News and Updates

A short tele-play that I wrote called CAFE UNDEAD will be shot tomorrow at the Pittsburgh Public TV affiliate WQED . This piece follows two survivors who find themselves trapped in a dead end situation. Things go from bad to worse when company arrives. UPDATE: Here are some great photos on Flickr from the shoot.

My 10-minute play, JOY OF COOKING, had a staged reading this week as part of the Actors Theatre of Santa Cruz "Best of the Rest" short play competition. JOY OF COOKING is the story of a woman who must learn to cook in one night, or risk losing her marriage and maybe her sanity.

holotype: (n) the original specimen which is used to describe a new species I was visiting my dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum last week, and I ran across this great word. The museum has the original skeletons that defined the species Diplodocus carnageii , as well as the infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex . Their particular T-Rex was discovered in 1902 by Barnum Brown in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, and it toured the country, ending up at the Carnegie in the 1950's. Fossil hunting was a messy, wild-west business back in the day, full of shady dealers, each spinning out their own argument for why this skeleton was better than another. By chance (and perhaps more human intervention than we care to admit), a new species was created on those dry Montana plans. We forget that man names the animals. That "species" is just one more concept slapped on to the world in order to make sense of it. We love to label and taxonomize; and sometimes we come up with descriptions like ...

“ We always write the play we need to write, right now. There is always a reason for this play, and it's always because of something we are dealing with in our lives. Once you figure out what the play is dealing with, then make everything about that one thing. &#148 - Milan Stitt (1941 - 2009)

If you’re in the D.C. area in early March, you should come check out my short play MORAL SUPPORT at the historic Lincoln Theatre . They are presenting 5 works in their first annual “Emerging Voices Playwriting Competition,” and MORAL SUPPORT was selected to receive a staged reading by a professional cast. The event takes place on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:00 PM, and you can reserve tickets by email: rsvp@thelincolntheatre.org .

So while I was in New York this weekend, I got to check out some new shows, and see some old friends. I was thrilled to catch up with super-star-rising playwright Sarah Hammond (an old Trustus Theatre alum) and enjoy some lox-on-bagel at Eisenstein's on 6th. We jawed about the joys and sorrows of the craft, and encouraged each other that at least one person on earth would be interested in hearing that crazy idea... Also while I was there, I was picked up by a Culturista web site for my boisterous behavior. Plus I saw Jane Fonda.

I'm looking forward to a reading of a new play I'm working on coming up in the next few weeks. The play is tentatively called DEVIL'S KEY, and it will be read at Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 8:00 PM, somewhere in Purnell Hall. This piece has deviated sharply from its original trajectory, so I'm excited to hear how it sounds. The play takes place in 1951, in the sweaty back room of a U.S. Army safe house on one of the Florida keys. It only has two actors, a younger American investigator, and an older Doctor, who must both solve the mysteries of their pasts, in order to leave the room alive.