This is a very exciting week.

First off, writer or no, Hallowe’en is this Friday.  Dress up and candy?  It’s every writer’s dream.  Hallowe’en events continue all weekend long.

I probably won’t be trick or treating this year because if the fates align, I’m going to be indulging my recent obsession with rocking out by seeing Million Dollar Quartet, which has closed at the Goodman Theatre and opens Friday at the Apollo Theatre.  Readers of the Trib are giving the show rave reviews.

Saturday, I’m back on the job.  Anne Carson, whose Eros The Bittersweet just confused and disturbed my freshman comp students, is reading at the Harold Washington Library as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. I just learned that tickets are free to students and educators (with a $5 total processing fee), so I stocked up.

Saturday evening, I’m back to being music-obsessed.  Blackheart Record’s Girl in a Coma is playing at the Bottom Lounge.  They’re my new favorite band since I saw them open for Tegan and Sarah on October 9th.

Of course, there’s one really important event this week that I haven’t mentioned.  Perhaps you’ve heard: Tuesday is election day.  Spend it glued to your TV, at a rally or party, or ignore all of the hub-bub, but for the love of my 401(k), please vote.

Get all of your spazziness worked out this weekend, because next month is going to be a beast. Stay tuned for Friday’s story starter!

Calling all script writers & playwrights!  This one’s from our friends at Gorilla Tango Theatre:

Playwrights are invited to submit original 60-90 minute plays for consideration to be produced by Gorilla Tango Theatre (http://www.gorillatango.com) in 2009. 

Guidelines:

1) Plays should be written by a present day or one-time Chicagoland resident.

2) Plays should deal with some aspect of living in Chicago, the Chicago experience, or what it means to be a Chicagoan (etc). 

3) Plays should be sent in electronic format only (ie as a pdf or word attachment); links to plays will also be accepted. Submit plays to . Hard copies will not be accepted.

4) Please include a brief author bio.

Plays must be received by November 1, 2008. Please contact Kelly Williams at with questions.

We went to see “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” last night at Steppenwolf and I’m still trying to decide what it all meant. Not just the play, but going to that particular theatre. One of the reasons I moved to Chicago in the first place was because in 1986 (yes, I’m that old!), Steppenwolf and Wisdom Bridge theatres were the hottest regional theatres in the country and Chicago was vying with San Francisco (my original destination once I saved up enough money to keep heading west) for the coolest, most innovative theatre town in the USA.

Twenty plus years on, Wisdom Bridge is just a kabuki dream and Steppenwolf is winning Tony’s left and right. And although the theatre is housed in a cinder block nightmare, inside the actual theatre space upstairs is quite nice and intimate.

It wasn’t a full house, but it was crowded and everyone dutifully turned off cell phones as we were instructed. The play of course, is about a woman who keeps the cell phone of a man who died in a cafe and then she does whatever she must to make the people in his life feel he loved them. I think what Ruhl is

really interested in is how cell phones seem to bring us closer to one another yet have an awful way of making us really disconnected. Clearly, she thinks we rely on them way too much, like a crutch to get through life and avoid being where we are.

The playwright Sara Ruehl is a Wilmette native and is hot, hot, hot. She’s already studied with Paula Vogel, won a “Genius” grant and produced a number of plays around the country and in New York. In fact, when “Cell Phone” opened in New York it starred Mary Louise Parker who I imagine was brilliant in the roll of Jean. Last night the actress (who apparently originated the role at a little theatre in Washington DC called Woolly Mammoth--the first theatre I ever worked at!) endowed the character with a nervous laugh, facial expressions that could only come from Renee Zellweger, and mumbled words which meant I couldn’t understand everything she said.

Suffice to say, as much as I wanted to love the play and the production, there were a few nagging issues that kept me silent in the car on the way home. Here they are:

1. Actress who played Jean made some odd choices that distracted from the story and stalled the character from moving forward.
2. The play’s ending was odd, sort of like Ruhl didn’t know where to go next so she actually has the actor say, “now we kiss and the lights go out.” And the actors kiss and the lights go out.
3. At the end of the intermission break, just as the lights were going out and I was getting my head back into the play, you guessed it: two men had their cell phones on and open, the strong light from their little screens emitting their rays throughout the audience. (I won’t even tell you about the woman who ran into me because her eyes were glued to her cell phone as we entered the stairwell to leave.)

Okay, that last beef can’t be blamed on the play. Or maybe it can. Maybe the play just wasn’t strong enough in its message for people to actually tear themselves away from their phones to pay attention. Ruhl tried. She really did. There were several minutes when we were subjected to watching two of the actors kiss. Maybe the problem was they were still wearing their clothes.

In any case, my disappointment was tempered with some of the stellar writing and dialogue that Ruhl produced.

There’s one monologue from Gordon, the guy who died, that is just astonishing. It’s starts out with the desire for a bowl of lobster bisque and ends up traversing Gordon’s life and choices.

The dialogue is full of clever one liners and amazing similes that seem to pop up from nowhere. Ruhl isn’t afraid to put some incredibly wacky and completely unrealistic elements in this script. She’s never afraid to think about red meat and then put three huge roasts on a dinner table for four.

I’ve left my theatre days behind me for the less collaborative world of fiction. And if I didn’t love “Cell Phone” I’m still really glad I saw it. The writing is inspiring and as soon as I log off, I’m going to write a few monologues for my characters just to see what they come up with.

What has live theatre inspired you to do?