Here’s a golden opportunity to get a glimpse inside what makes Chicago the greatest theatre town in the world.
This Wednesday, four luminaries of the Chicago theatre scene will be in conversation with Michael Reyes of Strawdog Theatre at the Understudy Cafe & Books in Andersonville. It’s sure to be fascinating, and you can experience it live in person or via the podcast from anywhere in the world. Click here for free in-person tickets. Or find the podcast here.
Follow the links to get a taste of the incredible work these artists do:
And now a second Dwayne Finnegan novel will take you inside the scene, as well.
“Richard Engling knows Chicago’s famously chaotic and glorious storefront theater scene like the back of his hand.” –Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
“Engling’s satire on storefront theatre is thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.” –ChicagoOnStage
Not all of us are attending and performing live theatre like we used to. The good news is that the second Dwayne Finnegan novel will soon take us back to the storefront theatre scene. Readers and critics have been loving the first book, Give My Regards to Nowhere, for the hilarious and heart-felt journey into theatre life. To get ready for the second, Romeo and Juliet Keep Their Eyes on the Prize, you can get Give My Regards free from February 26th through February 29th. Click here.
Help Us Out
Polarity Ensemble Books has limited marketing dollars. Leaving even a short review of Give My Regards to Nowhere on Amazon would be a huge help. If you already bought the book elsewhere, getting a free copy on Amazon now will allow you to leave a review. And tell your friends about the book!
About Romeo and Juliet Keep Their Eyes on the Prize (on sale March 22nd)
Chicago director Dwayne Finnegan has another crack at the big time—if only his production of Romeo and Juliet can shine. However, Dwayne shares rehearsal space with a cult that takes trips on LSD-like ayahuasca and believes Dwayne’s production is evil. The cult sabotages him. His actors rebel. His publicist gets entangled with a loan shark. Bones are broken, the production drops into chaos, Dwayne’s marriage hangs by a thread, but despite it all, the show must go on.
The working title of my recently released novel, GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE, was ELECTRIC LADYLAND. That title went out the window when I discovered ELECTRIC LADYLAND was a registered trademark of Experience Hendrix LLC, the corporate overlord of the Jimi Hendrix estate. I’m now in rewrites of the next Dwayne Finnegan adventure. It had the working title, THE 7 HABITS OF ROMEO & JULIET, because Dwayne’s frustrated wife throws a copy of THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE at him, and it becomes a running gag as Dwayne attempts to use the book to improve himself.
AKA ELECTRIC LADYLAND?
I thought THE 7 HABITS OF ROMEO & JULIET was kind of funny as a title, but after the experience with ELECTRIC LADYLAND, I realized I needed to seek permission from the Franklin Covey Company. They have trademarked not only the 7 HABITS title but also the 7 Habits themselves.
Franklin Covey did not think THE 7 HABITS OF ROMEO & JULIET was nearly as funny as I did. Nor were they inclined to give me permission to use 7 HABITS in my title. And they promised to be as vigilant about their trademarks as Disney is about the Mouse.
Ah well… I didn’t want to lose the gag about Dwayne improving himself so I decided to invent a self-help book to replace the 7 HABITS. So far my favorite new working title is ROMEO & JULIET KEEP THEIR EYES ON THE PRIZE. What do you think?
Meanwhile, GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE is starting to collect enthusiastic reviews on Amazon and Goodreads after just two weeks on sale. The most recent one concluded with: “It was one of those books you don’t want to end, and that is a good read in my opinion!” So maybe you should get your copy while it’s still at launch time prices. You can get it in print, ebook, and audiobook from lots of retailers.
Lincoln Square’s Book Cellar Bookstore at 4736 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago hosts a reading and book signing of GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE, 7 pm March 22nd, the first day the book goes on sale. The novel is a work of comedic fiction informed by author Richard Engling’s years as an artistic director in one of Chicago’s storefront theatres.
Richard Engling
“As far as we know, this is the first novel to be set in the contemporary Chicago theatre scene,” Engling says. “The book hasn’t gone on sale yet, but I’m already delighted and grateful for the reception it’s receiving. Chris Jones of the Tribune has hailed it. Mark Larson, author of ENSEMBLE, the wonderful oral history of Chicago theater. Adam Langer, the celebrated author of CYCLORAMA. And a host of others. It’s been very gratifying.”
The Book Cellar Bookstore
GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE follows the adventures of struggling Chicago director Dwayne Finnegan who has a long shot at the big time and only two obstacles: himself and everyone he knows. Dwayne has an idea of how to direct Shakespeare’s least-favorite play that could set him on the road to Broadway, with Bob Fosse-style choreography, Jimi Hendrix-style guitars, and the hottest cast in the city of Chicago. But when the show’s producer leaves town with the cash, Dwayne decides to produce the show himself, putting his marriage and his meager finances at risk.
“Richard Engling knows Chicago’s famously chaotic and glorious storefront theater scene like the back of his hand. It’s the perfect setting for absurd comic hi-jinx.” – Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune and author of RISE UP! and BIGGER, BRIGHTER, LOUDER
“A scrappy, big-hearted backstage comedy layered with mordant wit and full of a deep, abiding love for its characters, which is wholly appropriate for a story set in the scrappy, big-hearted world of Chicago theater.” – Adam Langer, author of CYCLORAMA
“A longtime denizen of Chicago’s famed storefront theater scene, Engling vividly captures the disparity between grand artistic ambition and what reality has to offer in this very funny, briskly written, and often touching book.” – Mark Larson, author of ENSEMBLE, AN ORAL HISTORY OF CHICAGO THEATER
Polarity Ensemble Books will release my new novel, GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE: A DIRECTOR’S TALE, March 22nd. One of the tasks along the way was to create an exciting cover that would give a visual preview of the experience of reading the book. No easy task! We contracted with Laura Boyle, art director for Dundurn Press in Canada, who also designs covers freelance. She and I discussed my book, and she asked me to supply cover images of books whose readers might also like my book.
Some of the early readers of the book manuscript compared its humor to that of author Carl Hiaasen. GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE also has a driving pace and a main character always battling the odds, like LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, as well as a sense of whimsy and occasionally outrageous characters, like UNLIKELY ANIMALS or Tom Perrotta’s books. All these books featured whimsical illustrations and bright background colors.
She and I began combing the image databases for a photo or illustration we could license. This was familiar work for me since I’d been involved in selecting images from istockphoto.com for theatre posters and book covers in the past.
Laura began mocking up covers using those images.
We went through a number of ideas looking for something that would really convey the feeling of the book. We also really wanted something that would have some visual echo of the popular books whose audiences might enjoy GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE.
After nine attempts, Laura came back with a cover featuring a comically despondent mime in the spotlight.
The image and the title treatment both seemed exactly right. But black and white seemed all wrong. I asked her to bring color to it, suggesting the blue from the background of UNLIKELY ANIMALS and making the mime’s shirt the red of MRS. FLETCHER.
That really seemed much better.
But we still had a few tweaks to go. Meanwhile I had been soliciting blurbs and sending out copies for reviews. We got a terrific blurb from the Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones, so we wanted a bit of that on the front cover. With a couple more passes, we were at the final.
More blurbs and the first advance review came in, and what people wrote about the book was really exciting. Authors and critics were loving the book. Now came the job of editing those blurbs down to the few word phrases that would fit on the back cover. The final result was fantastic, and the book was ready for publication.
Chicago director Dwayne Finnegan has a long shot at the big time and only two obstacles: himself and everyone he knows.
a comic novel of love, lust, and life-threatening electrical shocks
Dwayne’s got an idea of how to direct Shakespeare’s least-favorite play that could set him on the road to Broadway. We’re talking Bob Fosse choreography, Jimi Hendrix guitars, and the hottest cast in the city of Chicago. But when the show’s producer cuts out with the cash, Dwayne decides to produce the show himself, putting his marriage and his meager finances at risk. What could go wrong?
“Richard Engling knows Chicago’s famously chaotic and glorious storefront theater scene like the back of his hand. It’s the perfect setting for absurd comic hi-jinx.”
– Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, author of Rise Up! and Bigger, Brighter, Louder
Book release date for GIVE MY REGARDS TO NOWHERE by Richard Engling is March 22, 2023. To be available in print, audiobook and various ebook editions. Go to Book Funnel for a free Advance Reader Copy. You must willing to write a review (long or short) and upload it to Amazon and/or other retailers on the release date.
2018 was the last time I sent out a blog post. (If you read to the bottom, I’ll tell you why). But now there’s some Polarity news! Polarity Ensemble Books is coming back to life with the idea to serve a small collective of authors. The first new novel, now in the editing process, is a comedy set in the Chicago storefront theatre scene (something we know a little about from our days of Polarity Ensemble Theatre). We hope to have it out by the end of the year.
In the meantime, we still have a few of our earlier books available, and we’d love to have you read them–and please, please, please leave a review on Amazon. This makes a huge difference in the books being seen by others. We have an extremely limited advertising budget.
Today only, the “charmed and romantic” VISIONS OF ANNA is free on Amazon. We really want you to leave a review! If you’ve already read it, grab a free copy anyway and leave a review. Then Amazon will mark your review as a confirmed purchaser.
The futuristic dystopian detective thriller, BODY MORTGAGE, originally published by Penguin Books, is on sale for $2.99. Chicago private eye Gregory Blake attempts to protect a client facing foreclosure on his organs for transplants to the wealthy.
So, I promised to tell you about the lack of blog posts. One of the last posts I wrote was called A Novelist’s Guide to Relieving Grief. You can see it at that link, if you like. The title originally said Depression rather than Grief. If you let too much unrelieved grief build up, I suggested, it can lead to depression. Anyway, I had a couple people write to me complaining that I had no business or qualifications to be writing about depression, which is a medical condition. Well, maybe not, although I did title it “A Novelist’s Guide” not a psychiatrist’s guide. And the article described a ritual I’d found helpful to me, which I thought might be helpful to others.
The emails came from just two people, but they just kept coming. It was amazing to me how heated they were. And it kind of put me off writing blog posts.
So, maybe it’s time to get over that. What do you think?
David Auburn’s PROOF is a wonderful, Pulitzer- and Tony-winning script that was made into the hit 2005 movie starring Gweneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. I’ll be playing the Anthony Hopkins role in a heartfelt production at the Skokie Theatre. We’ve got a great cast. It’s going to be a fine production. And the Skokie Theatre is a super-comfortable place to see a show. Nice seats. Cocktails. Plenty of free parking. CTA Yellow Line station (Oakton stop) nearby. You can’t beat it. Plus you get $5 off tickets with the promotional code: richard. Warning: It only runs 3 weeks. I hope to see you there.
(Poster image copyright Miramax Films).
Horrifying Tale Rereleased on Halloween
A newly revised edition of my dystopian detective thriller, BODY MORTGAGE, originally published by Penguin Books USA and Headline House UK comes out on Halloween and will be available for purchase at the Skokie Theatre during our intermission. Chicago private eye Gregory Blake attempts to protect a client facing foreclosure on his organs for transplants to the wealthy. Saving this man’s life puts him at odds with the most powerful people in the city–and the most dangerous. It’s a gritty thriller in a nightmare America where human parts are worth more than the whole. (My novels are also available at amazon.com).
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Richard Engling
Richard Engling is an actor and writer and author of VISIONS OF ANNA, a novel about healing the wounds of grief, setting a troubled soul to rest, and finding redemption in love. To learn more about VISIONS OF ANNA, visit Amazon. To read more posts like this, subscribe to Richard’s newsletter.
Richard EnglingHow much of your time do you spend in sorrow? How much is too much? At what point do you take action?
Everybody gets sad. Everyone has to deal with grief. Many people tip over from sorrow into depression. Usually it passes. But it feels horrible while you’re in it.
Life never stops keeps feeding us the stuff of grief. Friends and loved ones get sick and die. We lose jobs. Projects go bad. We get a new boss, and he or she sucks. Love affairs end. A friend betrays us. We thought we’d be doing better in our career by now. In our relationships by now. In our general living conditions by now. Maybe (like me) you work in one of the arts. You deal with rejections and disappointment. Our careers never match our ambitions. Some of our friends and colleagues become so overwhelmed, they take their own lives. We feel that loss. We feel the guilt that we didn’t save them. We feel the grief that they’ll never come back.
Sometimes the grief buries us like a wave crashing on the beach. Sometimes the sorrow seeps up and up until we realize we are over our heads in it. We have to take action. But that’s when action is hardest to take. We just feel like withdrawing from the world. We stay huddled in our cocoon of isolating pain.
There is no avoiding grief. It’s part of life. Some people get a heavier dose of it than others. And some people are more sensitive to it than others. However, there are ways to relieve it.
Tending to your mental health ought to be a practice, like diet and exercise. We know we will live happier and healthier with a sensible diet and regular exercise. Taking care of our mental health is the third leg of the stool that stabilizes our well-being. There are lots of ways to do it. In the upcoming newsletters I will talk about a variety. You don’t have to do them all. The best idea is to try them out and see which work the best for you. And then make a practice of them. If you can get others to commit to doing them with you, so much the better. Communing with people over your collective well-being is one of the best things you can do for your mental health. And you can help each other stick with the practice.
But let me give you one practice you can try today. You can do it on our own or with friends or family. But I urge you to try it as soon as possible. Procrastination kills good intents.
This is a salt water purification based on a ritual I learned from reading THE SPIRAL DANCE by Starhawk many years ago. It comes from a Wiccan practice, but you don’t have to share any of the beliefs of Wiccans for this to work for you. The ritual activates your psyche in a cleansing way no matter what your beliefs.
Sea salt and knifeYou need five things to make this work: source of flowing water, a cup, salt, a knife, and a place to sit. The ideal source of flowing water might be a stream through a forest where you can sit in privacy. However, the water flowing from your kitchen or bathroom sink can work perfectly well. The ideal cup would be a chalice that was dedicated to your ritual practice. You probably don’t have one, right? So pick something that has some meaning to you. Maybe you have a teacup that belonged to your grandmother, or a cup you’ve had since you were a baby. (Can a plastic sippy cup work? If it reminds you of the love of your mother, yes!). Or even your favorite coffee mug.
Stand (or sit) by the flowing water (even if it is just the water flowing from the faucet) and visualize this as the water flowing from the source of life—water that allows you to keep living, that feeds your body and soul, that cleanses you, that keeps you healthy—and that flows back into the nature, carrying nutrients that feeds life downstream, forever flowing and giving life. Truly visualize that flow of water as a flow of life that includes you. Give up any self-consciousness or embarrassment and let yourself feel it. Then put your chalice into the flow of life-giving, health-giving water and fill it to a comfortable height, maybe ¾ full.
ChaliceDip your knife into the salt. The ideal knife is one you use strictly for ritual purposes. (We’ll talk more about things to do with your knife later). The ideal salt would be sea salt. But don’t let the ideal keep you from the good. Use what salt you have. Use a utensil that has some meaning to you. A pocket knife you’ve had for years. A silverware knife you inherited from your parents. A knife from your everyday flatware, for that matter. The important thing is to commit to what you are doing. Fill each thing you do with personal meaning, and the ritual will work.
Scoop up some of the salt with the knife and stir it into the water. As it is dissolving, recite the following: “This is the water of the sea, from which all life emerged. This is the water of the womb, from which I was born. This is the water of my blood, that keeps me alive.” The more you can feel and believe those words, the better. It is totally okay to feel like you are pretending, but go as fully from pretending to believing as you can.
When the salt is fully dissolved (and when you feel you’ve recited the incantation sufficiently), set down the knife. Seat yourself comfortably, and hold the chalice to your heart. Close your eyes, and let your griefs and disappointments and pain flow into the water. Remember them specifically and then let them flow into the water. If you feel it making you weep, go ahead and weep. All the better. Let it flow into the water. Take your time. Let yourself feel it fully and release it into the water. The water wants it. And you will feel better when you let those harsh emotions flow away. Take as much time as you need. And realize too that you do not need to heal your entire life in this one sitting. This is a practice to return to again and again. There is no failure. Just let as much of your grief and pain flow into the water as you can.
If you are sitting there and nothing is happening and you are thinking this whole thing is stupid, then reflect on that: Here you are, you have so much sorrow stored up in you, and you cannot even let it go. Feel the deep sorrow of THAT, and let that flow into the water, and that might help you start to let go of the rest.
When you are ready, rise and be grateful to the water. Stand by the stream, river, or turn the faucet back on and stand by the sink. Slowly pour the water into the flowing stream and say: “I release these griefs to nourish the life downstream.” Repeat it as you let the water slowly flow out of your chalice into the stream. Visualize all that you have released feeding the downstream life, just like cow manure and worm shit and bat guano make the finest fertilizers to nourish plant life. There is something of our grief, ritually given, that feeds the spirit world. And that cleansing us. It is like the great poet Robert Bly said: “It’s hard to grasp how much generosity / Is involved in letting us go on breathing, / When we contribute nothing valuable but our grief.”
At the end of the ritual, put the your tools away. Perhaps you will dedicate these items exclusively to ritual work in the future. Or maybe you will seek out other items to use exclusively for ritual in the coming days. As you do this, express gratitude for whatever you have experienced.
I’ve picked up many ritual practices over my lifetime, starting with an intense Catholic upbringing. I have been attending the annual week-long Minnesota Men’s Conference since 1995. Robert Bly started and led the Conference for many years and its teachers have included psychologists, poets, and ritual leaders, including shamanic teachers from Africa, from Central American, and North American Native medicine people. The teaching, work, and rituals there have often dealt with grief.
I’ll get into more in the future, and I’ll also share some of the fiction I’m writing, some thoughts on Chicago theatre, and probably some essays from my kitchen (I love cooking).
Richard Engling is an actor and writer and author of VISIONS OF ANNA, a novel about healing the wounds of grief, setting a troubled soul to rest, and finding redemption in love. To learn more about VISIONS OF ANNA, visit Amazon. To read more posts like this, subscribe to Richard’s newsletter.
What is it like to be dead? That’s one of the mysteries explored in the play, Anna in the Afterlife, companion piece to my novel Visions of Anna. In the play, novelist Matthew Harken finds himself in an afterlife world where he’s not quite alive and not quite dead. While his body lingers in a coma, Matthew must decide whether or not to return to the living. As he learns to navigate the complicated world of the afterlife, he is joined by friends who have passed on–including his dear friend and fellow novelist, Anna Toyevsky, who took her own life and has split into three separate beings.
When we produced Anna in the Afterlife at Polarity Ensemble Theatre, the director and actors asked me for some notes on how the Afterlife of the play worked. It had many similarities to the world Matthew entered in the ritual with shaman Tony Cappelli in my novel, Visions of Anna.
Ellyn Nugent as Afterlife Anna (photos by Jason Epperson)
The afterlife world I created also had a great deal in common with the world we enter in our dreams. Just as some people can learn to become “lucid” and navigate their dream world, more experienced inhabitants of the afterlife can navigate the world by focusing their thoughts. They think of a moment or a location, and then are able to access it.
If a person enters the afterlife under certain types of trauma, like Anna with her suicide, they may enter with their memories wiped away and have to rebuild them. Matthew enters the afterlife with this same kind of amnesia and must rebuild his memories.
Sheila Willis (left) as Anna and Sarah Eddy (right) as Little Anna
The afterlife is a universe with many parts. The lowliest residents are the ghosts. These traumatized souls remain in the realm of the living, often not actually understanding they are dead and mystified why it is so difficult to get the attention of the living.
The next level of souls have advanced away from the world of the living, but they are stuck in memories from their lives, helplessly repeating variations on the same disasters for centuries.
Richard Engling as Matthew.
The following level are able to revisit scenes from their lives as well as interact with other souls. They are able to welcome the newly deceased. They can reflect on their experiences and advance to other levels of the afterlife or reincarnate to a new life. The level of a soul’s abilities is dependent on his or her experiences and efforts while alive. The dead characters we meet in Anna in the Afterlife are at this level.
Beyond this level souls are able to interact with the non-human hosts of heaven (angels, gods, etc). A soul would visit these upper levels before returning to earth via reincarnation. Souls can give up their individuality and combine into larger souls, as in this passage from the novel, Visions of Anna:
And then Matthew’s soul did that thing that was so difficult for him and so natural for Natalie: It dropped into silence. What he perceived, he perceived directly, without interpreting into words.
He was in the tunnel now, the tunnel first formed in his forehead by the spot of copal. Then it was the portal in the center of the fire. He was propelled through the narrow space of the tunnel like in a dream of flight: flying like Superman. He saw the long cords of energy once again, the bungee cords of the spirit, stretching beneath him, far down the length of the tunnel, but he did not touch them this time.
Then he was in another space, a larger space, with Natalie flying beside him. Side by side. Then face to face.
He saw those eyes again and understood them more profoundly than he ever had before. He moved in closer, they, each to the other, entering deeply in through the eyes, finding the entry there. The understanding. The memory. Like an irrepressible magnetic attraction. Like a longing to be touched.
And then they were together. Flowing together like twin tributaries moving forward, now conjoined, toward the big river. And as their waters touched, they remembered. My God! How had they ever forgotten this? How had they ever lost this? All their lives alone. Apart. Separated too from all that had come before. The life they’d had. Lives. No! Life was right. Singular. Not plural. For they had been one creature, one consciousness, one whole before. And these pitiful things: This Matthew. This Natalie. They were mere slivers of consciousness, struck off alone for a lifetime.
But why? Why did they do this phenomenally lonely thing, without one another? And without the rest? For they sensed now, occupying this single reunited consciousness, that there were more of them than these two pitiful shards, this Matthew and this Natalie. They were not two halves of a whole, but two fragments of some larger being that even together, with their two consciousnesses conjoined, they could not remember, could not fathom, but could only sense in profound and devastated longing, like some forgotten dream of ecstasy, lurking hauntingly just beyond the limits of recall.
Oh, how they clung together in this reunion of soul, weeping in joy and overwhelming nostalgia: this creature that they were together, one thing and still yet two! For they sensed now the necessity of what they did as these lonely shards of soul on earth. They sensed what was still beyond their understanding, even together. They sensed the size of the mind of which they were just a part: Their lives were part of the conversation of this larger being, part of its exploration, part of its intellectual life. They were part of the dinner it was cooking, or eating. Part of the book it was reading. Or writing. Part of the growth of its mind. For the personalities they became and lived and then reunited were the ongoing soul of it. This Matthew and this Natalie bathed in the profound appreciation of each other, of themself together, a pair and a single thing simultaneously, and of the larger soul they would swim into together again one day. How had they survived being apart all this time? The waste of it!
And the necessity of it, too, they recognized. They were living the conversation. The brilliant conversation, filled with beauty as it was. The pain, too, was beauty. And what joy it would be to rejoin the whole and to see the fabric in its entirety, and to talk again to the other large beings—for this too they sensed: Just as they were part of some larger soul, there were other larger souls of which they were not a part, but whom they loved. And what joy it would be to rejoin in the conversation with these . . . these what? These gods?
They continued flying, face to face, Matthew and Natalie, joined in one mind, and then for a moment they exploded into light. Into an immense ecstasy. The tunnel had taken them inside the bright white core of their larger self, with all around them the separate but conjoined souls of the whole, like hundreds of telepathic baby spiders inside the egg. Oh, the love of this thing they were! This thing that was the magnetic field that held them all together and made them one integrated personality! The most wondrous love! Like a gigantic sustaining all-encompassing orgasm. They were the electric-firing cells of this one large brain, separate yet connected, one mind and a host of parts, joyful, joyful paradox!
My novel, VISIONS OF ANNA, can be purchased at Amazon.com.
And now a second Dwayne Finnegan novel will take you inside the scene, as well.
Not all of us are attending and performing live theatre like we used to. The good news is that the second Dwayne Finnegan novel will soon take us back to the storefront theatre scene. Readers and critics have been loving the first book, 
The image and the title treatment both seemed exactly right. But black and white seemed all wrong. I asked her to bring color to it, suggesting the blue from the background of UNLIKELY ANIMALS and making the mime’s shirt the red of MRS. FLETCHER.
More blurbs and the first advance review came in, and what people wrote about the book was really exciting. Authors and critics were loving the book. Now came the job of editing those blurbs down to the few word phrases that would fit on the back cover. The final result was fantastic, and the book was ready for publication.
