UPDATE, 3/25
As I may have conveyed this elsewhere, the Third Act of A&O will be an Opera, based on the Apocalypse, the text of which will be crafted from a New Church understanding of the Word. I spent a fair amount of time making notes in my copy of Apocalypse Revealed. Unfortunately, I was acting in the Pageant and left my book somewhere in the Cathedral and it has disappeared. So, in Providence, I will need to review what has been written without the advantage of those notes.
I think this time around, I will craft a timeline before deciding on what subject matter will go into it. Musically speaking, the lyrics will guide the compositions, but I will allow for enough latitude for instrumental riffs and modifications of the poetic style. The text, in essence needs to stay on track with the subject matter, which will be in the first generation of the lyrical structure. How artistic license comes into play is not clear yet.
I do think that there will be first person expression. Indeed, there must be for a link to the audience to exist. Not only is there John, but the angel who say "come up here and I will show you things". There are also the souls under the alter and a council of Elders, Micheal and his Angels, the Riders, the Dragon, the Woman clothed with the Sun.
I performed the role of John in the New Church Day Pageant for over twenty years. So, that has given me perspective for this.
Overall the entire piece needs to be approximate 2.75 hrs. That leaves approximately one hour per Act (at most). Each one of those acts will end up cut by around 20%.
I have been able to locate most of the written Libretto by going back to the older computers that I was using to write the earlier editions and I found copies of more recent versions. Luckily, I printed the original edition that was done on a typewriter and filed with the Writer's Guild.
But I have to say; I'm not satisfied with what I have. It doesn't address the subjects in a way that makes them compelling. It's more literal than I want it to be, but it needs to adhere to the Word of God in the externals, while delivering the internals in a way that fascinated the audience. When I wrote it, I thought I'd achieved that, but now, decades later, I have a different perspective.
The original Third Act, became a separate play titled "Nunc Licet", leaving Alpha & Omega with no Third Act. After spending 25 years crafting that play and another 30 years creating "The Gnomes of New Hope". I am beginning to redress "Alpha & Omega". That redress will take the form of crafting a new Third Act and I was enlightened by the Lord that that needs to be an Opera based on The Apocalypse.
Those two other projects are the subjects of other posts on this blog, so refer to them for information as well as the links above.
I have discovered that a new church person has endeavored to craft an Opera based on the Apocalypse, but I have not yet seen that work. I don't know yet if I should even examine that work, not only for creative reasons, but because my project needs to be free from any suggestion that someone else's work is somehow plagerized in it.
Musically speaking, I have a few people that have expressed interest in composing the music, so I will be focusing on the text of the Libretto and lyrics that are founded in a blending of the literal and spiritual sense of the Word. I will establish the cadence in the lyrics. In fact, I already have volumes of poetry which might be applicable to this mission. I hadn't thought of that until just now. Maybe I'll publish that poetry and in the process extract material that can be applied to A&O... after The Gnomes of New Hope is completed. But in the meantime, I will look at that.
More later ...
ARCHIVE
As I've stated numerous times, this is a theatrical project which I began back in 1974. It has gone through many changes on it's journey from a screenplay to a multimedia theatre presentation.
I'm sad to report that the most recent versions of the stage play have been trapped on a failed hard disc and on my dead G3 laptop. I am certain I can recover those versions of the script, but now I am working to reconstitute what I do have, which amounts to the entire 1989 and portions of the 1999 version of the Libretto. But I do have significant sections of handwritten notes and a new vision in my head.
The original screenplay has been retitled "The Celestial Manifesto" and that version is in need of updating. That was written when I was 21 and it has the remnants of adolescence in the dialogue. So if I am to redress that film script, I will need to refine the dialogue a bit on that. I do think that has the foundation of a pretty good science fiction story. But I'm too busy with other things to attempt a rewrite on that screenplay.
"I Am Alpha & Omega" was rewritten around 1986 to become a stage play and it had a few revisions before I broke off portions of the third Act to become a stage drama titled "Nunc Licet". That stage drama took up the majority of my writing labor for many, many years. Before I began "Nunc Licet", I was writing a medieval romance titled "MiLady", which was retitled "Grael", as it became refined.
After advancing with "Grael" and "Nunc Licet" I decided to return to working on
" I Am Alpha & Omega". At that time, I worked for numerous theatres, including a nine year stint with The New Hope Arts Commission as their Technical Director.
I began discussing mounting "Alpha & Omega", with The Arts Commission, but it was becoming too complex. Many years before, I designed A&O to be implemented in a Hemispherical Theatre. I also considered IMAX, and after that Cinema 360. So when I returned to it, I was somewhat overwhelmed and uncertain what to do about it.
That's when I shifted gears and moved to create "The Gnomes of New Hope; Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure", which I am still working on. At that time, I was very involved in Children's Theatre.
In any event, I have determined to begin rewriting "I Am Alpha & Omega" and committing myself to publishing the Libretto. I do need to address the music, particularly because the Third Act will be an opera based on the Apocalypse and I can't bring that up to spec until the first two acts are restructured satisfactorily. I do have the text for the third act identified and some of the dialogue and lyrics crafted. It all needs to be pulled together.
The advancement of A&O will depend somewhat on conversations that are underway in regard to the music. If I get a commitment from a composer I am talking to, then I will need to speed things up to finish the Libretto, so we can dive into the music.
The one thing I want to achieve in the new revision is to bring a more abstract vision to certain sections. The are portions of the current Libretto that just laid down a dramatic structure that in not as as artistically crafted as I ant them to be. The information was placed there as a marker and needs to become an expression that is more akin to a impressionistic painting than a snapshot photo of information that we know and expect. There are other dramatic sections that I would like to craft around those ideas as well.
That's all for now. I'll post more later or update this post as I go. AG
