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.