One of the things people enjoy doing on Twitter is celebrating milestones. Follower milestones are a huge thing but a lesser thing are the number of tweets you have. This morning, I noticed that I was only 5 tweets away from my 10,000th tweet.

Now, it may be silly, but I felt the need to make it something memorable. But, of course, as soon as I thought that, I was overcome with crippling tweeter’s block. When you look at the screenshot below, you’ll notice it too me 20 minutes to stop spazzing enough to actual write my 10,000th tweet.

So I finally just tweeted something I said to my parents the other day after I saw The Muppets in theatres as my 10,000th tweet and it was immediately retweeted by someone which made me feel validated as a human. In case you were wondering, my 10,000th tweet was:

The Muppets have a new movie, My Little Pony & TMNT are popular again… I hope you’re all enjoying this world I created with MY MIND!

Which seemed appropriate.

But this is the part I actually wanted to tell you about. I spent all that time waffling about what to put as my 10,000th tweet and exactly 1 minute after I posted it a tweet that I had scheduled several days ago went out. So if I hadn’t posted that status at the exact second I did I would have spent 4 tweets talking about my epic 10,000th tweet only to then have my milestone tweet be the world’s most generic NaNoWriMo tweet. Rarely do I miss looking like an idiot by such a narrow margin and it seemed noteworthy. Evil sneaky attempted milestone theft!

Also I guess it’s a cautionary tale about why you shouldn’t be like me and schedule everything to post at a time different then when you write it. So I guess from now on I should only blog or tweet when I’m actually here at my computer. So, let’s see, I’m writing this now on Dec 1 so I’ll schedule it to post… eh… sometime later.

I have apparently learned nothing.

I know how it is. You’ve been meaning to grab a copy of my newest play, Daddy Issues, but you kept forgetting. Well, now you really have no excuse.

While the play is normally a mere 99 cents, from January 9th through 13th, you can grab the whole thing completely for free. That applies no matter how many people download and you don’t even need a coupon or anything fancy. Just follow this link and the whole play will be yours in a few clicks.

Download a copy for yourself and then make your father grab one too. (This play is a real Dad pleaser.) Heck, get all your theatre buddies to snag a free copy or every random person you know! No matter how many copies go out, the entire play is still free to anyone and everyone during this 5 day promotion. Pretty neat, huh?

Don’t have a Kindle? Here’s how to read your free copy on your computer, cell phone or tablet.

Oh and if you do take advantage of this free copy promotion, I’d greatly appreciate your taking a moment to write up a brief review of the book on Amazon!

But, remember, you only have until Friday the 13th to take advantage of this offer so you should probably go grab your free copy right now before you forget again.

Now that the new version of The Love of Three Oranges is street legal, you may be wondering what the difference is between Oranges: Classic and Oranges: New Hotness.

To start with, I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret. There really isn’t any such thing as the “original version” of my Three Oranges. To start with, we changed some of the script during the rehearsal process so the show the actors read at auditions and the final show that we performed were both different. Secondly, between curtain call of our final show and when the book was published in 2002, I made some changes and tweaked some scenes that I never really felt worked as well as they should. So the version that has been for sale all these years wasn’t even truly Oranges: Classic as it had already been modified a few times.

That said, while the majority of the play is the same, there are some changes in the new edition that anyone who’s read a previous version will likely notice. Most of it is just smoothing out of dialog and other general writing tweaks but the most fundamental changes all come under the head of… sensibilities.

Carlo Gozzi wrote his commedia dell’arte scenerio for an audience of adults. Off-color humor was absolutely the order of the day. I wrote my play for an audience of college kids and the off-color stuff still fit right in.

Fast forward to 2002 when my Three Oranges is in print and is becoming increasingly popular with high schools who love the ensemble cast and historical teach-ability of the show but cringe at some of the off-color stuff. School boards, religious schools, PTA’s: this play has managed to tick all of them off over the last decade. I was repeatedly asked for a “school friendly” version of the show and that version was already in the works when Playscripts came into the picture. Rather then have two competing versions of the show out there, I decided to clean up what I could and then just write alternate cleaner scenes that groups could have upon request.

I want to say from the start that I didn’t want to change the spirit of the show and sanitize it beyond recognition and it truly hasn’t been. I refused to change more then I actually changed. But there were a few parts that needed a little tweaking and I think we achieved some fantastic compromises to keep both student and adult groups happy. 

What are the biggest changes?

• There’s an alternate version of the King and Pantelone’s double entendre speech available upon request but the dirty version remains in the script. (This was the #1 thing schools complained about.)
• I’ve long recommended a Twister game as an alternate for the keg stand scene and this is now an official alternate scene in the text.
• No one ever complained about this but it has long bothered me that, while this wasn’t my intention, I felt the Farfarello/Celio scene came off as homophobic. When I wrote it, I wrote it for a specific actor who could do a funny voice and as I watched high school kids do the show I realized that, on its own, there was an uncomfortable undercurrent to the scene that I didn’t care for. So, while the spirit of the scene is the same and I suppose an actor could play it the same, that scene has been reworked to remove any unintentional overtones. Trust me, the scene didn’t suffer for it. I actually think its much funnier the new way.
• Creonta was another sore spot for a lot of groups. When her minions abandon her, she curses God, doubts his existence and dares him to strike her dead to prove his existence (which he does). Schools had a real problem with this scene for a variety of religious reasons. I feel their pain. How do you think I felt when I sat in the audience and watched this scene with my priest (who knew perfectly well that I’d written it) in the audience? So I decided that the scene didn’t suffer at all if instead of “God” Creonta worshiped the dark gods of the occult. If you think about it, that way actually makes more sense anyway.
• One of the other top issues schools had was something that never, ever occurred to me when we were performing the show. Two of the three oranges die immediately after being rescued. We play this up for comedy but, if you stop and think about it, it’s really depressing. Schools took issue with this and I’ve seen several productions where they tried to add lines about them coming back to life in the end. Instead of trying to shoehorn their resurrection into the show in a scene of its own, I added two little subtle moments that, while not spelling it out, imply a happy ending for the other two oranges as well. I’m hoping its enough to give the audience some closure on that so it’s less of an issue.

What it comes down to is that, if you are very familiar with the show, you’ll notice some small changes. If you’ve never read it before, however, you’ll find the same wacky, naughty humor as before with some improvements and alternate versions where needed. I truly believe the version of the show available of Playscripts is the best version yet and my hope is that you’ll agree once you’ve read it.

The cook still cleans the ovens with her breasts. Deal with it.

If you’re on Twitter, you may want to follow our new official account for The Love of Three Oranges (@loveof3oranges). Anytime you want to chat about Three Oranges online either add #loveof3oranges or #TLOTO to your tweets to join in the discussion. The latest chats appear on the bottom of every page of the Three Oranges site and look like this:

Wait, you say. Three Oranges website?

Shell blog madness continues here at HillaryDePiano.com and I’ve set up another mini-blog within the main blog, this time for The Love of Three Oranges. Now, any post about TLOTO not only posts in the main blog, it also appears on TheLoveofThreeOranges.com. (If you see typos on the new site, please let me know. I threw this up so fast it’s crazy.) If you’re only here for the oranges, it gives you one stop to see everything about the play instead of wading through the whole blog.

Whew! Let me know what you think…

I’ve had “2011 is the year of the orange!” written on the dry erase board above my desk for 2 years now so I wouldn’t forget that 2011 marks the 250th anniversary of Carlo Gozzi‘s The Love of Three Oranges, the commedia dell’arte scenerio that both the Sergei Prokofiev opera (usually translated as The Love for Three Oranges) and my play are based on. Originally written in 1761 (which was also the year that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was published if Wikipedia is to be believed), I love the fact that, two and a half centuries later, people are still enjoying Gozzi’s story.

And my version? While it was first published in 2002, I actually wrote it in the summer and fall of 2001 meaning it’s having its 10 year anniversary this year as well!

One of my biggest concerns when I signed with Playscripts, Inc was that I knew how slow the publishing process could be and I didn’t want there to be a long lapse in availability of the play. There are productions going on all the time and I didn’t want groups interested in doing the play to be unable to get copies of the play if they wanted it. But, on top of this, I also had big plans for the anniverary of the play this year and I would have hated for my version to have to sit this entire historical year out because of the delays of the publishing industry. But, when I explained this, Playscripts went above and beyond and got the book print ready in absolutely record time. It also completely thrills me that, with the release of the new edition, everything old is new again and we have the opportunity to celebrate this story in a way that merges past and present.

On  personal note, 10 years ago, I identified with Carlo Gozzi and his original project on a very deep level. Sure, I was a female college kid with a major in theatre and a passion for e-commerce and he was an Italian playwright and misogynist and on paper we had absolutely nothing in common. But the more I researched the circumstances that lead to the creation of Three Oranges, the more I realized that we were in very similar situations though separated by centuries. Over the course of the year that I wrote and directed the show, I gained a deeper appreciation for the theatrical heritage it represented and felt this a strong connection to the work and its mythos.

Throughout this historical year, I’ll be taking a look back both at the writing and production process behind my version of Three Oranges but also Gozzi’s journey 250 years ago and how they parallel each other in ways that sometimes feel as magical as a fairy tale itself.

But for today, let’s just take this opportunity to wish Carlo Gozzi and his oranges a happy birth-year!

The new revised edition of The Love of Three Oranges is now available for purchase over at Playscripts, Inc!

While you’re over there, you can also see a (mostly) complete performance history of the show from 2004 to today and read almost the entire play for free online. (Just click the “Read free sample” link on the right side of the page for the free eBook.)

The old edition is officially out of stock though resellers will probably be selling ridiculously overpriced used and collectible versions on Amazon for the rest of eternity. Nothing I can do about that. At the time that I write this, Amazon has exactly one copy left of the old version so, if you really want it and you act quick, it’s all yours.

From a marketing standpoint, I created a page for the new edition on Goodreads just to give it a little more marketing omph as well as a Twitter account and Facebook page. If you have a minute to “Like” the page below, I’d greatly appreciate it.

While I’m thrilled that Playscripts was able to make the play available so soon*, I actually was expecting to get more of a heads up in advance of the release so I’ve been caught a bit unawares by their speed. I have press releases, a new website for the new edition and more but none of it is quite ready yet. So expect those to roll out one by one in the coming weeks.

(I don’t even have a copy of the new edition myself yet so I don’t even have a scan of the acting edition cover to show you! I’ll get one up as soon as I get a copy in my grubby little hands.)

In the meantime, please feel free to read the new version on the Playscripts website or order a copy for yourself!

*=more on why they gave this book such amazing rush priority in a future post.

Script Frenzy 2011 has come to a close and I wanted to take a quick look back. On a general level, it was great to see the challenge have a higher profile this month with more people talking about it then I’ve seen in past years (including big sites like GalleyCat). With NaNoWriMo hitting bigger numbers then ever before in 2010, I had high hopes for Screnzy 2011. I was really hoping that this was the year that would raise the event’s profile.

Unfortunately, the Amazon cloud crash really killed a lot of the event’s momentum and I know a lot of people who quit early or lost interest because they couldn’t access the site for a few days. I felt awful for the Office of Letters and Light (they’re a non-profit that only does 2 big events a year and it goes down for a full week of one of them? eep!) but there was nothing that could have been done. It’s hard to remember that Script Frenzy is only 5 years old and just doesn’t have the participants or the profile that NaNoWriMo does but losing a week really hurt them, I think.

Also think that the Script Frenzy challenge itself is problematic. For starters, if you really 100% commit to writing every day (like most people do for NaNo) you usually finish way early and, as the early bird winners check out of the forums and chatter, it can kill the momentum of the event. On the flip side, if you are intimidated by the formatting or other details of script writing, you may find the challenge too hard. The other biggest problem is that the event misses the unity of NaNoWriMo since everyone is writing something different. With NaNo, everyone is writing a novel aside from a handful of rebels. With Screnzy, there are 4 different types of scripts even within what is allowable and the experience is very different depending on what you are writing. It makes it a little bit harder to feel part of a community.

Then there’s the 100 pages. It’s a great goal for a screenplay but for comic books or most stage plays, you have to write several shorter works to hit that many pages. I almost wish they would let you track the page count on multiple projects with the total count going to 100 just so people writing the shorter forms still feel involved.

I don’t know how to “fix” it but I do know that the event just doesn’t have the wide appeal of NaNo and I think it could with a little tweaking. What changes would you make to Script Frenzy if it were up to you?

As for me, I intentionally tried to not finish early because, as ML, it would be a total kill joy if I was finished while the rest of my area was still moving steadily along. So I tried to stay as close to “on pace” as possible. Writing a script with the dictation program was very annoying but, luckily, I was able to do the writing in Word (which plays nicest with DNS) and then import into Celtx which only lost me a few minutes per writing session. Here’s my official Screnzy graph:

I also used my Script Frenzy Calc to make another graph that makes more visual sense to me.

It really shows how I got a little underwater for a bit on the middle there. Also, that I’m still a total binge writer. Script Frenzy added 25,000 + words to my count for the year as well which was nice.

As for my script, well, it’s a mess as first drafts usually are. I mentioned before that I originally outlined it to be a novel and just wanted to try it as a play and I’m still not sure which it’s meant to be. I have a horrible feeling I may need to write it as a novel to be able to write it as a play instead of the other way around as I was hoping. But, on the plus side, at least I’ve fleshed my thoughts on it out a bit so whenever I am ready to write it again (be it as a novel or play or both) I’m that much closer.

Now that Screnzy 2011 has ended, what are your thoughts on the challenge? How did you do? What would you change? What would you keep the same?

As you know, The Love of Three Oranges is moving to Playscripts, Inc and a part of that move is a brand new edition that has some changes from the original version available in stores now. I don’t have an exact release date for the new edition but the current edition is going out of print very soon to make way for it.

If you want a copy of The Love of Three Oranges that looks like the one pictured in this post either for collectible or sentimental reasons, it’s now or never! As soon as Playscripts gives me the word, the original version gets the ax and I’m not sure how much of a delay they’ll be between the end of the current edition and when the new version is available.

Consider this your final warning, if you want a copy of the original edition, you’ll need to act pretty much immediately. Grab a copy from Amazon today!

I’m not really one for memes but I love this one. You can follow on Twitter at authorowl or just follow the hashtag #AspiringAuthorOwl. You can see the whole list here but I have to share some of my favorites below:

The story of my life!!

Always…

I’m a total comma junkie!

Love this one.

God, yes! Always!

I don’t actually do this but you gotta love any gratuitous Sims reference!

The Seattle chapter of Script Frenzy is hosting weekly Twitter chats throughout the month of April all about script writing for the benefit of anyone doing Script Frenzy. The chats are every Monday from 8 PM to 9 PM PST (which is 11 PM to midnight EST) and will run until the end of Screnzy.

To join the chat, simply log into TweetChat and follow the hashtag ”seafrenzy.” (If you want to just watch, you can do so from there but if you want to participate you need to login with your Twitter username.)

Want to submit a topic ahead of time? Send a message to @seafrenzy. They’ll be taking suggestions for topics all week.