Introduction

 "I Am Alpha & Omega"

a Theatrical Stage Presentation

based on the teachings of

The General Church of The New Jerusalem

Welcome to the site for the Newest Revision of the stage Libretto.

    I have been wanting to engage in a new revision of this project for some time now. Recently I have been discussing this project with a few people in regard to creating the music for this show. Originally this project began as a screenplay, which was copyrighted in 1974, but as new revisions were written, the project turned into a stage presentation. 

History;

   Just after graduation from high school in 1972, while also working as a machinist/driver in my Father's  business, I became employed by SamEric theatres as a manager of five of their movie theatres. 

   At this time I was also attending Bucks County Community College; studying Photography, Cinema, Television, and Voice as my majors, in addition to the required courses. I made four films and acquired cinema equipment with my father's help. I considered transferring to Temple Universities film program, but one requirement was a finished & approved screenplay before you could touch a camera. I already had my own cameras. I didn't enroll, but it got me thinking about writing a legit screenplay.

  So I began conceptualizing "I Am Alpha and Omega". It began a script, structured for film, as I had been taught in my film classes at Bucks.

   A number of circumstances had me frustrated and worried about my future, so I decided to take definitive action.

   In 1974, just after my 21st birthday, I hopped into my 1970 MGB and drove to California. Needless to say this surprised everyone, even myself.

   I went to California to further my studies in filmmaking. I had determined to investigate attending "The Film School" in Half Moon Bay. I arrived in San Francisco and ended up living in Berkeley for a number of months. While there, I sold my MGB and bought a motorcycle. Also while there, I began writing a more definitive script for "I Am Alpha & Omega", which at that time was strictly a screenplay. I hand wrote the script, while Danita Kulp typed it for me. The story was based on a science fiction story line, whereby the sequence of events were centered around inferences of the second coming of Christ. 

   After investigation of The Film School, I wasn't certain I should go that route, so I took my script and my motorcycle and headed down to explore Hollywood. 

   I won't go into my adventures there, only to say that "I Am Alpha & Omega" ended up in the hands of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. I was told that he liked it. Being young and stupid, I didn't know how to take advantage of that situation and wanting to make the script better, I took it back, intending to refine it. Well, that never happened in the context of that trip to Hollywood. For I found myself in a very depraved environment and for my own safety & sanity, I left Hollywood.

   Upon my return to Pennsylvania, I continued in filmmaking and writing, getting involved in numerous projects and working in NYC, including work on commercials and technical theatre.

   In 1977,  I formed Image of the Mind Productions ( which eventually became Studios ).

   In 1978 I determined to pitch '"I Am Alpha and Omega" to The Moody Blues, to see if they would be interested in writing the music. My own deficiencies got in the way of making that happen, even though we did have a meeting backstage in Philadelphia to discuss it. Their agent got me so upset by his attitude toward me, when I proposed another film idea to him, that I left the meeting. That event haunted me for forty years. Oh well, move on 

   Having taken an apartment in Doylestown, I proceeded to design and approach producing a few outdoor festivals, as well as music concerts at The County Theatre in Doylestown. I was a member of the  Chamber of Commerce and pitched a museum/library project around torn and to the Bucks County Commissioners, which became The Mitchner Museum in Doylestown. 

     I became a creative consultant to a number of artists, producers and bands. I also attempted also to produce a film festival and endeavored to coordinate a production of "Camelot" between multiple venues. 

    My proposal to Southampton Township turned into Southampton Days and had been maintained for decades on the forth of July.

   After producing events at The County Theatre, I investigated returning to finish my Degree in Mass Media/Cinema at Bucks and they hired me to work on the stage. Shortly thereafter I was offered the management of The County Theatre, but I declined, because I needed to finish my degree first. 

   In 1980, circumstances led me to Boston, where I was given an office in The Paramount Theatre to work on "I Am Alpha and Omega". I had pitched the script to a producer who was turning the theatre into a communications centre for film and video. As a result, he gave me an office, where I worked for months to expand upon a new version of the script, turning it into a theatre presentation. 

   While there I proposed that a puppet show be turned into a stage musical and that proposal found solid ground so, I then moved to Stoney Run to work on the musical based on a puppet version of "The Lord of the Rings".

   Somewhere in this timeframe, I began writing the outlines for a medieval romance film titled "Milady", which was changed to become "Grael".  

   After I returned to Bucks County, I set up my studio in Dublin, PA. There, I worked on both "A&O" and "Grael", eventually focusing exclusively on "Grael". I wrote the role of Percival for Sean Connery, but he retired from the business before I could present it to him.

   After I returned from Stoney Run, somewhere around 1982, I became involved in a protest movement against a pumping station on the Delaware River and documented it with film. 

   In the midst of all of this, I was also doing multiple colonial reenactments, theatre shows and films that were produced by MGM and A&E, mostly centered around the Revolutionary War. I filmed the reenactment of George Washington's Crossing on Christmas Day and A&E offered to buy that film. It remains unedited 

   In 1985 I married and returned to Hollywood. It was there that I began another complete rewrite of "I Am Alpha and Omega" from an entirely new perspective and it was there that I designed it for a "Hemispherical Theatre". But at that time, I could see clearly that technology was moving so quickly that all my designs, that require technical theatre to implement, would be moot. So I decided to stop working on the the project until computer technology was more stabilized.

I knew that technology was in turmoil because I was doing film and video on numerous projects and merging the two technologies was a major problem at the time. I was doing 16mm (about to move up to 35mm) when video hit the scene. I got trapped in the battle of formats and it caused me to stop working in film and video. It was complex and costly, so I switched over to doing mostly theatre.

   During the time I was in Hollywood, I pitched a number of projects and scripts to multiple producing organizations with mixed results. Warner Brothers offered me an office in their lot, but my wife was struggling with mental issues and I was afraid to accept that offer, not knowing how she would handle it. So I passed on that opportunity. I probably should have taken it, just like I should have taken the Apprenticeship I was offered at Harvard. Oh well. Life goes on.

   All of this leads up to the fact that NOW, in this timeframe, I am endeavoring to do another rewrite of "I Am Alpha and Omega" and this time around, I will be posting the materials here on this blog. I will most certainly copy all the postings down to an archive file. The last thing I need is for blogspot to shut down in the middle of it all.

More later, AG