March is SO over. Well, very soon it will be. And this past month I have been busy with submissions. Busy, busy, busy. I have submitted 64 plays this month. Yep. SIXTY FOUR. That is MORE than two a day. I had to make up for my dismal February performance, I guess.

Anyway, adding this month to January and February brings my total to 119 for the year so far. If I keep this up, I may just break my own record for plays submitted in a calendar year, which was 366 submissions back in 2014. Can I do it?

Guess you’ll have to hang out to find out….

Next month OF SERPENTS & SEA SPRAY opens with This is Water Theatre! It’ll run for three weekends starting April 19th, and I GET TO GO SEE IT! That’s right! Watch yourself Texas, I’m coming for you in April.

As we get closer there’ll be more information, pictures, and general gushing. But for now, plan your trip! We can meet up for opening and eat Texas food before and/or after the show (my show!), it’ll be great.

If you’re a playwright looking to get your plays up on their feet and work with some killer Bay Area talent, your time has come! There are three great opportunities on the horizon (and one isn’t an exclusive Bay Area opportunity!), and each come with their own community of artists for you to mingle and create with!

PlayGround – deadline June 30, 2017

PlayGround, the Bay Area’s leading playwright incubator, has opened up submissions for their 2017/18 writers pool! If selected you’ll get the joy of writing one brand new ten-minute play in only four days time! Once a month from October-March, you’ll get a prompt on Friday, with the due date being the following Tuesday. The next Monday the top six plays are performed as script-in-hand staged readings on the Berkeley Rep stage.

I was in the writers pool for three years, it’s a fantastic opportunity to connect with other writers, and meet local directors and actors. DO IT!

What you need/the rules:

• Must currently live in the Bay Area.
• A ten-minute play.

That’s it! So get to writing, or get to polishing, and send that play off to the folks at PlayGround. For all the submission details, please visit: http://playground-sf.org/submit/.

PianoFight’s Shortlived – deadline April 10, 2017

PianoFight’s submission period for the 2017 ShortLived competition has just been announced, and the deadline is coming up quick. I’ve had two plays produced for ShortLived, and it’s a hoot all around.

You can submit as a group, with actors and directors attached, or as an individual and the folks at PianoFight will help you with the rest. The prize for winning Shortlived is reason enough to throw your hat in the ring- ahem, FIVE grand! – but it’s also a fun and low stress way to get your work up on its feet AND for the people at PianoFight to get to know what you do. Which you want because they have their beautiful new theater space with a bar and three separate stages.

For Shortlived you need to be a Bay Area local. You can find the details and apply here: Shortlived Guidelines.

Same link if you’re interested in acting or directing in the festival, or if you want to submit your sketch group.

San Francisco Olympians Festival IX: Roman Holiday – deadline May 15, 2017 – National Submissions Accepted!

The San Francisco Olympians Festival is accepting proposals for new plays now until mid-May. On their handy-dandy website you’ll find the list of next festival’s subjects and the length for each play. Pick a few that tickle your fancy, and send in what you’d write. It’s very straight forward. If selected, you’ll have a year to write your piece, and then next October you’ll get to see a staged reading of your brand-spanking-new play! The loveliest part of the SF Olympians Festival isn’t their amazing auditions (though they are GREAT), but instead the importance put on the writers community for the festival. You have pot luck meetings, you share your work, struggles, and triumphs, and then you pack in to watch one another’s work at the end of it all, it can’t be beat.

This year SIX slots will be held for NATIONAL submissions, meaning for the first time ever, the festival is NOT limited to local writers. So playwrights near and far, check out the subjects and send off your ideas, you can submit as many proposals as you’d like!

You’ll find allllll the info here: http://www.sfolympians.com/.

Great, you’re informed of exciting new avenues! Now get on your own personal #submissionmission and make stuff happen!

I know so many writers that title things without a worry or a care. Writers that have titles for their work pop out to them while they stroll down the street, day dreaming of how wonderful their life is because titling comes so naturally to them. I am not one of those writers. I’m the obnoxious writer that texts and emails her friends choices and choices and choices of titles until past midnight for days asking them to pick their favorite. Because I have such a hard time, I’ve found a few tricks* that help me, and I try my damnedest to stick to them.

First trick, title before you start writing the thing. For a long time I would just give it the working-title of my main character and put off the task for as long as possible, hoping it would come to me. It has never just come to me. So when I started pages on my play about male body image without a title, I was more than a little perturbed. BUT THEN IT ACTUALLY JUST CAME TO ME! Like it happens to writers in the movies! It’s actually a line from the play, which is normally something I don’t go in for, but this feels right for this play. I’m also having the best time writing it, so I think that helps too.

SO GUYS, my new title for my (first) all male cast full length is: LET’S FIX ANDY.

It is no longer “Man Dude Bro” which has been the bane of my existence since I started using it. I’m also making exciting discoveries on this play’s writing path, and using some new to me theatrical devices. Basically, for now, I’m in love. I realize it’s going to swing back the other way and I’ll feel stupid and terrible at writing soon, but I’m going to ride this wave for as long as I can.

And speaking of waves, I’ve got to get back to it, LET’S FIX ANDY isn’t going to write itself.

*Sorry if you thought there would be more tips for titling things. I misled you, but I only really have the one tip, anyway.

Salt Lake theater company Plan-B, whose mission it is to produce only local Utah playwrights, is producing a script-in-hand series featuring short plays responding to the response of the election. Without and politicians named, the hope is to create a space where people that disagree can talk and actually listen to the other side. I was honored to be asked to write, and have been working furiously on my two short pieces, Red and Blue. Each playwright had to write from both a liberal and conservative perspective.

I’ll be joined by 11 other fabulous Utah playwrights; Austin Archer, Matthew Ivan Bennett, Carleton Bluford, Elaine Jarvik, Julie Jensen, Jennifer A. Kokai, Melissa Leilani Larson, Jenifer Nii, Eric Samuelsen, Morag Shepherd and Debora Threedy. Trust me, I’ve heard all the pieces in workshop, you’ll not want to miss this set of plays.

The show will run June 8-18, 2017, Thursday and Friday nights at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm. You can reserve your free ticket here, donations will be requested at all of the performances, and the money raised will be donated to The Children’s Center.

ALSO, between now and the end of March Plan-B is accepting donations for Love Utah Give Utah. They have a generous matching donor, so all the money you send their way will double instantly, like magic! If you’re in a position to help, they’re hoping to convince 500 people to send $10 their way, and if you can’t help financially, sharing their champaign helps too! All the help helps, and anything you can do is great.

Hope to see you at (in)divisible in June!

Goodbye February, hello March! My submission total for last month was a meager 13. I’m like the pace they always recommended for you to travel at in Oregon Trail so that one of your comrades wouldn’t die from typhoid. But adding 13 to January’s robust 42, I get a total of 55 submissions for the year, which is a pretty respectable number. Hoping to pick it up in March. Think organized and dedicated thoughts for me, and I just might make it through.

I’m thinking… I’m thinking I might have a large and stupid submission goal this year…

Much rejoicing! I’m leaving tomorrow on a jet airplane to Denver, Colorado for Denver Center For The Performing Arts‘ New Play Summit! Last year I caught one of the readings and a world premiere and was more than a little bummed I hadn’t seen more. But this year, this year I’m seeing it alllllllll.

I go out tomorrow in the morning and I’ll catch The Christians by Lucas Hnath in the evening, and then starting Friday I’ll be hitting the ground and running through all the great new work Denver has to offer. This’ll include readings of:

Blind Date by Rogelio Martinez

Last Night and the Night Before by Donnetta Lavinia Grays

The Great Leap by fellow PlayGround alumni and June Anne Baker award winner Lauren Yee

Human Error by Eric Pfeffinger

Hanussen by Robert Schenkkan

And it’s not just readings! I’ll also catch the world premiere productions of two new plays:

The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson

and

Two Degrees by Tira Palmquist

ALL THE THEATER! I can’t wait. And as an added bonus I’ve got a whole hotel room to myself, which is basically the closest thing to heaven one can have on earth (I love my kids but hot damn do I love time to myself). I’m baking my family a pie to hold in my absence, and not looking back.

I’ll see you tomorrow, Denver!

Research time!

I’ve spent February interviewing some of the men in my life, and those conversations have been SO HELPFUL that I’ve decided to throw a wider net. If you identify as male, and are between the ages of 25-40, please help me out and fill out my survey. It’s for art! And it’s so simple, just follow this link:

MAN DUDE BRO Play Questionnaire

The play will not be called MAN DUDE BRO, that’s a working title (at least I hope).

Thanks to everyone who participates! Feel free to forward to all the fellas you know!

My fantastic friend and fellow writer Tracy Held Potter shared this with me last year, and it still wins Valentine’s Day. Hope you’re doing what you love today!

The contract has been signed, tons of paperwork filled out, I even taught a class this morning, and so I finally am comfortable spilling the beans in which I’ve been scared I’d somehow jinx; I’m the newest adjunct professor for Weber State University! One of their professors couldn’t finish the semester, and so I was asked to step in and (pretty much) save the day. The class I’ll be teaching is an Introduction to Theater class, and I’ll be doing a lot of learning on my feet. Today wasn’t too rough, but we mostly did playwriting exercises, something I have some experience in. I plan on teaching them the Liz Lerman Method of Response (thank you Michelle Carter and Brian Thorstenson!), and a lot of other things which involve theater and plays and all that good stuff (give me a break I was hired five days ago). Learning! So much learning! Hopefully not just me learning!

And this isn’t changing any of my previously stated goals, still writing 6 plays this year. I’ll just be a whole lot more busy than I had originally planned.

I’m also teaching a night class twice a month to Egyptian Theatre Junior Conservatory, so party party!

I’m pretty sure that I’ve got this, but I’ll report back by the end of April. Hey, good thing I got those graduate degrees! And if anyone out there has teaching advice please, please, please send it my way.