Halcion Days (yes, it’s spelled correctly; It was the name of a prescription anti-depressant in the 80’s) was a play cycle consisting of 13 one-acts. On any given night we presented four of them. You could buy a ticket for the whole thing and come on four nights if you wanted to catch them all. It was during this production we met and bonded with Frances McDormand, Kevin Corrigan, Ron Eldard, Guillermo Diaz, Steve Friedman and Wendy Way, who we continued to work with. This production also sold out every performance.
How the cycle came about was reps from both a rehearsal space and a theatre space approached Lili and I on the street after a performance of American Lesion and asked how they could help Machine Full. I blurted out we wanted to do a cycle of 13 one-acts and needed space for a larger cast—-a month of rehearsal and month of performance. Both reps agreed and we told them we’d start in two weeks. After they walked away, Lili asked me how I had found the time to write such an ambitious project during the run of American Lesion. I admitted I hadn’t written a single word. She replied,’you’d better have great coffee, baby.’
Portions of the cycle were produced in LA and Spain. Three of them were developed into short films, including my Touch Base. By this point our loose roster of actors had become Lili, Michael, myself, John(ny) Ventimiglia, Christopher Rossi, Maggie Low, Wendy Way, Andrew Van Dusen.
I was originally going to call it Halcion Daze but it seemed too corny.
