My musical (with composer, Aaron McAllister), lift, was presented, along with seven other musicals, at the National Alliance of Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals in October. This opportunity was more about the exposure than the production, as we presented just 45 minutes of the show with the hopes that a producer or theatre dug what they saw. We got the cream-of-NYC’s-crop of musical theatre actors, a great team of passionate advocates for new musicals, and an audience made up of 400 industry invitees and attendees from around the world. This is a big deal in the musical theatre writers’ world, and we were pretty darn excited to be a part of it.

I’ll be participating in two different sessions of Emory’s collaborative and developmental theatre workshop event, Breaking Ground 2015, this June and July. Click the link for a full schedule of public performances. Though this project is much more about the process than the product.

One, INSIDE VOICE, is helmed by two of my favorite artists, David Crowe and Patricia Henritze, and puts women at the forefront. I’m bringing in a short piece that, set on the frontlines of no-man’s-land, imagines a world where all doctors are female.

The other, 4:48, proves writers are nuts. We have to write a whole play in 48 hours, and we don’t get the specifics of the assignment until the morning of the first day. Read more about it here.

After a chance meeting on LinkedIn of all places, Dr. Erik Abbott, AD of Actors Repertory Theatre of Luxembourg, and I embarked on a production of the first play I ever wrote: GREYHOUNDS (originally produced in NYC in 2006). Erik’s English-speaking company was looking for a play for two women, and mine fit the bill. They performed it in a great little cafe in the city center and, apparently, a good time was had by all. The theatre was a dream to work with—I only wish I could have been there to cheer them on in person.

Here are a couple of reviews (in English):

Luxemburger Wort (June/2015): Greyhounds, by Actors Repertory Theatre, A Journey You Won’t Forget (PDF)

Luxembourg Chronicle (June/2015) (PDF)

MEDIA

REVIEWS

• FLORIDA WEEKLY: Florida Rep World Premiere of ‘Split in Three’ a Wild Success
• THE NEWS-PRESS: Three sisters confront racism in ‘Split in Three’

ARTICLES

• Florida Weekly
• Broadwayworld.com
• The News-Press

Christmastime in Florida. A magical yet very confusing combination. Luckily, I couldn’t focus on the 80-degree weather because I was in a rehearsal room with a truck-load of talent all trying to take SPLIT IN THREE’s script to the next plateau. The passionate, smart, hilarious collaborations that occurred around that table, under the leadership of my bud, Justin Anderson, will get this play in fighting shape for its April world premiere.

We worked for three days, I wedged in a very late night of rewrites, there were designer meetings, and then we did another public reading followed by a talkback.

There was crying and a lot of laughing.

Thanks for snapping these shots, Janine Wochna.

Now on to the next draft!

  So Florida Rep was a sensational host, doing a brilliant job of casting and choosing a director for SPLIT IN THREE (thank you, Jason Parrish). We had about nine hours together and, though I made this play ridiculously layered and impossible to investigate fully in that amount of time, the team was game for the process and gave a mesmerizing performance. Throughout rehearsal, we laughed a lot, talked about the meaning of life in Mississippi, and discovered the magic of the “hard R” when doing a country dialect. I have a bunch of new friends now, which is one of my favorite things about thee-at-ur to begin with.

The southwest Florida patrons were the most hospitable I’ve ever encountered and were responsible for a rousing talkback. Their excitement about the play got ME excited!

And I can’t not mention the fascinating fella playwrights who shared the lab process with me–Bob Clyman, William Missouri Downs, Christopher Parks, and Mo Stephen Hannan have a bonkers list of credits between them and definitely learned me a thing or two about writing and being articulate in talkbacks.

FLORIDA WEEKLY newspaper did a preview article about the PlayLab (and decided to interview me, so my talkin’ is in there a lot, for better or worse). PLUS they did a follow-up sort of review of all the plays.

• PLAY LAB 2014
• DIARY OF A PLAY FESTIVAL

This was the kind of experience after which I could die happy. Though, I’m pleased to say, I’m not dead.

My Mississippi Delta drama, SPLIT IN THREE, will get another developmental reading process, this time with Florida Repertory Theatre in Fort Myers on May 3, as part of their First Annual PlayLab. I’m proud to be included in this line-up of writers (and have already noted that I’m the lone lady in the bunch, though I’m told there is a plenitude of fine roles for women in the fest). I’ll be flown down on May 1 to start rehearsals and also meet the lovely Florida Rep folk in person. They hope to choose one of the festival plays to fill a World Premiere slot in the 2014-2015 season. Now wouldn’t that be cool.

A completely overhauled version of Aaron’s and my musical, lift, will be workshopped as part of Coastal Carolina University‘s 2013-2014 season. The week-long workshop will take place October 16-24 (with a public performance on the 24th) and will be directed by Gary John LaRosa, who helmed our previous reading in New York City in 2009. We can’t wait to dig into the new draft, which features a majority of brand new songs and a smaller cast. It’s become a “chamber musical,” with a strong focus on character-driven narrative and a rather experimental relationship between music and dialogue (in Aaron’s words: It’s more of a Light in the Piazza now, rather than a Spitfire Grill). Visit the lift website.