It’s easy to get swamped during the Arena Stage Convenings.There is a lot going on and a lot of theoretical conversation. The hardest workin’ folks in show business are trying to fix some part of show business and let me tell you: it’s invigorating. I’ve been on the ground at...
new plays
In Portland, or so they say, you can put a bird on it, and call it art. The Fertile Ground new works festival isn’t exactly as the creators of Portlandia posit — I saw no clowns or artistic birds last weekend — but the 11-day explosion of playwriting, acting, dancing and...
This week marks the third year of the city-wide new works festival I founded in Portland: The Fertile Ground Festival. It’s happening as I type this: 70 world premiere works of theater, dance, comedy and multimedia all over the Portland area for the next 10 days. And I will not...
Passed around Twitter feeds, posted on Facebook walls: last week’s Onion joke article. Funny, but with a twinge of ouch—not because I have ever wanted to tell the story of my life onstage, but because at different times I have written, directed, and produced non-confessional one-actor plays. Doing so, if anyone is...
Tomorrow night, two different things are going to be done to one of my plays that have never been done before, and I’m really excited about both of them. Thing one is this: my play is going to be bootlegged. No, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be secretly recorded...
I attended an inspiring and provoking event last night, the New York Theatre Experiment’s second “Generations” event, where Michael Mayer, Denis O’Hare, and Annie Baker talked about the future of theater. A lot of juicy topics came up, many of which I think would be fodder for their own panel...
“We regret to inform you that of the 19 nominated plays, none was deemed sufficiently realized by the selection panel to receive the Prize. As a result, the Wasserstein Prize will not be presented in 2010. While the panel thought that many of the scripts showed promise, they felt that...