As the year comes to an end, I want to look not only at my submissions (did that yesterday, and p.s. I have 6 more submissions bringing my total up to 187, only 13 more to reach 200!) but also at what I’ve written. With starting my MFA, completing 31 Plays in 31 Days, and writing Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats, commissioned by the San Francisco Olympians Festival, 2013 has been a pretty major writing year for me.
Here are all the plays that I wrote and where they’re at in the process (I’m not developing further all my plays I wrote for 31 Plays in 31 Days, so they aren’t all listed here):
Full-Length Plays:
Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats
My full-length plays that smashes together the legend of Achilles with modern Texas football culture. I’ve gone through many drafts throughout the year, the most recent I completed about a week or so after the reading on November 9th! Right now I’m sending it out for further development opportunities and/or production opportunities.
You Will Survive Me
This started as a one-act and after a developmental reading it became clear that more was needed. I’m finishing up the first draft (right now, actually) of the full-length version. It’s a play about mother-daughter relationships, and the different forms abuse can come in. This play was to be my first non-comedy, and it’s still for sure not a comedy, but it might be the most difficult play I’ve written, so for this play I’m letting things happen slower than I do for most.
One-Act Plays:
Rosie, Bloody Rosie
Another first for me is my horror play Rosie, Bloody Rosie! This is pretty fun to write, and I’m realizing that the difference between horror and comedy is very slight, and it takes a lot of attention to detail to keep it on the scary track. I’m currently on my third draft, and will be turning it in for my short play workshop in less than a week! After I get notes from my teacher (and rewriting based on those notes), I’m going to look for some public readings of it, and see how it feels done in front of an audience.
Much Ado About Mathletes
The firsts just keep coming! This play is a first for me because I wrote it with High School students in mind. It’s a 25 minute comedy about an all-girl mathletes team, and it stays PG the whole time! And for those of you who have seen or read any of my work, you know how much I usually don’t do this. Another fun element of this script is that there are direct addresses to the audience from each character written in a sonnet format, so I got to practice some poetry in this piece as well.
Clever Catherine
Clever Catherine is a play I wrote for children! It’s 30 minutes long, and based off an old folk tale. I wrote this for my craft of translation class, and it was a lot of fun to write. I have two kids, and I’m kinda sick of seeing movie after movie about beautiful princesses. This play, has a smart Queen (Catherine), who is by far the most clever in the kingdom, and at the same time is strong and funny. I really want to do a reading of this with my daughter and son listening in to see if they like it. It’s also fun to work on a script that they can watch, because most of the time I have to keep them pretty far away from the stuff I write.
Good-Good Meal
A fifteen minute play written for All Terrain Theater’s SF Fringe show BABIES, THE ULTIMATE BIRTH CONTROL.
My Night With A Hooker
Another fifteen minute play, this one was written during the 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge.
The Songs Of Hell
This odd little fifteen minute play was written as an experiment. While working on Mixtapes, I wanted to see if I could write a play with misheard song lyrics.
Ten-Minute Plays:
The Most Important
The first play I wrote as a member of the PlayGround SF’s writer’s pool.
American Landscape
This was a fun little experiment, I wrote a play around one of my favorite short stories. I’m still seeking permission to use the story, if I get permission I will certainly seek out production opportunities for this.
Fascinatin’ Rhythm
My ten-minute musical play I wrote for PlayGround’s musical theater night.
Baby Shower Games
Another play written for BABIES, THE ULTIMATE BIRTH CONTROL, this play is going on to have a production next month on the other side of the country!
Changing Of The Guard
I wrote this for my ten-minute play workshop class, and I’m still tweaking the play here and there. I’m hoping to have it it tip-top shape for some serious submitting next year.
Mother Of The Year
This play I wrote for last year’s SF Theater Pub’s Pint Sized Plays, it wasn’t selected, but this was the play that got me into the PlayGround writer’s pool this year, so it’s just fine in my book.
Under Ten-Minute Plays:
Mercedes Benz
The original play written for SJ Real’s Joplin’s Mixtapes, it’s about 3 minutes. I wrote this for the 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge as well.
Christmas Card From A Hooker
My second play written for Mixtapes, based on my favorite Tom Waits song.
Peeper
A one-minute total creeper play. I’ve sent this out to a few one-minute festivals, so fingers crossed!
Rainbow The Clown
A monologue written during August for 31 Plays in 31 Days.
Rewind
A one-minute play taking the life of a marriage in reverse.
Father’s Birthday
An odd five-minute play written for 31 Plays in 31 Days, with some hilarious gender switching.
Don’t You Want Me?
A four or five minute play I wrote for Mixtapes.
There are more plays that I’m not too interested in developing further, and so they aren’t listed here, and I’ve started taking a few stabs for next year’s SF Olympians Play based on Geryon, and there will also be a new play after this weekend (this weekend is a PlayGround writing weekend!).
Being in the MFA program, I’m definitely having to push myself to write new stuff, I hope next year I have a ton of firsts all over again! MFA all the way!