Category: Notes

Hello friends,

It has been so long and yet it doesn’t seem possible that it has been over a year since the Lincoln play in D.C. Just got back from there where I took part in a panel discussion on Lincoln at the Smithsonian. It was good and informative. We had a full house. Met with Ford’s Theatre about another play, but it’s still a ways off. On to NY to see some plays, etc. Soon will be off to a festival back east to read from some new work and hear a new play I’ve written,  An Appalachia Tragedy.

Am working on two new books — one is a book about the days of Dark Shadows — with pics, etc. that have never been published. It remains to be seen if it gets finished by July.

The other book is about mountaintop removal mining and one woman’s fight to save her mountain — lot of backroom politics. The recent mine explosion where so many lost their lives was next door to my wife’s hometown. The service that President Obama attended was in her hometown of Beckley.

The film I did, The Social Network, I think is a good one. Not sure when it will be out. Possible series in the making. Shooting a lot of arrows up . . . maybe one will stick somewhere. Trust everyone else is doing the same thing in this world that often seems to be at sixes and sevens. The best bet is to eat your ice cream before it melts.

To you and yours, keep going forward because they are gaining on us.

My love,
David

Some reflections on doing the play and being in Washington during President Obama’s inauguration . . .

The stars seemed to line up. Getting to play Lincoln in a thoughtful and moving play by James Still about conscience and heartache and the issue of slavery was a privilege. This year has been a celebration of Lincoln’s birth, and also of the reopening of Ford’s Theatre, which had been closed for nearly two years for a long overdue redoing. The result is wonderful, and the new seats are comfortable. Rehearsals were held in a church that had been used as a hospital during the Civil War. The only problem was that Christmas music blared for two hours every day during our first four weeks of rehearsals. It made you concentrate, but drove our director to early lunches.