Thursday, August 9, 2007

Love & Death...Comes to NYC...Again!


I’m proud to say that my play LOVE & DEATH IN THE TIME OF CRAYOLA will be presented in the Chester Horn Play Festival at the Medicine Show Theater in New York City on September 27th through the 30th. The theater company which produces the festival, called TheatreRats, are one of the many small OOB (off-off-Broadway) companies that abound in the big apple.

So if you happen to be in town, please go check it out and tell me how good it was (and if it sucked, then just keep your mouth shut, okay?).

This is, I think, the fourth NYC production of this play, which is very cool.

The funny thing is that I used to work for Ensemble Studio Theatre which is in this building way over on the west side of 53rd street. In that same six floor building is The Medicine Show Theater. Now, while I know the location may prevent people from trekking all the way out there to see the show, it makes me feel good to know the space where it will be produced. This is as opposed to when some other theater company did that same play in Providence, RI and didn’t even tell me they were doing it.

And that’s where we have the sticky thing about being a playwright. After a play has been developed and performed several times in several places, it’s time for it to live on and keep getting performed. So off the play goes like a teenager off to college. You may hear about the play happening across the country, or you may hear nothing at all (as is usually the case with play productions and teenagers). Hopefully it went well; the actors knew their lines, the audience laughed, etc. That’s the one drawback and benefit of being a playwright…the work can go on without you and usually does. But it makes you appreciate a local production where you can be fully involved in the process and hang out with the actors and director.

That’s why I’m writing for the theater and not novels or poetry—I’m in it for the human interaction. I like to go to the opening night parties.

2 comments:

la dolce said...

where in NV are you from?

I just moved here from Vegassss.

Dennis said...

I went to school at UNLV, but am originally from Reno. Why'd you move up here?