HOW TO GET YOUR WORK PRODUCED

Panel Discussion

Saturday, October 27, 2012

2pm – 6pm

$35 admission includes pizza and beer!

Featuring Advice and Experience from Stuart Bousel, Anthony Clarvoe, Megan Cohen, Judith Offer, and Don Reed

Moderated by Tracy Held Potter, Norman Gee, and Jamie Greenblatt

Our panel represents decades of experience from playwrights who have had their work produced locally, regionally, and nationally, self-produced, gotten work accepted into festivals, and have been invited to write on commission. Our panelists have written one-acts, full-lengths, musicals, and full-length solo pieces. We will open the discussion with moderated questions to the entire panel, and then we will break off into smaller groups for playwrights to interact with one or two of our panelists for questions and more in-depth discussion. The afternoon will conclude with social time, pizza, beer, and other refreshments.

Check out the inspiring bios from our panelists and moderators.

Order your ticket for “How to Get Your Work Produced” online at http://www.playcafe.org/. Tickets are $35 and includes admission to our panel discussions as well as pizza and beer! See you on Saturday, October 27th!

Berkeley Rep Rehearsal Studios, 2055 Center Street, Berkeley, CA (across the street from Downtown Berkeley BART, close to parking garages) Download a Registration Form at http://www.playcafe.org/.

Play Cafe is a 501©3 nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Bay Area playwrights develop and produce their work.

For more information, contact Executive Director, Tracy Held Potter at tracy@playcafe.org.

Have you purchased your tickets for Repro Rights! yet? I hope you get on it. Not only does it feature eight local writers (including me!), but it’s also for a wonderful cause; all of the money raised for this event goes to Planned Parenthood.

Go here to buy your tickets. The show is at 7:30 on October 22nd, and there are three ticket prices; $100 premiere, $25 general, and $10 student/senior.

Here is the full line up:

My Body, by Rachel Bublitz

Prisoner of Love, by Dana Sack

Lunch at the Cafe Ova, by Margy Kahn

Snip Snip, by Ignacio Zulueta

A Cry in Ramah, by Jeremy Cole

Factory Farm: A Documentary, by Jennifer Lynne Roberts

It’s Good to Know, by Megan Cohen

I hope to see you there! Let me know what you think of my play!

I’m currently reworking THE FANTASY CLUB, and I am just so excited about it. I have to get it all polished up to submit with my application to SFSU (I’m applying to join their MFA program next fall). I wrote a brand-spanking-new scene this morning, and it was so much fun. I won’t spoil the surprise, it’s a bit of a new development.

THE FANTASY CLUB is scheduled to be produced Fall of 2013 through ALl Terrain Theater, so you can come and see what all the fuss is about! In the meantime, I sure hope it’s in good enough shape to get me into the program! Keep your fingers crossed for me out there.

PS

Tonight I will actually be seeing ASSASSINS with the Shotgun Players! I have tickets and everything.

I got the best email this morning! Love Creek Productions, located on the other side of the country in Long Island, will be producing my short play GHOST STORY next month! They accept on going submissions of plays with good roles for women under 25 pages. I submitted during this past binge, so driving myself nuts for a month submitting 30 plays has already paid off! Plus, it was a mail in submission! This gives me faith it’s worth it to mail things out. I’m excited, this will be my third production!

Dates and location will be announced as soon as they are confirmed, so stay tuned! And if you’re in the neighborhood be sure and check out the show!

It’s LITQUAKE time people! LITQUAKE started the 5th of October and goes until the 13th, be sure and check out some of the events. Last night I attended North Atlantic Books‘ tribute to the wonderful beat poet Lenore Kandel. I had such a wonderful time! First of all, there was no traffic! And so I’ve decided that Eventpocalypse was not as scary as we all thought it would be. I rode in with the wonderful Kat Engh, one of the organizers of the event. Everyone involved did such a tremendous job.

The evening began with some belly dancing, which always sets a fun mood. Then we heard from different writers. They read from the Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel, and some writers also read some of their own work as well. I’ll get into the readers in a minute. Before that, I’d like to say how much I was in love with Lenore Kandel’s poetry. I used to write a lot of bad poetry in high school, and there was a time that I read a lot of poetry as well. I haven’t in a long time. I think it’s hard to know who to read, and I’m (ever so slightly) busy these days and so reading poetry falls off my to do list. It’s not a priority for me, and that might be changing after last night. I heard poetry written over 30 years ago, and it blew my mind how relatable and fresh her words sounded in this day in age. I love the way she described sex with so much detail (oh yeah, check out her first book of poetry The Love Book) and and it was never once gratuitous or cheap feeling. On the contrary, she made sex feel like a religious worship (which is what she thought it was) and that is beautifully reflected in her words. PS, her poems aren’t all about sex, so even if you think sex is too taboo, buy her collected poems! You will not regret it.

Okay, now for the readers…. The event was hosted by Evan Karp who has an expansive knowledge of poetry, and is an all around cool guy. He’s also founded Quiet Lighting, they do readings of new work (8 minutes max) in the city! And take blind submissions. Be sure and click on the link… http://quietlightning.org/, to find out more. Okay… There were six readers last night, and I’m not going to tell you about all of them, but I will tell you about the ones that really got to me.

I met Liz Demi Green after she read some of her own poetry as well as a few of Lenore’s. She’s super rad, and a playwright! I love meeting more lady playwrights. She is someone to check out, for sure!

Sarah Maria Griffin was also one of the readers. She read this poem called “Butcher” and she had me at the title. It was such a moving poem, in such a surprising way. I loved it.

And there were more readers, (6 in all) and they were fun and great to listen to. They were: Kyrsten Bean, Brenda Knight, and Joanna McClure. There was one more gentleman, but he’s missing from the program and I can’t recall his name!

All in all, a fantastic evening. Go check out the LITQUAKE website (http://litquake.org/) and find more events. There’s a ton of wonderful things happening this week, and some events are FREE! Remember, I had a great night, and you can too!

It’s not writer’s block… It’s motivation block really. This whole week I’ve not felt like tearing it up like my normal self. Maybe I burnt myself out a bit with 31 Plays in 31 Days followed by my super busy September… Maybe I have a cold. Maybe it’s all of the above. I’m lame this week. I couldn’t even play hooky from scene night correctly (check out last night’s posts about not getting in to see ASSASSINS).

But you know what? I’m okay with it. I’ll jump back in, don’t you worry your pretty little head. Soon too. I’m enjoying not thinking at the moment, but come Monday morning and it’s back to work I go.

Stay tuned.

As it turns out, I was not meant to see ASSASSINS tonight. The show was super sold out, and I was sadly one person past the lucky folks on the wait list that made it in. C’est la vie. So I bought a ticket for a later date, and let me tell you… They might just sell out the entire run. Yes! So, if you want to see it, buy your tickets asap!

Ever had a day when you just don’t feel like doing all the things you are supposed to be doing? Welcome to my week. It’s like a crazy procrastination bug I caught or something. So, instead of going to scene night in the city, I’m playing hooky. I’m heading over to the preview of Shotgun Players’ preview of ASSASSINS. I will be back with a full report tomorrow… That is if I feel like it.

Big thanks again for everyone who made it out last night for the developmental reading of MY SISTER’S BABY. It was great to finally hear the whole thing out loud, and even better to hear feedback.

Now it’s back to the drawing board on the play… I need to have it ready within a few weeks for more submissions. I might give myself one day off before I start in on it…. We’ll see.

Here are some great photos from after the reading last night:

*Image courtesy of Ricardo Gomez

*Image courtesy of Ricardo Gomez

I sure hope you’re coming out tonight for the reading of MY SISTER’S BABY. The banana bread is baking in the oven as I type, and it smells delicious. Come down, give me your two scents, and eat some tasty food! It starts at 7:30, and it’s $10 at the door.

See you there!