WRITER ~ PRODUCER
Geremy's most recent writing project involved transforming a novel by Skeeze Whitlow called
"Senate
Parking" from novel format into a
20-chapter radio play. Geremy then hired a group of
voiceover actors and fully produced it
into a 200-minute iSoap (a new tech name for radio
play),
complete with music and sound effects.
Special thanks to Paul (the studio guru) for his technical
savvy and to Tom (the exec producer)
for his faith in my ability to wear many creative hats.
As a writer, Geremy has
also created 2 sitcom pilots, a feature-length screenplay, a
dozen short films,
a one-man Hamlet, an anthology of poems, hours of
stand-up
material, and
a weekly radio show.
In 2007, Geremy received honorable
mention in a Limerick contest.
Geremy's producer credits include the above
writing projects, plus 5 musical albums.
Check out the New Fiction dot com website, and sign up for FREE daily audio chapters via email.
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ONE MAN HAMLET
In 1996, Geremy Dingle wrote, produced, and starred in
a Shakespearean spoof called "Adrenaline".
Based loosely on Shakespeare's plotline, structure, and characters, Geremy wrote a Hamlet parody
with modern dialogue, completely altered the
storylines, and created witty, off-set character names.
Geremy played the Hamlet role
as himself, and morphed into all the other characters in the play
using only his voice and body. He
felt that if he were to include costume changes, the story would
be far too interrupted, and props
were used minimally. As an added challenge, he wrote all the
dialogue in iambic pentamenter,
which was the norm when Hamlet was written back in 1602.
"Adrenaline" was presented as a live multi-media
show to the delight, surprise, and
awe of audiences
and critics alike in both Los
Angeles & Toronto.
The following passage is taken from an interview where Geremy
explains why he embarked upon
a one-man Hamlet project in the first place, and gives readers an overview of the story:
"Most men relate to the
confusion of authority, inadequate male role models, and female
complexities.
So, I decided to modernize the
tale by setting it in Denmark four hundred years after the original
story
was set (1600 B.C. or so), and
I reconfigured the entire play into an obscure reflection of my own
history.
In a nutshell, Hamlet becomes
Helmut, a Dutch-German musician who happens to be a prince in a world
where the influence of
Monarchies has drizzled away into little more than a fancy title.
Helmut has an
aptitude for mathematics, but
his parents, King Gaudius and Queen Kerchief, insist that he use that
talent
to shape a noble career as a
professor... Helmut naturally fights against their whims by pursuing
his
passion for music.
On the side of romance,
Helmut’s fiancée Ophelmia gets convinced by the
evil Count de Ratio that
Helmut is having an affair with
the king’s prized sheep Glory. When Ophelmia tells this to
her father
Harmonious --the doped-up head
tour guide of Gaudius’ castle-- he hits the roof and hires
Denmark’s
finest sheep slayers
Frozenpantz and Killdemsperm to kill the sheep.
Meanwhile, Helmut --completely
unaware of the scandal set against him-- becomes overwhelmed by the
dilemma of his career, and
heads off to Amsterdam to try his musical talent at an open stage. And
after a
successful performance, Helmut returns to Denmark with new
conviction, and picks up a traveling
foot-fetish
puppeteer en route, whom he brings with him to put on a show for his
parents wherein
he intends
to prove his musical aptitude once and
for all.
Helmut returns to Denmark
minutes after Frozenpantz and Kildemsperm have killed Glory, to King
Gaudius' horror, and the
subsequent period of mourning provides the perfect stage for Helmut's
show
with the foot puppeteer.
Together, they perform Biblical stories about 'Glory, the lamb that was
slain',
as well as an altercated Garden of Eden
tale, featuring a new twist wherein Adam and Eve have a pet
lamb that misunderstands the words of God and it eats fruit from the
forbidden tree, whereupon a bolt
of lightning strikes it down, leaving Adam
and Eve to eat lamb chops for several weeks.
The play’s thematic
messages could be extrapolated upon for hours, however the key
persuasion simply
encourages people to get in touch with and follow their passions,
rather than settling for an unfulfilling
job that may provide paychecks, but ultimately harrows one's soul. "
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HAMLET EXCERPT
Below, a short scene from Adrenaline: the
one-man Hamlet written and performed by Geremy Dingle.
Scene: Helmut enters
playing a jaw harp.
Well-dressed and
groomed, the
young prince comes to a hill before a cornfield.
Helmut.
In truth, I am not as I do appear;
But I do twang
precisely as I feel.
Allow me to
elaborate on this.
Elsinore is filled
with natural music:
Fermata-like
fields, jazz in the trees,
A
staccato sky;
and reggae in the breeze.
'Tis
lively
enough to inspire a slug,
Yet I am
shaken by a great despair
So deep within
that I play my hand harp
Without care,
sans passion, fuera de brio!
My musical
windmills spin symphonies
Used mostly to
torture small animals,
And I know not
why.
The desolate
"Sinfonia" theme
plays; Helmut twangs along with it for 2 bars.
He commits Hari-Kari....
falls to
the ground.
Helmut.
That Muse compels self-abuse; 'tis
heretic.
I need a piece of
uplifting music,
Something with spirit,
something with brawn,
One that makes me look up rather than down.
An uplifting banjo
solo plays.
Helmut's face lights up as he joins in with the jaw harp...
Helmut.
A prime example of an uplifting
song,
It warms my thick blood 'til I play along!
The "Sinfonia" plays again;
Helmut covers his ears and hisses vehemently until the music
cuts out.
Helmut.
So palpably plagued by that piece am I
That my mind must make major amendments;
I can scarcely recall the
banjo tune
That aroused me only moments ago!
Yet perhaps there's no need for self-pity:
I've a
wife to be, by heaven, I
have
Ophelmia's vow of eternal
love.
In
sooth, I know not why I am so
sad:
If love
be the food of music,
I'll play on.
Persuade
me not, I'll make a
star-chamber
Matter
of it, and will seek out
a theme
To cure
my despair; for now the happy
Lion
purrs, and the wolf licks the spoon.
Helmut twangs the jaw
harp and howls into the night.
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POEMS
"Saddle Stock" and
"Malodorous Stench!" both appear in Geremy's anthology of
poems,
sonnets, limericks,
and
haiku.
A
heavily crowded boulevard of stallions and mares
Canter
into a theatre hall where The Hoarse Whisperer
plays.
Anticipation
reigns within the round steeple proscenium
As
they gossip and gait for an evening of fun.
Horse
lights fade to black, commanding udder silence:
The
playing space beams with engaging brightness
And
soon a magical menagerie treads upon the stage
Engulfed
in a fantastic cloud of smoky blue sage.
Yellow
frogs croak Mozart to strings of green giraffes,
Massive
fleas dance baroquely around a miniscule elephant masse,
Timid
lions squeak Keats beneath poetic roars of courageous mice,
And
monkeys recite Shakespearean soliloquies to gaggles of critical geese.
Oh
such spectacle defies all laws of physics,
Dispels
most notions of Olympian gymnastics…
The
sequence of events leads to an exalted bridle shower,
Proving
that live performance still carries thoroughbred power.
The
cast bows gallantly to thunderous stomping hooves,
Neighs
and whinnies confirm the show was in the groove:
Electric
as fiery pine needles on a crisp autumn night;
The
sparks still simmer after the curtain’s final plight.
So
as an encore they perform Death of a Horseman:
A
dark tale about a Jockey who gets trampled in England—
Starring
Laryngitis, a leather-clad hunger-stricken mule
Who forms—in
his hay-day—a horse-breeding
school!
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Malodorous
Stench!
Today
thy fierce stench seems less potent,
It
usually rivals an elephant’s ass!
People
who catch wind of it feel it’s important
To
remain polite, and discuss rap or jazz;
Truthfully
thy odor has knocked over trees...
Timber!
Lumber’s largest limbo in June.
Rotten
blue salmon eggs, ten-year-old peas,
And
rainbow trout vomit—all nicer fumes!
When
out in public, please atomize thy pits
Or
sour notes on my guitar I shall devise.
I’d
hate to be near thee when ye hast the shits,
Perhaps
it’d do you to wear a disguise.
Farewell
foul odor and all who polluted,
For
now this sonnet’s smell has concluded.
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PROSE
Brilliant
Mediocrities.
All this hot talk has awakened my appetite.
It was sleeping. It has become narcoleptic of
late.
Such a voracious appetite as mine is too often
curbed by the likes of society at large. The majority
tends to rule according to Hoyle. Who the
hell Hoyle is remains a mystery, but it has been said
on many occasions by many wise earthlings
that the world is run by "C" students and governed
by dirty money. Actually I concocted that
little anecdote myself, but the universal credit seems right.
When in question ye may also look verily to the
Bard, for according to the adulated 16th
Century
playwright William
Wigglestick: “the ignorance of many
outweighs the comprehension of the few.”
And so mediocrity prevails. It runs
rampant on the sidewalks of life. It’s everywhere,
in plain view.
On the roads, in the sky, within the oceans, and
beneath the very soil upon which we tread daily.
Brilliance goes misunderstood, frequently cast
aside, impatiently labeled as inaccessible rather
than evolved, pushed into a corner and shunned
rather than being celebrated and widely displayed.
Many brilliant artistic people in particular are
investigated and studied to the point of
enlightenment
only after they have perished!
How can this be? Did someone create a manuscript on
this subject to justify such backward
thinking? Or is there a misgiving about the
artist’s reaction to being acknowledged for
genius?
Perhaps the admission of it will somehow interfere with the
creation of more brilliant works? Bullshit.
Granted, it's a fine line, as it's also easy to
fall into the trap of unfairly expecting greatness from an
individual or a group who has delivered it before.
There enters the element of pressure -- one of
life's challenging tests that takes years of
discipline to master, for who’s to say what’s
artistic
ingenuity and what’s lackadaisical dreck
anyhow? Is something more outstanding if the masses
love it, or moreso if it's cherished by a
minority? Seemingly this has more to do with the content's
accessibility on a broad level versus content that
is
understood by a select few.
Regardless, the individual creator of an art form, whatever it may be,
determines its basis.
And to all who aspire to conjure whatever Muse
moves them to express their innermost wantons,
latent surges and visions, my advice begins and
ends with these words: dare to be a pioneer. There
are plenty of unclimbed trees. There is much
to be discovered even though we have explored vastly.
Until we are utilizing most of our brain capacity,
we have only begun to embark upon the journey
of humanity. So, may you scale a great
pine, inhale deeply from its swinging tip, and release a
masterful cacophony of sound!
In the Millennial turnover, an
era I fondly call The Age of Too Much Information, people have
become overwhelmed by literally hundreds of
television channels and bombarded with mainstream
movies, of which a handful stand up as respectable
films. Bug-eyed in the electronic age of pop-up
internet ads and streaming video horseshit, who
knows where to go or what to watch or when to
just shut everything off and retire to a warm bath
and a book of some sort? The reading and
comprehension levels have plummetted over the past
few decades, clearly illustrated by ignorance
and sub-standard levels of communication.
It's all informed, literate people can do to encourage
these basic tools in others by example.
That being writ, the entertainment realm has become
saturated by homogenized blueprints of
what might have been worthwhile projects at
origin. Yet they lose merit along the pathway of
business,
as some of those able to back creative endeavors
have less artistic credibility than they'd care to
acknowledge. Ideally, we could learn from
this and adopt a new mandate of quality before quantity,
the ideal being a steady quantity of quality.
First and foremost, leave the artistic vision in the
grasp
of the artistic people. It’s a
dismal shame that the entertainment industry is run by
executives
rather than by artists. From my seat it
seems that most corporate aficionados determine what project
will go public based on flow charts, statistics,
and marketability. Using math as a compass for art
in
this
way is contrived, and it shows in the lack of genuinely novel products
shoved at us by advertisers.
The
main reason ads are turned down in the first place is that the
audience ain't buyin' what's bein' sold
to
'em. By this logic, it’s a miracle when a
project of any kind attains a viable position in the industry
and
also manages to retain a degree of artistic integrity
because the visionaries have at some point or
another had to learn how to speak about creativity with
bankers and credit unions!
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