Richmond-born artist Slash Coleman presented a live-reading of the screenplay adaptation of his book “The Bohemian Love Diaries” at the Firehouse Theatre, before he and co-creator Leon Phoenix take the screenplay to Hollywood.
“The Bohemian Love Diaries” was published in 2013. The script chronicles Coleman’s upbringing by an “eccentric family of half-Jewish, half-redneck artists” in Chesterfield, Virginia during the 1970s and ‘80s, through his voyages across the country to Alaska and back chasing love.
“In this world where everything is quantified and qualified it can be hard to let go,” Coleman said.
“The Bohemian Love Dairies” has been adapted to the stage, and the audio book won the award for Best Action Stories of 2013 by Storytelling World.”
Since 2001, Coleman said he has been writing a fictionalized story of his life ― being raised by his mother who survived the holocaust and his father, a genius sculptor and alcoholic.
“It was a bigger story,” Phoenix said. “We really had to whittle it down to get it down to size.”
Twelve actors read aloud the screenplay that Phoenix and Coleman have spent the last two years adapting. Phoenix said he and Coleman staged the production to see how audiences reacted to the flow of the story and dialogue.
When writing the book, Coleman said he promised himself he’d write three sentences every morning. Some days he said he wrote more, but never less than three sentences.
“The book came out of those three sentences every morning,” Coleman said.
Coleman said in today’s world where people have been conditioned to measure success with money and power, his upbringing on the Bohemian ideals of truth, love and forgiveness is what makes his coming of age tale engaging.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen a live reading in a setting like this,” said attendee Jack Cooksy. “I think it takes a fair amount of courage for a writer to put themselves in front of an audience while still working on the final project.”
“The Bohemian Love Dairies” is available on Amazon.
SPECTRUM EDITOR
Jesse Adcock
Jesse is a junior print journalism major and Arabic and Middle Eastern culture minor. He has walked in the valley with no water and bitten the heads off of snakes.
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