Going Viral in the Short+Sweet Queensland Finals
Huh! Looks like Going Viral will be competing in the finals at Short+Sweet Queensland this September. Big congrats to the cast and crew—wish I could be there!
Huh! Looks like Going Viral will be competing in the finals at Short+Sweet Queensland this September. Big congrats to the cast and crew—wish I could be there!
I mean, August's only just begun, but I'm posting this in August, so...? Whatever. It's the August roundup!
So many things: My girlfriend and I flew down to Carrboro, North Carolina (there's supposed to be a comma here but I've always hated that rule so screw it) last month to attend The ArtsCenter's 10 by 10 in the Triangle, where we got to meet some of the show's cast and crew as well as four of the other playwrights. The whole writing thing is a pretty solitary art, so it was great to compare notes with others who are up to similar shenanigans.
While there, I saw my third production of Going Viral. I love all the different nuances each production brings. This one featured the first male "child" character (Jorge Donoso) and had a remix of David After the Dentist as the intro song. Great. And the parents (David Berberian and Page Purgar) were a riot.
Two weeks later, I got to see a production of The Formative Years for the first time. It was part of the Artists' Exchange's 9th Annual One Act Play Festival, and they nailed it. The director, Jessica Bradley, added some great musical and physical business that really sold the fastidious, finicky world of these crazy people I created. Their total commitment to the insane wold of these "parents" made the piece even funnier than I could have hoped.
Coming up, the Suffield Players will feature two of my plays (The Interview and The Formative Years) as part of their New Faces 2014 show this month. Behold! Promotional material:
Then, this fall, Going Viral goes overseas to London for Playground: A New Writing Showcase, to Australia for Short+Sweet Queensland, and to Tasmania for Short+Sweet Hobart and the Deloraine One Act Festival. That last one will actually be the first festival I didn't have to submit to—the actors from Short+Sweet Hobart's production contacted me to ask if they could also do the show in Deloraine. It'll be two grandparents and their granddaughter, which certainly marks the first time that an actual family has performed Going Viral! Wish I could see it.
And I think that's enough bragging for now. Here's my favorite thing on the internet or anywhere.
Only two hours until August 1st, and you know what that means...!
Summer is basically over.
BUT ALSO! It means that tomorrow is day one of my second 31 Plays in 31 Days attempt. As I did last year, I'll be posting the plays as I finish them (hopefully one each day, but let's be honest here). If you're in to that sort of thing, you can follow along at home by navigating to "31 Plays in 31 Days" through the "Writing! For you to read!" tab on the left of this website.
Or just click here. Enjoy!
To date, 9 of my 31 plays from last year's 31 Plays in 31 Days effort have been produced and/or published (some of them multiple times!). As I'd be a fool not to attempt this challenge every August for the rest of my life, I will of course be doing it again this year.
But also! I agreed to help them out with collecting the daily prompts they send out every morning to get those brain juices sloshing:
We’re now soliciting suggestions for prompt ideas. If you have prompts that you would like to share with the playwrights participating in this year’s 31 Plays in 31 Days Challenge, please email them to Brandon Crose, one of our prolific playwrights from last year who is creating this year’s prompts. He can be reached at brandon.crose @ gmail.com (remove the spaces). Please include your name and, if selected, we’ll acknowledge your contribution on our website in August.
Surrender your prompts to me! All of them. Yes. Yesss...
I think this is a great project—I can't overstate how instrumental it's been in my development as a playwright. So who's joining me this year?
My one-minute plays Bad Day, Eh? and The Last Facebook Freedom Fighter will be appearing with 78 others as part of Gi60 Live US Edition, which will be streaming tonight through Sunday (12–15 June): the live stream's link (as well as information about tickets, if you are of an NYC persuasion) can be found here!
A recent review of Encompass Productions' Bare Essentials included this glowing praise for a certain social media-themed short play of mine:
One of my favourites was Going Viral, a play set in the near future. It’s a child’s 15th birthday and the parents have a surprise for her: a Facebook account. As the play unravels, we find out that the child is actually an internet sensation because of her lisp. The writing was fluid with great comedy and it was very relevant. It was beautifully carried by all actors but notably Laurie Harrington, who was a fantastic character actress as the mother and had me laughing out loud throughout.
I owe a great many thanks to the director, Michaela Neal, and the actors, Glenn Mortimer, Marcella Carelli, and Laurie Harrington. It's rumored that they recorded at least one of these performances so I'm looking forward to sharing that with you!
For those of you who are RSS only, you may (or may not; that's also cool) be interested to learn that I've updated the website:
* No promises about tomorrow.
I'm really excited about this for reasons of abject silliness.
Gone in 60 Seconds (Gi60), an international one-minute play festival, will be featuring three of my very short plays: REGULARLY SCHEDULED (previously seen during the Boston Theater Marathon's Warm-Up Laps and also appearing at Playsmiths' Flash Fest in New York this June), BAD DAY, EH? (world premiere!), and THE LAST FACEBOOK FREEDOM FIGHTER (also a world premiere!).
All three were written during last August's 31 Plays in 31 Days effort (and you can read all three of them here), but the last two—BAD DAY, EH? and THE LAST FACEBOOK FREEDOM FIGHTER—were silly things I wrote specifically to make my brother Zach laugh... or possibly so other people would laugh at him. A little of both, maybe? It's a brother thing.
I'm excited that other people find them funny too. In fact, so far 9 of those 31 plays have been (or soon will be!) produced or published. Will I be participating in 31 Plays in 31 Days again this August? Uh, yes. Yes I will.
And this time all 31 of them will be about Zach.
I'm pleased to announce that GOING VIRAL will also be appearing this July in The ArtsCenter's Ten by Ten in the Triangle!
In addition, Saturday evening, July 19th, is their Playwrights' Gala event, which I will be attending as one of the featured playwrights. So if you find yourself in or near Carrboro, North Carolina, please say hello! (You will undoubtedly find me near the food.)
Three different venues! Pretty cool. Wish I could be there to see it.
More places will be doing more of my plays!
I mentioned before that my one-minute television apocalypse drama/not drama REGULARLY SCHEDULED will appear during this Saturday's Boston Theater Marathon Warm-Up Laps. HOWEVER! It, and my one-minute advertising apocalypse drama/not drama MARKETING PARTNERS, will also appear in Playsmiths' Flash Fest in New York City this June.
My ten-minute social media apocalypse drama/not drama GOING VIRAL, which will appear on two stages simultaneously this weekend (this Friday though Sunday at Tiger Lily Theatre's Night of Shorts in Knoxville, Tennessee, and this Sunday's Boston Theater Marathon), makes its international debut in London, June 4th–6th, courtesy of Encompass Productions' Bare Essentials event.
And lastly, my ten-minute family planning apocalypse drama/not drama THE FORMATIVE YEARS, which currently appears in Houston, Texas, as part of Pandora Theatre's Vox Feminina festival, makes its New England debut in the 9th annual Artists' Exchange One Act Play Festival this July and August in Cranston, Rhode Island.
Okay, enough about me! Here's a lot of funny cat pictures.
I'm pleased to announce that the Boston Actors Theater will be producing my ten-minute play GOING VIRAL at this year's Boston Theater Marathon. Danielle Leeber is directing, and I think it's in good hands.
Steel yourself for ten straight minutes of hilarity, folks. Probably more than ten—the Marathon is many hours long and it features plays probably much funnier than mine.
But bank on ten at least.
Just wanted to say "break a leg!" to the cast and crew of my short play THE FORMATIVE YEARS, which makes its world premiere tonight at Pandora Theatre's Vox Feminina Festival. Wish I could be there!
Tiger Lily Theatre, who will be including GOING VIRAL in their Night of Shorts this May, are graciously featuring a "Meet the Playwright" questionnaire they did with me on their blog today.
Check it out! (And my giant black and white face! Check that out too!)
As a follow up to yesterday's post about GOING VIRAL having its Boston premiere at the Boston Theater Marathon, I just learned that REGULARLY SCHEDULED—a one-minute play I wrote as part of last year's 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge—will have its world premiere during the BTM's Warm-Up Laps on May 10th.
Suffice it to say that I will definitely be doing this year's 31 Plays in 31 Days. I wrote them because they made me laugh—I never imagined that so many would get staged (or published)!
Guess who's back at this Boston Theater Marathon this May? THIS GUY.
Or... THIS GUY'S PLAY.
I don't know yet who's producing, directing, or acting in it, but I can only hope that I'm half as lucky as I was earlier this year with the Long Island City One Act Festival or last year with Bridge Rep of Boston's Boston Theater Marathon production of THE INTERVIEW.
As last year, I'm planning to sit through the entire thing—all ten hours. Who's with me?
I'm excited to announce that the ten-minute play that took the LIC One Act Festival by storm (did it...? sure!) will be appearing in Tiger Lily Theatre's Night of Shorts this May 9th through 11th in Knoxville, TN, and also in an upcoming episode of Boston Play Cafe, which I'm recording this May, air date TBD.
(I'm really excited about Boston Play Cafe, because I get to work with Adam Lauver again—yes, the very same Adam Lauver who played the Interviewee in Bridge Rep's Boston Theater Marathon production of THE INTERVIEW.)
And! The kind folks of Pandora Theatre called to let me know that they'd like to include another of my 31 Plays in 31 Days efforts, THE FORMATIVE YEARS, in their Vox Feminina festival. This will be its world premiere, and I'm sad to miss it—but if you're going to be in Houston late April/early May, I encourage you to check it out!
Nay, I beseech you.
Just a quick one to let you know that you'll be seeing me in print later this year:
I learned that a monologue I wrote for 31 Plays in 31 Days called DAVE RAMSEY WEPT will be included in vol. 3 of interJACtions: Monologues from the Heart of Human Nature (here's a link to vol. 2); and
My (ahem!) award-winning short play GOING VIRAL will appear in vol. 2 of The LIC One Act Festival (here's a link to last year's).
Exciting times!
Whaaaaaat?! Oh yes. I don't know what else to say except that Max Hunter also won "Best Director"... and neither of us would have been awarded these if the cast (below, starting left and going clockwise: Joanna Carpenter, Mia Jessup, and Rebecca Gray Davis) hadn't been as funny, nuanced, playful, and, well, perfect as they were. I really lucked out on this one.
Photos below are from Joanna's Instagram (thejoannac).
My girlfriend and I went down to New York this past weekend to visit with friends and also catch my short play GOING VIRAL at the Secret Theatre's Long Island City One Act Play Festival.
I just saw "cycle A," which was only one-third of the whole, but from this alone I was really impressed by the festival. Usually with ten or so short plays you'll get a couple good ones, one great one, a few that make you go "huh," and four or five that make you grimace. (Your mileage may vary.) But I enjoyed every play I saw, including, of course, mine, which... can I brag?... was so good, you guys. The actors had great chemistry and they/the director found many subtle and hilarious moments to play with. I was so proud of them that I smiled and then skulked past them in the lobby without introducing myself, for I am sometimes shy in these situations.
Anyway, I guess the audience agreed, because GOING VIRAL is going to the semifinals! Discounted tickets ($7.50!) are here if you find yourself in New York this Friday, January 31st, without plans: https://www.goldstar.com/events/queens-ny/long-island-city-one-act-festival
In related news, a one-minute play I wrote, MARKETING PARTNERS, is going to appear at Spokane Stage Left's Fast & Furious Festival this Friday and Saturday, January 31st and February 1st.
The cast will feature Joni Elizabeth, Leslie Ann Spencer, Steve Kane, and Jason Young, and if they can pull off this play in one minute or less I will be very, very impressed.
This Friday evening will mark the first time that two plays of mine are being performed on the same night. That deserves a drink, right?