Due to casting complications, Her Special Day will not be put up in May. Instead, Love Creek Production is adding We’re All Going To Die and Nap Time to the line up! I’m still waiting to confirm the date and location of the show, and I will announce it here once I do, so stay tuned!

It’s official. I got the fever… I got the fever bad. I’m referring of course to SF Theater Pub’s Saturday Write Fever. Last night was their second event and it was every bit as good as the first one was. I think it’s destined to become a staple in the indie theatre scene. This is how it works… It’s the third Saturday of the month, you show up at the Exit at 8:30pm and sign up to either be an actor, writer, or both. From 8:30 to 9 you mingle and get to know all the fabulous artists that came out and then at 9, if you’re a writer, they draw your name to pick the order of the monologues and you get your prompt! Writers then have 30 minutes to write a one page monologue. And the pressure to write with that time is pretty incredible, let me tell you… Anyhow, at 9:30 they pair up the first half of writers with actors and after 5 minutes the shows starts. We get to hear all these brand new pieces performed practically cold and it is a hoot.

Last night, the highlight for me, was seeing Tracy Held Potter preform a piece that had the prompt: “Watch out for snakes day.” The monologue, and her performance of it was so hilarious, I cried from laughing… And I am pretty sure that everyone else stuffed into the Exit Cafe was crying from laughing too hard as well. It was incredible. The writer behind the snakes is Spencer Bainbridge, someone I did not know and that now is someone I will watch out for!

It’s always an amazing feeling when you get together with other talented people and make something with them that is better than anything you could have done alone. I think that’s a big part of why I’m in theatre, the community of it. Saturday Write Fever brings a mass of people together late on Saturday night, and they put together something that is bigger and better than any of us could have done alone. It is an incredible event, and I hope it sticks around. The people responsible for Saturday Write Fever are Stuart Bousel and Megan Cohen, two heavy hitters in the indie theatre scene here.

The next Saturday Write Fever is May 18th. Mark your calendars!

A new feature! Come back on Saturdays to hear about an exciting person in theatre! It might be someone I know here in the Bay Area, it might be someone I admire, or if I’m feeling especially energized, I just might have more than one! This week, for my inaugural shout out, I’m going to start with my other-half, Tracy Held Potter.

Tracy is the Executive Director for Play Cafe, an organization that helps playwright hear their works in a monthly scene night in Berkeley (the second Thursday of the month, bring $10, and 10 pages or less!), the Artistic Director of All Terrain Theater Co., and Co-Founder of the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project. On top of these huge titles and the duties that go with them, she has two children, and writes! She’s currently working on a full length play, two short plays commissioned by San Francisco Olympians Festival, and several short plays for our SF Fringe show Babies: The Ultimate Birth Control. Her plays are thoughtful, thought provoking, subtle, and honest.

Oh, and she also directs! AND she was recently accepted into the screen, stage, and television MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University! She is a force that won’t be stopped, and I am lucky to have such an awesome and strong woman to look up to. If you’d like to know more about Tracy, go to her facebook page and click “like,” then you’ll get updates from her in your news feed.

I had to start with Tracy, but who will I be calling your attention to next week? It’s a mystery! Come back next Saturday and find out.

About an hour ago I was rejected again! For two plays, so that brings it up to 12. Don’t think I’ll be reaching 100 this year, but it pays to dream big.

ALSO! I forgot to say that my goal of 100 rejections letters was 100% stolen from playwright tock star Megan Cohen. She spoke at Play Cafe’s playwright conference last year and mentioned it as one of her goals, and I thought it sounded like a fantastic goal and took it on as my own.

On a totally separate note I am very excited to see The Custom Made Theatre Co.’s Eurydice tonight! If you’d like to get a chance to see the show before it closes for good, The Custom Made Theatre Co. is offering a 2-for-1 ticket deal! Just use the code EU2for1 on their website. And tomorrow I have Saturday Write Fever, Playwrights Foundation rehearsal (I’m the associate produced for their reading of Forgetting by JC Lee, come see it on Monday in Stanford or at NOHSpace on Tuesday night in the city), AND the making of the SF Olympians‘ fund raising video! Be jealous, go on… I understand. :)

OH! One more thing… Sign up now to audition with No Nude Men for their August production Age Of Beauty by Stuart Bousel.

One of my goals for this year was to obtain 100 rejection letters. Now we’re going to play the fun game of counting up my rejections to see how I’m doing so far in reaching 100! PS, I’m totally counting my SFSU rejection because of all the worry it caused.

Okay… Here’s the count for this year:

From things I’ve submitted so far in 2013 I’ve only gotten 10 rejections. This will be harder than I thought. In case you’re curious my work has been selected 4 times and I have a grand total of 66 submissions so far!

Exciting news! Her Special Day, the first that got a production will be produced again in New York City! Her Special Day was produced by Wily West for Sheherezade XII in May of 2012, and now it’ll be staged by Love Creek Production for their short play showcase next month in May.

This also means that I now have productions or readings of my work in every month for a year! Woo! It began last September, with 24-Hour Playfest as well as Play Cafe’s reading of the opening of Terrible People*, and now with May covered I’ll go a full year! Just goes to show that it pays to submit like a mad woman.

The show will be late in May, and dates/times/places will be announced soon!

Women in Solodarity, Cat Ladies is over! Yes I know it closed last Saturday and here it is Wednesday already, but I’ve been one busy momma. Anyway, it was a fantastic show (that just might come back!) and I was honored to be a part of it. Here are some pictures from closing night, enjoy!

Once again all of the shots are from Rob Reeves.

Cat ladies! Here I am with Chelsey Little, and Tracy Held Potter.

Theresa Donahoe, also known as Cat Nanny 911!. Theresa wrote and starred in her one-person show and cracked the audience up every single performance!

Stage manager extraordinaire Chelsey Little.

Curtain call! From left to right; Heather Kellogg, Martha Rynberg, Ramya Vijayan, Tracy Held Potter, Colleen Egan, Theresa Donahoe, and Maura Halloran.

Playwrights Carol Lashof and Susan Sobeloff.

And here are all of the lovely cat ladies including our fabulous hosts at the Downward Dog!

I’ve recently learned a lot of respect for music and those who make it… I’ve always loved music, but being something that I always have access to, I took it for granted. You look confused, let me explain…

When researching for Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats, I was struck with a moment that took place in the Iliad. Achilles has quit the war and was hold up in his tent when Odysseus and Diomedes come and try to convince him to come back and fight for the Greeks. What struck me was that when they enter Achilles’ tent, he is sitting and playing the lute. Homer of course mentions how flawless his performance is (Achilles is good at everything), and Achilles makes them wait until he is through playing before he lets them speak to him. This was a scene that I wanted to share in my retelling of Achilles’ legend. I thought it also fit well within the new twist I was putting on things; he could play a guitar and sing a country song since the play is set in this mashed up world of Texas and ancient Troy. So when Odysseus comes with his plea, Achilles is playing an amazing and beautiful country song. I also wanted the song to be a love song for Patrolcus, with the undertones being… After I die, I don’t want you to love any one else. Brilliant, right? I thought so… And then I set out to try and write it. Writing lyrics is hard times. The song has to be good, because Achilles is good at everything, right? So I was in a pickle. I wrote many versions of the song, they were all crap. I listened to a ton of country love songs and tried to switch around lyrics and alter it to my needs, total crap. Crap, crap, crap. Then a light bulb went off and I asked my brother-in-law Thomas Kessinger, who also happens to be a fantastic musician, for help. Help turned into me telling him what I wanted and him writing it for me… And when he gave me his version of the song, I was blown away. I have listened to it a lot since then. It’s so beautiful, and sad, and really clever, and it holds up to the very high standards I hold for Achilles and his talents. So thank the Gods I have talented friends to call on.

That’s what I mean when I take music for granted. I had no idea how hard it was to create music, I thought that since I write other things, I could write a song… And yes, I think that given a whole lot of time and tears I could write a decent song… But I don’t have the drive to, so I’m not sure it would ever be as good as something I could get from an artist that lives and breathes music.

I got to thinking about all of this today because I was working on cheers and listening to Yo-Yo Ma. I almost always listen to music when I write, it helps me drown out the outside world, and also sometimes puts me into my writing mood. I have different types of music that I have to listen to depending on where I am in the piece I’m writing (i.e. first draft, rewrites, etc.) or what I’m writing. When working on those cheers I can’t listen to anything with lyrics, and when writing sadder scenes, especially those with Patroclus and Achilles, I have a few depressing albums that I’ve listened to at least a thousand times that help me get into it. There are also songs that I glom onto when writing, when in rewrites for The Fantasy Club, I listened to “Tigerlily” by La Roux over and over… It helped me think about obsession I suppose. And now with Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats I’ve taken over “Madness” by Muse to be Achilles and Patroclus’ song, it came on the radio when I was driving to pick up my kids after I’d written the scene in which Patroclus dies… I had to pull over and stop the car I cried so hard.

Anyway, my long point… Music is pretty incredible, and I thank it now for all of the help and support it gives me.

Do you have music you listen to while writing? What’s your jam?

Last night was a blast. Horny Like The Wolf, one of my ten minute plays, joined 7 other short plays for City Lights Theatre spring short reading series. There’s a moment in a lot of my plays before they jump into the insane or vulgar, and my stomach usually lurches and I wonder… Will the audience come with me on this ride? Last night they jumped right on the bus and laughed their butts off. That is a great feeling, by the way, putting laughter into the world….

My cast hit every joke, and I love them for that. Big thank you to Martha Rynberg, Matt Gunnison, and Catz Forsman. And another giant thank you to my good friend, an incredibly gifted director, Tracy Held Potter.

Want to join in the fun? Well, you can! City Lights Theatre takes not yet produced scripts and considers them for their season as well as their reading series. They’re looking for full length plays, one acts, and short plays. It’s a snap, fill out their application (found on the website), and submit that along with the script and your resume. Boom.

In case you fell asleep, or forgot, my short play Horny Like The Wolf will join 7 other short plays tonight in evening of staged readings in San Jose at City Lights Theatre! The reading starts at 8pm, and there will be a talk back with the playwrights after. I do hope to see you there tonight!

Click here to see the full line-up.