Based on a Totally True Theatrical Experience

Back in 2006, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa helmed Cal Shakes' second NewWorks /New Communities project, King of Shadows (originally known as Sweet Thunder), creating and developing a new take on A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the help of MFA students at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) and community organizations working with homeless LGBT youth in San Francisco. This was before my time here at Cal Shakes, but this summer, I had the pleasure of going to see a workshop performance of Aquirre-Sarcasa's Good Boys and True at the Marin Theatre Company. The tense, funny tale of how a private school's legacy of secrets unravel--revealing the uneven seams of class and sexuality--really lept to life in the hands of the five actors (including Man and Superman's Hector Malone, Sr., Steve Irish, and Restoration Comedy's Berinthia, Marcia Pizzo), even though they remained seated on stools in a straight line at all times.

We went for drinks afterward, the actors and crew, Joy Meads, me, and some other assorted folks. And Aguirre-Sacasa struck me as a sweet and down-to-earth guy with a pretty deadly wit. It wasn't till after we'd left the 2AM Club in Mill Valley that Joy told me the playwright also writes comics--like, big ones. X-Men. This may not impress you, but it does me. Superhero comics ain't my bag, but underground comics are, as is certain strains of sci-fi. I've even been trying, off and on this year, to write a script for a comic book series of my own. So I was ticked off that I didn't get to pick the brain of a pro, especially since, at the time, that brain had been addled slightly by alcohol!

Lucky for me, Aguirre-Sacasa's got a show running now at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theater. And that play, Based on a Totally True Story, features a comic book writer who (and maybe I'm being too literal here) could definitely be based on a totally true playwright.

At least I can pick the actor's brain, right?