Missives from a snow-buried state

Winter came.

I've fallen off the blog-shaped wagon lately, and it's not because I have nothing to report—there's a lot of stuff going on, and I've been too busy with it all to write about it.

(That may have been what the kids these days call a "humblebrag." SO BE IT.)

Firstly, the "Books" section of my website lists the nonfiction titles I wrote for Hallmark Gift Books several years ago. Well, they've asked me to revise all five of them and to write a sixth, so I have found myself very, very busy with that. This project has an aggressive deadline, so I have not been allowing myself much in the way of sleep or haircuts. You will find me tired and my hair long. If you find me at all.

Secondly, I placed a couple short pieces from a longer play I had all but abandoned into two different forthcoming titles from Applause Theatre & Cinema Books: Duo! The Best Scenes for Kids Ages 7–15 and One on One: Contemporary Monologues for Kids Ages 7–15. So that's pretty exciting! New life for an old play.

Thirdly, my ten-minute social media comedy Going Viral was featured in the "Top 80" lineup at Short+Sweet Sydney last month. Here is a picture that I stole from the festival's Facebook page:

Big congrats to (left–right) Katherine Babatzanis, Max Mulvenney, and Tom Rose, as well as to director Christine Wykes. Wish I could have seen it! Also wish I could have seen Australia. It's probably warm there right now. And, you know, always.

Fourthly, and in other "wish I could have seen it" news, the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA featured my ten-minute parental anxiety comedy The Formative Years in its 13th annual New Works Festival. Unfortunately, on account of obscene amounts of snow, they had to postpone the show until the following day, and so I couldn't see it. Snow. SNOW! I have been told, however, by not-at-all-biased parties who were able to attend that it went very well. "Funny," some even ventured to call it.

Fiftly, and lastly, the world premiere of my ten-minute existential comedy (oh yes) Character Development, Conflict, Scene Study, and Denouement happens tomorrow and Saturday, February 6th and 7th, at the Cohasset Dramatic Club in Cohasset, MA. This is a play cobbled together from various short things I wrote during my first 31 Plays in 31 Days attempt, and I'm very curious to see how it coheres as a whole.

That's it! That's everything. Stay warm, drink hot things, don't let the snow madness claim you utterly, etc.

The monthly braggadocio roundup: November 2014

These titles are misleading, as November has only just started, and so how could I possibly be giving a roundup of it...? But now I'm stuck calling things this way. I am trapped in my own lie. 

First up, Theatre KAPOW's 24-Hour Play Festival was awesome. I had so much fun. It was that rare writerly experience of knowing what you have to do, having a bunch of people actively cheering you on as you do it, and then feeling very proud of the result. 

I should have taken more pictures, but I think everyone was too busy doing the thing to document the thing. I did take one: that harrowing moment when the director and actors are reading the play for the first time. As you, the playwright, sit there and watch them read it.

They're a few pages in and no one's laughing oh god oh god. (Left to right: Jamileh Jemison, Jackie Marcoux, and Ben Bagley. Kelly Litt is sitting to Ben's left. He is not in this picture.)

Before this (actually only five hours before this), I had finished the play and written a blog post for Theatre KAPOW's website documenting (sort of) the writing process of the thing. You can read it here! An excerpt:

I started writing around 9:30pm and finished the first draft around 1:18 am. It clocked in at eleven pages. As I wrote to a friend on Facebook (because there was much Facebooking throughout this process): The only muse I've ever known is a gun pointed at my head. (Or a ticking clock. Whichever.)

True story. For the next couple hours I picked at the words, trying to artfully arrange them in a way that would make sense to people who are not me. I submitted the play at 3:13am, and was, evidently, the first of the five playwrights to turn in their play. Victory! (I think the second was like ten minutes later, but whatever, man. Primacy is mine.)

Then I slept for four hours, woke up very confused and desirous of strong coffee, and remained awake the rest of the day, working with the director, Jamileh Jemison, and the actors to make the funny funnier and the poignant poignanter. I had intended to slink off and nap at some point during the day, but I was having way too much fun sitting in on the rehearsal process and laughing at all of their jokes. 

Tech rehearsal! Left to right: Kelly Litt, Jackie Marcoux, and Ben Bagley. 

This Dating Thing was the last play of the night, and I was so proud of it and everyone involved. The actors (Ben Bagley, Jackie Marcoux, and Kelly Litt) absolutely nailed it. And then it was all over. I helped with cleanup and then a bunch of us went out for dinner and drinks. And then I drove half an hour to my girlfriend's parents' house and slept the sleep of the wide awake yet sleep deprived.

Wax Idiotical Films put together a time-lapse video of the entire 24 hours. Behold!

It seems that I scratch my neck a lot.

The one thing it omits is the writing process, for which I have thoughtfully put together my own time-lapse video:

So! That was that. I'd happily do it again every weekend. Every. Single. Weekend.

In other news, I learned right before heading up to Derry that my ten-minute play The Formative Years will appear as part of the Firehouse Center for the Arts New Works Festival in Newburyport, MA, this January. And! Some days after that, I also learned that Going Viral will appear as part of Short+Sweet Sydney 2015 in January/February, which will be Going Viral's third Australian production. The other two made it to the Finals in each of their festivals, so here's hoping...!

Aaaaaaand lastly, if you're not sick of reading about me yet, I've just put the finishing touches on a themed evening of short comedy that includes many of my previously produced plays as well as some that are new to the stage. The title is tentative so I won't share it with you yet, but I've sent it out to interested parties both near and far, and we shall see what becomes of it!

Now for your random funny: Here is irrevocable proof that cats are deceitful and very likely planning the demise of all life on Earth. 

The monthly braggadocio roundup: September/October 2014

As I steel myself for the late-night lunacy of writing an original 10–15-minute piece for Theatre KAPOW's 24-Hour Play Festival (tonight! here's a writeup from the The Hippo! and another from NewHampshire.com!), I wanted to recap some of the stuff I've been up to the past couple months:

Summer ended, exactly as I predicted. You people never listen to me.

I completed this year's 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge at the very last minute, as is my custom. I think I hammered out seven short plays that Sunday. Maybe one or two of them turned out okay? That's not the point. THE POINT IS I WROTE THEM.

The Short+Sweet Queensland production of GOING VIRAL made it to the Finals and netted Shanay De Marco the "Best Actor in a Play" award. Congrats, Shanay! We have never met but I'm still excited for you.

Likewise, the Short+Sweet Hobart production of GOING VIRAL also made it to the Finals! The actors (grandparents Helen and Mike Edwards and their granddaughter Zoe Melville) even scored a very nice writeup in the Tasmanian Times:

The festival continues on Saturday with Program 2 which also has new Tasmanian plays and one memorable moment for a young, short and sweet Tasmanian actress.  Fourteen year old Zoe Melville has been going to one act play festivals with her Thespian Grand Parents, Mike and Helen Edwards since she could walk. Readers have no doubt seen Mike and/or Helen treading the boards in plays as recently as “The Phantom” at the Theatre Royal and “Waiting in the Wings” in 2013 at the Playhouse and as far back as 1950’s Uni Revues.

Coming from a family involved in the performing arts in Tasmania for almost 60 years theatre was bound to be in Zoe’s blood.  This weekend will be an experience she’ll never forget, sharing her first mainstream on stage appearance with her grandparents, two of Hobart theatres stalwarts.

Festival Director Ros Peck says “This is absolutely one of the highlights of this festival for me, Zoe has been an audience member for so long and to see her finally on stage and with her Grandparents gives me goosebumps, I’m so happy for her.”

They'll be taking the show on the road to the Deloraine One Act Festival tonight and tomorrow. Best of luck, guys! Break a leg? I always found that expression kind of violent. Please don't actually break your legs or any other appendage.

Looking ahead, GOING VIRAL has been shortlisted for Short+Sweet's Sydney show, which is, evidently, the largest 10-minute play festival in the world. Well! I don't know yet if a director has selected my play, but being shortlisted for this is still pretty cool.

And in news that is not GOING VIRAL, THE FORMATIVE YEARS will be making its international premiere at Playground: Fears in London. This will be my second Playground show, the first being (you guessed it!) GOING VIRAL in Playground: Deception. If you live in the UK you should go and laugh a lot at my play.

Is that enough bragging? I think so. I prepare now to reach into my sleepless brain and pull out (by force, if necessary) THEATRE.

Finally, unrelated to any of the above: Ultrafacts is my new favorite Tumblr. The grammar is not always great but the content is fascinating/shocking/funny/etc. I use it to harangue my girlfriend and coworkers with trivia they never wanted to know... but need.

Theatre KAPOW's 24-Hour Play Festival

I'm delighted (and a little frightened) to announce that I will be one of five playwrights creating new works in a very short span of time for Theatre KAPOW's 24-Hour Play Festival this October in Derry, New Hampshire. 

Behold! My mug! And the brave mugs of talented others.

I've always wanted to try something like this. And let's face it: I am no stranger to impossible deadlines. Should be fun and not at all fatal!

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!

Post by Short+Sweet Queensland.

The monthly braggadocio roundup: August 2014 (now with pictures!)

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.

Left to right: ME!, Corey Rieger, Bridget Erin, Elaine Smith, and Jordan Rawlins.

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.

Michael Shallcross and Meg Taylor-Roth. Please note the hand sanitizer on the bedstand. Heh.

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.

Round two!

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!

31 more plays in another 31 days

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?

Live stream of Gi60 Live US Edition!

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!

Everything Theatre reviews Going Viral!

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!

Long-overdue website update

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:

• I've added a list of my upcoming productions beneath the main site's navigation, and
• The "Plays" section now includes subsections for my one-minute, ten-minute, full-length, and plays in print. And they are all current as of today.*

* No promises about tomorrow.

Zach Attack!

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.

Ten by Ten in the Triangle

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.)

GOING VIRAL goes to the West End

Three different venues! Pretty cool. Wish I could be there to see it.

Introducting the monthly braggadocio roundup!

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.

Boston Actors Theater

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.

World premiere of THE FORMATIVE YEARS

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

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!)

And also...

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)!

Boston premiere of GOING VIRAL!

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?