Art About Art!
This was another truly spectacular weekend full of performances and new work development! I am simultaneously filled up and completely exhausted! I’m so grateful for all of the new collaborators I’ve met during this uncharacteristically busy month - but I am also looking forward to a slower April. I’m ready relax and focus on enrichment and ideation!
Foremost, I got to enjoy the opening of a virtual production of my play An Invocation to His Muse, produced by the Rainy Day Artistic Collective. The play is about the life of Jo Nivison Hopper and is set in Edward Hopper’s iconic painting Automat. This piece was proof that digital theatre has come a LONG way! I was so blown away by this gorgeous production, which was directed by the very talented Adriana Guiman. The play also featured Brigid Pfeifer as the Young Woman, and Katherine Black as Jo.
I was able to catch the entire Halfway Historical festival the weekend, and it was so well done! I’m over the moon to be working with Rainy Day again next month on their Lightning Round festival! I know I said I’d never do a “play in a day” challenge, but I love this company, and I really want to challenge myself! Let’s see how it goes!
Next, I was lucky enough to receive developmental support from The Bechdel Group - truly a bucket list opportunity! My play You Enter the Tavern (a full-length theatrical adaptation of my monologue play Adventurers Anonymous) was shortlisted for their season, and thus included in their Shortlist Sunday program. I cannot get over just how much FUN this event was! It was like speed dating for new plays, and I have so many new pieces on my NPX reading list as a result! I was humbled by the response to my selection - there is nothing more affirming for a comedy writer than watching the chat blow up with reactions during a scene! The actors were fantastic - they even made me laugh, and I knew what was coming!
This play is still in the revision stages (though, yes, I have completed a new draft since submitting it in the first place!) and I look forward to next steps with a Bechdel Group dramaturg in the spring!
Finally, the Marshall Area Stage Company included my short piece After Aulis in their Festival of Shorts this weekend! I love this little piece, but it has fallen through the cracks a bit since its first few outings! I’m so happy it found an audience. I’m still trying to get my hands on some pictures and, if I do, I will edit the post to include them!
I am looking ahead to one final weekend full of new work! Narcissa, Narcissa opens at MTSU on Thursday, and Fish Tank will be performed live this Saturday!
