Last night was another wonderful Saturday Write Fever at The Exit in San Francisco. If you’re living under a rock, and not yet heard about Saturday Write Fever, I’ll give you the run down… 3rd Saturday of the month, go to The Exit at 8:30, and sign up as an actor, writer, both, or just grab a seat. At 9, all the writers are given prompts and put into a room where they’ll have 30 minutes to write a 1-2 minute monologue. At 9:30 the writers draw names of actors and the actors have a few minutes to read over the monologues before they jump on stage and preform the piece for us all to see. Got all that? Saturday Write Fever was thought up by Megan Cohen and Stuart Bousel and if you haven’t yet made it out for this event, August 17th is the next installment, and I highly recommend being there!

Last night I was both an actor and a writer, my first time acting (what fun!). I pulled Spenser Bainbridge last night, and he totally rocked my monologue. It was TONS of fun. Here’s my monologue:

Aardvark by Rachel Bublitz

*Character is 12-14 years old, m/f.

Aardvark! Aardvark? Hello? You there? Aardvark, I’m sorry! Please come back… Have you seen my aardvark? He’s this tall. He wears a red pointy hat, like from a birthday party. He ran away and its so cold out tonight. I miss him so. AARDVARK! I will not keep my voice down. I lost my best friend!… Yes, I know this is a library. We used to read Nancy Drew books. Right there, by the window. He loves a good mystery. We had a fight. I was… I needed to be alone! There are… I’m going through changes. I knew they were coming, I mean I have the internet! Yeah so I’m changing and sometimes I like to sit alone in my room looking at pictures of Ryan Seacrest. So what! My aardvark walked in, and well… There was more than looking going on and I yelled. I yelled at him. I told him, “Get out!” Threw a shoe and everything. No one should walk in on that! But now… Not I can’t find him. You sure you haven’t seen him? I just… Why does getting older mean you have to give up all the good stuff? And… And when you tell your imaginary friend to leave, where do they go? Aardvark? Aardvark! AARDVARK! No, do’t make me leave, I don’t care if everyone’s staring! I don’t want to grow up. You can’t make me! I want my friend back. I want my aardvark. AARDVARK!

End.

August 17th is your next change, be there or be square!

So very excited to be announcing a FABULOUS cast for All Terrain Theater’s Fringe show BABIES THE ULTIMATE BIRTH CONTROL: Terrifyingly Hilarious Plays about Parenting. We had an amazing turn out for both auditions and callbacks, and some hard choices had to be made. Thank you again for everyone who made it out! And now…. Our cast!

BABIES THE ULTIMATE BIRTH CONTROL: Terrifyingly Hilarious Plays about Parenting

Presented by All Terrain Theater

Written by Tracy Held Potter and Rachel Bublitz

Directed by Elena Wright

Starring:

Alysha English

Matt Gunnison

Heather Kellogg

and

Anna Smith

The show is going to be SO good, can’t you feel it? Here are the dates and times again:

SATURDAY September 7 4:00 PM

SATURDAY September 14 9:00 PM

SUNDAY September 15 1:00 PM

TUESDAY September 17 9:00 PM

All performances will be at the Exit. I’m excited, are you excited?

Buy your tickets here!

Yesterday I had a big submission day… In fact I may have fried my brain. I submitted 11 scripts and I emailed 7 theater companies/producers about an upcoming reading (Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats, November 9th!!!). Got me thinking about how close I’m getting to my submission goal for the year. As you may remember, I stole this idea from the awesome Megan Cohen, she mentioned that a goal of hers was to get 100 rejection letters in a year, and so I took it on as my own.

This year I have made a total of 107 submissions so far. I’ve had 50 rejections (yay! ½ way there!), 46 that I haven’t heard back form, and 11 places have decided to use my work. I only have 166 days left in the year, here’s to hoping I can make it to 100!

Most of my emails are to people I know, or, when I’m submitting plays, it’s to people who’ve asked for emails from strangers. I’m about to start emailing strangers that did not asked to be emailed at all. I know this is part of being a playwright, writing artistic directors and literary managers and say, “Hi! You don’t know me, but I’m awesome, and you should come and see my work,” but I am not a huge fan of doing it. I’m sure these people get so many emails a day, and realistically mine will likely only be glanced at once, or deleted right off the bat. Sigh…

BUT! I must be strong. I must be strong for my work. My newest draft of Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats is here and I want the world to know it. I want the world to come and see this play… And, since the world will not fit into the Exit theatre for the reading (November 9th, one night only!) I have to try and convince people with theaters to come and watch the reading and hope that they are blown away and decide they must have Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats at their theater. The odds are against me on this, I’m an unknown playwright, my plays is over two hours, and there are nearly 20 characters in it. BUT! As I said, I must be strong for my work. My work is strong, it’s the least I can do in return. So, here we go… Emailing strangers….

This August is going to be one wild ride; I’ll have my first full-length play up and running (The Fantasy Club), rehearsals for our Fringe show (Babies, The Ultimate Birth Control), grad school starting, oh, and I’ll be writing 31 plays and running the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project for all of our lovely playwrights… Not to mention feeding, clothing, and taking care of my kids. In case you’re wondering, of all those things running the project is the hardest part. But let’s get back to writing the plays… Because that might be the most fun!

This year, considering all of the wonderful things filling up my schedule, my plan is to finish my plays ASAP… I’ve been stockpiling ideas along with some competitions that have themes, and come August 1st I will burrow myself into a hole hoping to complete the challenge before I have to emerge. I know that’s impossible, mostly because of the two kids that rely on me for everything, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

If you also think writing 31 plays next month is your idea of a good time, sign up for the challenge! I’m 100% sure it’s going to be a hoot.

Hot off the presses here is Episode 7 with Good Eats – Open All Nite by Jeremy Cole! Enjoy!

As always, click through to from facebook to listen, or go to 31plays31days.com

It’s July 15th! Do you know what that means? Only 18 days until opening night of The Fantasy Club! That’s right, opening night is August 2nd! So, now that you know the show is almost upon us, here is my next question… Have you bought your tickets yet? Because friends, this is NOT a show that you want to miss. Tickets are $18.50 ($15 for students/seniors), and there are only SIX performances of the show. So no more waiting, buy your tickets now!

Click here to buy tickets on brownpapertickets.com!!

And if you’d like to RSVP, so all your friends on facebook know how rad you are, do that here on The Fantasy Club event page.

If you’re ready via facebook, here are the links for you in case you missed them…

To buy: http://fantasyclub.brownpapertickets.com/

To RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/117656981778454/

Show runs August 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 10, 11th. Friday and Saturday shows are at 8pm, Sunday shows are at 5pm. I will see you there!

Want to know my number one theatre pick for July? The one event you must see this month, no matter how busy you may be? No, it’s not The Fantasy Club, that’s must-see, but it’s in August, silly! I’m of course talking about San Francisco Theater Pub’s Pint Sized Plays IV! Last year, I laughed until I cried, and I’m pretty positive this year will deliver the laughs again. How do I know? Check out this line-up:

Multitasking by Christian Simonsen, directed by Jonathan Carpenter

The Apotheosis of Grandma Shimkin by Sang Kim, directed by Charles Lewis III

200-Proof Robot by Kirk Shimano, directed by Neil Higgins

Tree by Peter Hsieh, directed by Colin Johnson

All Our Fathers by Carl Lucania, directed by Meghan O’Connor

The Last Beer in the World by Megan Cohen, directed by Tracy Held Potter

Mark +/– by Dan Ng, directed by Adam Sussman

Llama IV by Stuart Bousel, directed by Colin Johnson

See? SEE? It’s going to be an excellent show.

Pint Sized Plays IV opens July 15th, at Cafe Royale in San Francisco at 8pm. There is a $5 suggested donation at the door. Other performance dates are:

July 16th, 22nd, 29th, 30th (all shows at 8pm).

I’m going the 16th, if you feel like being creepy and following me there. ALRIGHT! You have your instructions, see you at the show!

PlayGround is currently accepting submissions for their 2013/2014 writer’s pool, but time is running out! I was just reminded today that there are only 3 weeks left. I said it last year, and I’ll say it again, I really want to get into PlayGround. If you don’t know, PlayGround is a writer’s group that throughout the year gives prompts to it’s members, the writers then have 3 days to write a 10 minute play, and the best plays get a staged reading at Berkeley Rep. They use top notch directors, top notch actors, and I’ve heard that their casting director is an absolute genius. The amount of exposure you get as a writer is fantastic, not to mention all the connections you have the potential to make.

So, yes… Obviously it would be super awesome if I got it. This will be my third year applying, and I think I’m more nervous than ever. My first year, I was really confident… I’d written just one play, The Anniversary, and was just starting out on The Fantasy Club. I thought I was a shoe in, boy was I crazy! I cringe even thinking about that first play. Last year, I still had confidence, I submitted My Body, a play that I still have a lot of confidence. I knew that it was the one and only play in my arsenal to submit and so I did… And I still didn’t get in… But hey, that’s the life of the playwright. Most of the time, you don’t get in.

This year, I have now written many more plays. I have plays that I consider to be very strong. But this is the first year that I have no clue what to send in. I still want it bad, but I just don’t know what to give them… Sigh. So that’s where I’m at, lots of plays, but I feel clueless as to what shows off my skills the best.

I know I’ll figure it out, or even if I don’t I know that I’ll send them something. Being in PlayGround’s writer’s pool is too awesome an opportunity to pass up.

Have you submitted anything yet? You must live in the Bay Area, and they’re looking for your best 10-minute play. Deadline is July 31st, so get cracking!

Episode 6 is hot off the conveyer belt! Give a listen to Donut Erotica by Barbara Jwanouskos and try to not crave a donut after, I dare you. Also, if anyone is nearby with any spare donuts, I would happily take them off your hands. :)

And as usual, if you’re on facebook and you can’t see where to listen, click through to my website, or the 31 Plays in 31 Days blog.

Enjoy!