News and Updates

I am thrilled to announce an upcoming production of my award-winning play Paradise Key to be performed in Austin, TX at the Hyde Park Theatre . The production will run from March 31 through April 16, 2011 and is being produced by Austin's own a chick and a dude productions . I have had a great time working with (actor / producer) Shanon Weaver and (director) Melissa Livingston and I'm stoked about the production.

Two pieces of hot news: This past week I had a section of my new, untitled, unfinished Treasure Hunting play read during the Naked Angels Tuesdays @ 9 event. I've hyped about them before, and I am always impressed with the talent and energy in that room. And this coming week I will be reading a section of another play as part of The BE Company's BEginning's series, a periodic collection of playwrights and song-writers who share work in their own voice. It's at a former massage parlour in the Lower East Side, so it promises to be a fun night. WHAT: BEginnings @ Happy Ending WHEN: Thursday, January 27th 8-10 PM, (doors open at 7:00) WHERE: Happy Endings ( 302 Broome St., NY, NY 10002 )

We had the chance to see a preview of Rajiv Jospeh's Gruesome Playground Injuries last night, now playing at Second Stage , under the able direction of Scott Ellis, with Assistant Director, CMU-alum Kate Pines . (Also starring CMU-alum Pablo Schreiber.) The smooth, sterile nurse's office (designed by Neil Patel) was the stoic backdrop for the chance meetings of two desperate, self-destructive people over the course of many years. And the story gently reminds us that some scars heal slowly, if at all, but that doesn't stop us from wanting to jump off the swings.

How does one appreciate the experience of watching Nature Theatre of Oklahoma's open rehearsal of their new work "Life and Times, Episode 1" beyond the fact that it was a three-hour verbatim transcript of a series of phone calls with one of their ebullient members set to a toe-tapping show tunes score, packaged in their charming, trademark, documentary-meets-performance-studies style? (It was packed, I might add. In the Bronx.) I think the haiku form is required. Singing "Uhm's" and "Well's" Under gymnasium lights: Hipster opera.

The best part of living in New York is finding your own favorite spots. You don't live in anybody else's city, and there are as many ways to navigate it as there are ginko leaves on Central Park West. One of the secret little gems for playwrights is the weekly happening known as Tuesdays @ 9 hosted by the heavenly Naked Angels. Each week raw pages are cooked over an open flame by passionate actors in cold reads. What you get is the collective energy of a great room of over 100 people, (which is a larger audience than half the shows I've seen) who are all expecting something to be good. I had the chance to hear part of my Zombie play Homo apocalyptus read last week, and when the vibrancy of smart actors meets the written page, a little bit of magic seems to happen. You know you're in the right place, and suddenly the big cold city starts to feel more like home.

So we saw the hip hot Edgewise by Eliza Clark at WalkerSpace last night in a co-production by The Play Company and Page 73 . Set in a dystopic New Jersey, we follow three teenagers who work the early shift at a fast food restaurant. What follows is a clear picture of the psychological costs of war. After the dust settles, and the burger-and-pot jokes have melted into the air, we watch as the last rags of innocence stripped are from our shivering bones. Page 73, as always, is up to the challenge. Working with their 2010 Playwriting Fellow, they've put together a whip-smart cast, and in this timely collaboration with the unflinchingly accurate director Trip Cullman, the production sings... and screams and howls. What gets under your skin about this play is how swiftly and artfully the audience is brought in to the world. Did I miss something? Of course the enemy is the one we've suspected all along, and of course Dougal's is still open. What else does one do, but carry on...

So my mother is visiting us this weekend, and this will be her very first time in New York City, ever. Hooray. We were talking about what she’d like to do, and she said, “Oh you know, see the sites, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, etc.” and of course we said would you like to see a show? And she goes, “Hmm, not really.” “Hmm. Not really.” The universal question of artists is "What will my mother think?" A little demographics: my mother is in her late 60’s, born in Canada, trained as a nurse and became a missionary in Southeast Asia, fervently religious, never owned a new car, raised 3 boys while writing books (about missionaries) and sweating it out in the American South for the past 35 years. Why doesn’t she want to see a show? Of course she’s seen my shows, but that’s not the same thing. For her there is too much to overcome.