Greg and Matthew are also playwrights and their work can be found on Indie Theater Now.  Matthew debuted his solo play in FringeNYC last year and he tells us a bit about it.  Greg is working on a new play and talks a bit about this.

For an interesting subway ride, listen to our latest podcast and get your tickets to what should be a great production.

SCRIPTWRITING LAB (BERLIN)
With Donna Sharpe and CJ Hopkins (August 12-15, 2013)
Course Fee: 350 euros
Venue: The Alte Kantine, Wedding (Central Berlin)
Contact: The Reader Berlin
www.thereaderberlin.com
hello@thereaderberlin.com

Got a great idea for a stageplay or screenplay? Want to develop it properly before writing your first draft? Written that first draft, but got a bit lost along the way? Preparing to send your script out, but would like to put it to the test and get feedback from professional scriptwriters before you do?

The Reader Berlin’s Scriptwriting Lab with Donna Sharpe and C.J. Hopkins is an intensive 5-day script development course designed for both beginning and more experienced screenwriters and playwrights. Through an inspiring mix of lectures, workshops and individual mentoring sessions, the Lab will provide you with the practical tools and knowledge you need to take the next step in your writing process. And to relax? An optional evening programme, including a final celebratory dinner, will be on the cards. Not to mention Berlin’s nightlife, which is in full swing during the summer months.

In January of this year the company brought this play back for a four week run that garnered much praise (read Mary Notari’s review on nytheatre.com). It has just been nominated for three Drama Desk awards. Kudos to the company and all associated with the production.

Playing With Canons: Explosive New Works from Great Literature by America’s Indie Playwrights contains 18 plays from a wide spectrum of indie theater and covers an even wider spectrum of authors from Shakespeare to Chekhov, from the Bible to Ubu and much more. And it’s available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.  What a great gift for the graduate.

Nightmares is published on Indie Theater Now as are other works by Adam and by Buran Theatre. In his author’s note Adam states:

I attempt to remain in the dark as to the motive of the piece until an audience arrives. And I insist on this frustrating mode of working, of never knowing, and it is particularly frustrating for actors: it’s why rehearsing for longer than a week can be a waste of time, because I’ll never have my mind made up completely.

The hope is that with each community Buran Theatre travels to perform it with, that the piece will change and shape to fit the concerns of the individuals we collaborate with. In this way we ensure that the work is never finished and the script remains a constant work in process and a reflection of our limitations.

This is the crux of the podcast.

Since 1993, HERE Arts Center has been one of New York’s most prolific producing organizations, and today, it stands at the forefront of the city’s presenters of daring new hybrid art. HERE supports multidisciplinary work that does not fit into a conventional programming agenda. Our aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative, and the experimental. HERE supports the work of artists at all stages in their careers through fully-produced works, commissions and subsidized performance and rehearsal space. In addition, HERE’s staff provides marketing, technical and administrative support. All work at HERE is curated based on the strength and uniqueness of the artist’s vision.

One of our most vital services, the SubletSeries@HERE Program, supports 250 guest independent artists and groups—such as New Georges, Vampire Cowboys, and ViBe Theater Experience (an educational arts group for underserved urban teen girls)—and their audiences each season.

This creative curated rental program has allowed many upstart companies and emerging artists to realize their full artistic vision on a small budget. The program provides subsidized performance and rehearsal space, technical assistance, and administrative support, including a fully staffed box office. SubletSeries@HERE artists can also access equipment that is not typically available in venues our size such as video projectors, wireless microphones, color scrollers—all for free or at subsidized rates. We accept applications from artists all over the world for the opportunity to show work.

For more information, and to fill out an online application, please visit the SubletSeries@HERE website at: http://here.org/programs/subletseries/

All of the functionality of the desktop version of Indie Theater Now remains available–it’s all just been redesigned so that it’s easy to use on mobile devices. Most links are shown as buttons so they are easy to tap. And the overall interface has been rebuilt to fit the small screen size. (For those interested in the technical details, we used the jQuery Mobile framework to create this mobile site.)

If you’re viewing Indie Theater Now on an iPhone or iPad, you can now bookmark it on your homepage (go here for instructions if you’re not sure how to do that).

We’ve also added a couple of new features to the site:

• There is now a “HOW TO GET PLAYS” link on the main menu. Here you’ll find a succinct explanation of the various purchase options available on Indie Theater Now.
  
• We’ve added embedded links to the Indie Theater Now (formerly nytheatrecast) Podcast series on play and playwright pages throughout the Indie Theater Now website.

Please let us know what you think about the mobile version of Indie Theater Now! Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Trav S.D.

It’s a history of physical (slapstick) comedy, from the earliest recorded times until the present day; the focus is absolutely on silent film, however, with the antecedents and descendants serving as fascinating prologue and coda to the main event.

That main event is a genuine delight. Mr S.D. is a wonderfully reliable guide to an artform that is shadowy and vague for many of us. I think the number of silent films I’ve seen from start to finish can be counted on the fingers of my two hands, but Mr S.D. is a true aficionado, and shares his deep and broad knowledge of silent movie comedy with brio and humor and passion.

Now, as you probably know, Trav and I are longtime associates and I know his voice well. It rings clearly and resonantly throughout Chain of Fools, which is one of the best things about the work: though his experience with the material certainly rivals that of scholars, this book never feels scholarly or pedantic or dry. He has his enthusiasms and his (occasional) bete noirs, and he’s not the least bit shy to tell us who and what they are and, more to the point, why. Meanwhile, his descriptions of the films he discusses–which must number well into the hundreds; I didn’t count–are vivid and engaging. Scenes that we’ve all seen, like the famous gag where the house blows down right on top of Buster Keaton (but he is standing where the open window lands, so he’s unscathed), are recalled with grace. And aspects of so many movies that I, at least, had never heard of, are depicted so colorfully and intriguingly that I found myself wanting to run out and find them for myself, over and over again.

Chain of Fools is not just a travelogue (pun totally intended) through the annals of silent comedy, however. It’s also a well-informed analysis of the art; and its concluding chapter, which looks at contemporary artists who are working in the form right now, contains lots of great information and advice that should be helpful to practitioners and aspiring slapstick filmmakers.

It’s a quick and fun read, with lots of funny cracks and some genuinely surprising revelations. (I would not have guessed who Mr S.D. reveals to be his favorite comedian, for example; certainly won’t spill the beans here.)

I highly recommend Chain of Fools to all of Trav S.D.’s fans and all who love or want to learn why they should love the (maybe not so) lost art of slapstick film comedy.

“So I Killed A Few People,” one of the Annoyance Theatre’s most popular and provocative shows, returns to its Uptown stage at 8pm on Thursday April 25th, and will play Thursdays at 8 pm, until June 6th.

Originally written by Gary Rudoren and David Summers, the show tackles the issue of our country’s appetite for violence and our skewed fascination with grotesque criminals. It opened in Chicago, March, 1997 and went on to triumphant reviews in San Francisco, New York, and Edinburgh. The play was published in the anthology “Plays & Playwrights for the New Millennium.”

“So I Killed A Few People” introduces its audience to sadistic Archie Nunn (played by Mark Sutton), who petitioned the Supreme Court to grant his last-wish for a jailhouse solo performance. Nunn is an unapologetic serial killer and charming sociopath. He uses the orchestrated event to satisfy the curiosity of those who have followed his heinous exploits in the media. With creepy glee he ridicules the blood-thirsty crowd, the penal system, the media, and particularly, the Disney corporation, which he judges responsible for much of his childhood problems, including the monstrous acts that landed him on Death Row.

Pat McKenna will direct the remounted show. Writer Gary Rudoren says, “So I Killed A Few People” remains relevant today ”because society is still focusing on so many negative characters in the public spotlight and turning them into celebrities. In this black comedy, Archie Nunn is an extreme example of this with a sensationalistic story that you could imagine reading about in your daily newspaper today.”

Tickets are $12, $8 for students. For more information, view the Annoyance website, www.theannoyance.com or call the box office: 773.561.HONK (4665). The Annoyance is located at 4830 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL. 60640.

“So I Killed a Few People” was published in NYTE’s first anthology Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium and has been out of print for several years.  We brought it back as part of Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium – the e-book and it is available on kindle and on nook.  It is also available as a single play on Indie Theater Now where it is one of our best selling plays.  Check it out.

NewYork’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theater announces the Los Angeles premiere of the critically-acclaimed play Slipping, written and directed by Daniel Talbott, which will begin previews Thursday, April 4, 2013 at Elephant Stages’ Lillian Theatre. The five-week limited engagement opens on Sunday, April 7, 2013 at 7:00pm and runs through Sunday, May 5, 2013. Considered one of off-Broadway’s most respected companies, the OBIE Award-winning Rattlestick is proud to be presenting its first Los Angeles production. A coming-of-age story, Slipping features Seth Numrich (Broadway’s War Horse, Golden Boy), in the lead role of Eli, a gay high school senior. Elephant Stages’ Lillian Theatre is located at 1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038. For venue information, please call 323-962-0046. For additional information, please visit www.Rattlestick.org/rattlestick-LA.

Slipping is available to read on Indie Theater Now as are several other plays written by Daniel Talbott.

Dream Acts, published on Indie Theater Now is one of the featured readings: Fri, Apr 12 @ 4-6pm -
Little Theater- “Dream Acts” – A Staged Reading & Panel Discussion. Created by The DREAM Act Union. Written by Chiori Miyagawa, Mia Chung, Jessica Litwak, Saviana Stanescu, and Andrea Thome.

Also published on Indie Theater Now are several plays of J. Stephen Brantley.  A New work will be presented on Thu, Apr 25 @ 2:30pm – Little Theater – “PIRIRA” by J. Stephen Brantley: Theater 167 — Directed by Ari Laura Kreith – A Staged Reading.

For detailed information go to the Rough Draft page on the LPAC website:
http://laguardia.edu/LPAC/Rough-Draft-Fest/

Festival location is LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Long Island City, NY, 31-10 Thomson Ave.