Tuesday, November 24, 2009

This week in playwright-er-ing


Earlier this month, I learned that my play, WILLIAM WEATHERSBY, will be given a workshop/reading in Theatre Exile's new X-hibition Series. Brenna Geffers is scheduled to direct. The public reading will be May 3rd, 2010.

I actually completed the current daft of this one long before WHISKY NEAT. So it's a little strange to work on the rewrite. It's like being introduced to myself from five years ago. And, let me tell ya, what a confused little shit this kid is.

At the time, I worried that this play would have a short shelf life. Without being fully able to articulate it, I think I was attempting to tap into a notion that I was sensing in those around me -- a sort of subconscious grieving for the end of the American middle class. I felt that my generation was perhaps the final representatives of this particular tribe, and I wanted to sing a beautiful elegy for us all. Well, unfortunately, for obvious reasons, the play feels even more topical now than when it was written. One thing I'm going to try this time out: not being the cynical bastard I used to be. I'll be looking for possibilities of redemption, both in me and in the play. You have to look in both places to find it in either one.

[LEFT: the Theatre Exile staff. I hear they have impeccable taste in new plays.]
Just for kicks, my three favorite Theatre Exile productions:
1. VALPARAISO (2004)
2. RHINOCEROS (2000)
3. KILLER JOE (2006)

Theatre Exile
1340 S. 13th St.
Philadelphia, PA
www.theatreexile.org

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