Just Wrought

Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.

Tag: Mitzi’s Abortion

  • Simultaneous Publication: Legit Experiment or Hat on a Hat?

    Simultaneous Publication: Legit Experiment or Hat on a Hat?

    Sometimes when you risk a lot with a piece of art, it pays to find ways to risk even more. Or at least that’s the counter-intuition behind the newest wrinkle in the Custom Made Play Project. A couple days ago a box arrived at my house containing exactly fifty copies of my soon-to-world-premiere play Ballard House Duet. Given the unique circumstances of its development (which I blog about in some detail here), the idea light-bulbed to offer a published version of the play simultaneously with its world premiere production.  After all, we custom made this play for two local actors, Hana Lass and Rebecca Olson: a Seattle story for Seattle audiences in the purest vein of locally and organically grown new theatre.  What better way to underscore how we are trying to change the way plays are made than to offer tangible printed proof of the pudding for sale.

    So I emailed my friend and colleague Jason Aaron Goldberg, president of Original Works Publishing in Los Angeles.  OWP publishes acting edition scripts and licenses productions of plays by “bold, original, and adventurous playwrights from around the globe.” I currently have three plays in their catalogue:  An American Book of the Dead* – The Game Show†, The Sequence, and The Good Ship Manhattan.  Other Seattle playwrights have plays with OWP as well. For example, Elizabeth Heffron’s Mitzi’s Abortion received some strong productions around the country after OWP’s decision to publish it. 

    I think it is fair to say that Jason was less than enthused by my idea. He told me OWP had looked at simultaneous publishing before, but never pulled the trigger. They prefer for a play to have a production history in advance of publishing it. This only makes sense. Productions work the kinks and flaws out of a play, not to mention garner reviews from which you can pull quotes for the script’s back cover. I, however, pressed my proposal. I agreed to absorb the financial risk of printing the scripts if OWP was willing to risk a bit of its institutional reputation on the experiment. Jason graciously agreed.

    So now you get to vote on whether this experiment succeeds or fails. I have 45 scripts to sell, each individually numbered and personally signed by me. I have priced them nearly a buck cheaper than what OWP sells my scripts for on their website.  If we do another publishing run of Ballard House Duet, they won’t be sold by me, won’t be signed by me, and won’t be part of a limited numbered edition: so why not buy one now while it’s cheap and special?

    Here are the ways you can buy, in descending order from best to next next best:

    • Go buy your tix to the show now (click here), then buy a script at the door.  (While supplies last.)
    • Ping me with a way to send you my snail mail address.  Once I do, send me a check for $10, and I’ll send you back a script.  (I’ll eat  the postage on this option.)
    • Buy a script on Ebay by clicking here, for $10 plus postage.  (This option allows PayPal.)

    Vote now: the simultaneous publication experiment: success or failure?

    Posted at 9:18 AM in Ballard House Duet, Locally Grown Plays, Scripts, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (10)

    Tags: An American Book of the Dead* – The Game Show†, Ballard House Duet, Custom Made Play Project, Elizabeth Heffron, Hana Lass, Jason Aaron Goldberg, Locally grown new plays, Mitzi’s Abortion, Paul Mullin, play publishing, Rebecca Olson, simultaneous publication, The Good Ship Manhattan, The Sequence, Washington Ensemble Theatre

  • Rain City Projects Rocks It World Class with Vol. 3 of Manifesto Series

    Rain City Projects Rocks It World Class with Vol. 3 of Manifesto Series

    So I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but I was recently getting into it with a fellow playwright about the failures of the New York-centric hub-and-spoke model of new play development.  His argument was the tired old saw: “If you want the best product, you have to get it from the where all the best gather to produce it.”  If I recall correctly, he gave as an example: “If you’re were looking for a new sensei for your martial arts dojo, you would to look to Okinawa.”  I really have no idea what that means.  I did, however, offer the counter that if I want the best cheese, beer, wine, meats, fish, fruit and vegetables, I don’t really need to look beyond the Pacific Northwest.  Then I posted a helpful link on his Facebook wall to my essay “Theatre Takes Place: Why Locally Grown Plays Matter.”

    The link disappeared within an hour.  So much for the free exchange of ideas.  I suppose when it comes to thoughts on theatre, the proper direction of flow is one-way from New York City to everywhere else.  

    But honestly, I don’t even need to argue when amazing Seattle institutions like Rain City Projects regularly put world class money where my big mouth is.  Case in point, their upcoming release of Volume 3 of their Manifesto Series, a regularly published anthology of great Northwest Plays.

    Can I even express to you how honored I was to be included with the likes of Yussef El Guindi recent winner of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, or my personal heroine Elizabeth Heffron, or Stranger Genius Award winner Chris Jeffries or the fiercely incomparable Bret Fetzer and Stephen McCandless, all hand-selected by the nationally renowned playwright and playwriting teacher Naomi Iizuka?

    Nope. I don’t believe I can, but— dammit!— I can try.

    This coming Sunday we will be celebrating Volume 3’s release with free readings from several of the collected plays.  I’ll be there.  Yussef and Elizabeth mentioned they might be, too. So why don’t you come on down so we can sign your copy, hot, fresh, and locally sourced, right off the presses!?

    Here are all the crucial details from Rain City Projects:

    Rain City Projects is releasing the third book in its Manifesto series – anthologies of plays by Northwest playwrights. We’re very excited this time to have an anthology of seven plays selected by Naomi Iizuka who started by writing a manifesto of what theater should be and then chose plays she felt exemplified her vision. Please join us for a reading of short excerpts from Ms. Iizuka’s delightful manifesto and from the plays she chose including:

    Language Rooms by Yussef El Guindi

    Clubfoot by Bret Fetzer & Stephen McCandless

    Mitzi’s Abortion by Elizabeth Heffron

    Vera Wilde by Chris Jeffries

    An American Book of the Dead by Paul Mullin

    Live! From the Last Night of My Life by Wayne Rawley

    and Wizzer Pizzer by Amy Wheeler

    Sunday, April 15th at 2:00pm

    The reading is FREE and will be held at Elliott Bay Book Company 1521 10th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122

    Manifesto v. 3 will be available for purchase along with Manifesto v. 2 (edited by Steven Dietz) and Manifesto v. 1 (edited by Erik Ehn).

    Posted at 9:18 AM in Ballard House Duet, Locally Grown Plays, Scripts, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (10)

    Tags: An American Book of the Dead* – The Game Show†, Ballard House Duet, Custom Made Play Project, Elizabeth Heffron, Hana Lass, Jason Aaron Goldberg, Locally grown new plays, Mitzi’s Abortion, Paul Mullin, play publishing, Rebecca Olson, simultaneous publication, The Good Ship Manhattan, The Sequence, Washington Ensemble Theatre

  • Problem Solved?

    Intiman is doing a new locally grown play in their 2010 season.  The Seattle Weekly just featured it in their Spring Arts guide. 

    I have known about this for a while and quite a few folks have asked me what I think.  Happily, however, I have to recuse myself.  Sonya Schneider, the writer, is a former student and a genuinely nice person— an all too rare quality in playwrights.  Besides, it is high time I shut up and listen. 

    But before I do, let me ask you this:  given that ACT still claims to be an active producer of locally grown new work based on its world premiere of Elizabeth Heffron’s Mitzi’s Abortion, even though that happened four years ago; and given that ACT and the Seattle Rep both still hold up their dueling defaults to Steven Dietz as proof of their unassailable commitment to local playwrights, even though Steven moved to Austin half a decade ago; and given that all of Seattle’s Big Houses have ugly records of disavowing local new work if it does not bust blocks at the box office and generally abandoning it even when it does; do we believe this move by Intiman to be a good omen, a bad omen, or no  omen at all?

    The comment box is open below.   I’m all ears.

    Posted at 9:18 AM in Ballard House Duet, Locally Grown Plays, Scripts, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (10)

    Tags: An American Book of the Dead* – The Game Show†, Ballard House Duet, Custom Made Play Project, Elizabeth Heffron, Hana Lass, Jason Aaron Goldberg, Locally grown new plays, Mitzi’s Abortion, Paul Mullin, play publishing, Rebecca Olson, simultaneous publication, The Good Ship Manhattan, The Sequence, Washington Ensemble Theatre