my first New York production.
Okay, okay. Westchester County. But whatevah.
I will do battle with the demons of self-doubt. And I will keep my pen close by me, clutched in my hand. I will never let it go. The playwright sets out once more upon the road. I will have my sex and my alcohol too, God willing. And Rolin Jones will know my name.
[END]
L-R: Rolin Jones, John Kuebler
