Sherlock Holmes, the Library Adventures
(with a photo of cute dogs at the end)
Almost two weeks ago, a cast of six talented actors sat down at Cardinal Stage HQ and recorded both episodes of "Predisposed to Violins: a Sherlock Holmes Adventure”, my first playwriting commission. It was quite a thrill. It’s now in the capable hands of director Kate Galvin, sound designer/editor Robert Hornbostel and production manager/recording engineer Corey Hollinger.
This blog post is a big THANK YOU to the Monroe County Public Library. Here are three big ways MCPL was especially helpful to my script, starting with the obvious:
1. A DRIVE-THROUGH, BUT FOR BOOKS
I hadn’t read any of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories when Cardinal contacted me, so I had some binge-reading to do! I’ll get to the MCPL’s contribution in a minute, but since most of Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain, my first stop was Project Gutenberg.
If you love classic literature, then you NEED to know about this free online resource. You can read all sorts of things online, or download a file formatted for your Kindle or e-reader. They offer many titles as audio books or in different languages.
The entire Sherlock Holmes canon is on Project Gutenberg, except for the final volume (“The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes”) because only six of its twelve stories are in the public domain in the US. I wanted to read those six, so I used the MCPL drive-through to pick up the volume. Incredibly convenient, couldn’t be easier.
[I realize lot of writers when offered such a commission would just buy a complete works online. I thought about doing that, but I figured I’d try to keep my overhead low for my first commission as a playwright. And my bookshelves are already pretty full.]
From the MCPL website: "Ask A Librarian" is a service for library cardholders. Librarians are available to answer questions about Library services, answer simple factual questions, and refer you to sources.
I used this feature to help confirm a fact about Germany that was mentioned in passing on Wikipedia with no footnote (it’s a small spoiler, so I’m not repeating it here). I couldn’t confirm it on my own, as my German has gotten rather rusty since high school. So I “Asked A Librarian” and quickly received several online links and PDFs of scholarly articles. While only a few of the articles were directly relevant*, it was enough for me to be confident moving forward with my script. One of Holmes’ deductions hinged on this fact, so it really makes that scene pop I think.
*I don’t point out the varying relevance as a criticism, on the contrary, it was the most efficient response. My question was specific, and for them to read all the articles with an eye to relevance would have been a poor use of their time, and would have delayed their response to me. They were quite right to cast a quick wide net, toss me all the results (alarmingly quickly), and let me pick out what I could use.
3. STREAMING SERVICES
Stay tuned for specific reviews of the Sherlock-related things I watched on both Hoopla and Kanopy. But know that they have a LOT of content.
TO SUM UP
Libraries are awesome, especially MCPL (don’t even get me started on Nonprofit Central), library staff should get the Covid vaccine way before me, AND tickets go on sale March 29th for my audio play (released the week of April 5th)! If you’re in town, there’s extra puzzles and fun if you book a ticket for the small-group “guided tour” version.
P.S. As I promised at the start, here’s some cute dogs: Bert is in the yellow harness, and Ernie is in red licking his snoot (the geek in the wide-brimmed hat is me).
This photo was from a visit to refresh my memory of Waldron Hill & Buskirk Park, the location of Episode 1.
(photo credit: Angela Huxford, my very very patient and supportive wife)
