Jefe's House

The Belle of Amherst

Judge Lord

I’m thrilled to invite you to Philadelphia’s first public reading of my unproduced play The Great Age, a racy romantic  comedy — about Emily Dickinson.  Set in Amherst, MA, the play is a time-jumping, supernatural romp about Amherst College undergrad Leah, an Emily-obsessed young writer and idealistic Wiccan who’s having an affair with her married English professor, Michael.

When she and her classmate Ashiq, a young Saudi prince, steal Emily’s famed white dress from the Dickinson Homestead and hold a seance to contact Emily’s ghost they they stir up a heap of multidimensional trouble and incur the wrath of junior English department faculty, Mary Beth.

Mabel Loomis Todd

The reading of this work-in-progress is connected to my current PDC @Plays & Players Artists Residency.  It’s directed by the amazing Mark Kennedy and features an incredible cast including–

Austin Dickinson

Laurel Hostak, outgoing president of the Drexel University Players, as the brazen young Leah

Anthony Adair as Leah’s friend Ashiq

Kaki Burns, most recently seen in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties at Plays & Players, as Emily Dickinson

David Todd

Kevin Bergen as Emily’s randy brother Austin Dickinson

Mike Hagan is Emily’s long-distance lover Judge Otis Lord

Bethany Ditnes as 19th century social climber and Dickinson family groupie Mabel Loomis Todd

Eric Wunsch, last seen as Dadaism founder Tristan Tzara in Travesties, as Mabel’s swinging husband Prof. David Todd

Sarah Schol as the frustrated and desperate-to-land-a-husband-before-she-gets-any-older Prof. Mary Beth Hodder

Tina Brock, artistic director of Philadlphia’s premiere absurdist theatre the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (They Bring Good Nothingness to Life) in a variety of madcap roles.

Don’t miss it! Q&A of this work-in-progress afterward with myself, the director, and much of the cast.

WHEN:  Thursday, July 12 @7:00pm

WHERE:  the 1st floor main stage of Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA

COST: FREE

See you there.

[images via poetryfoundation.org and massreports.com]

 

Turning 30 is enough to drive you crazy.

At the intersection of sex and religion a frantic hipster and his goldfish take the ultimate leap of faith.

Please join me on Tuesday, 3/27/12 at 7pm at Plays & Players Theatre in Philadelphia for a reading of my unproduced play UFOs Over Brooklyn presented by the outstanding Drexel Players, Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design‘s student-run theatre company. The reading of this work-in-progress will be followed by a brief Q&A.

The wall-to-wall Drexel cast includes Dana Marcus, James Haro, Laurel Hostak, Rose  Koven, John Turnbach and Emily Kleimo.  Go Dragons, baby.

This is my 3rd play reading in as many months, and is connected to my residency as  one of 3 current PDC@Plays&Players playwrights-in-residence.

This particular play has had so many near-misses for production in New York and so many stellar actors reading the roles in public presentations  it makes my head spin (Naked Angels tuesdays@nine, Urban Stages, The Collective, the now-defunct Lightning Strikes Theatre Company, et al) Over the past several years  it took on a life of its own as a favorite for developmental readings (aka “development hell” in theatre parlance) , and also at Amherst College where an early draft was presented while I was a Copeland Fellow there in 2001.

This marks the first time the play has been presented in Philadelphia, and I welcome your feedback.  It’s a very dark, very sexy romantic comedy about two couples and a UFO suicide cult.   See you there.

WHAT:  UFOs  Over Brooklyn

WHEN:  Tuesday 3/27/12 @7:00pm

WHERE: Plays & Players, 3rd floor Skinner Studio; 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia

COST:  FREE but please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

Antonio Meucci

In connection with my being a 2011-2012 PDC@Plays & Players Playwright-in-Residence, a reading of my unproduced play Fishing With Tony and Joe will be held at Plays & Players Theatre at 1714 Delancey Place (17th Street between Pine and Spruce) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, February 28th at 4pm in the 3rd floor Skinner Studio.  The event is FREE but seating is limited so please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

Meucci's teletrofono.

The play is an historical drama with a touch of magic realism about opera stagehand, exiled leftie and “back yard inventor” Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant who invented a working electric telephone at his Staten Island home some 20 years prior to Alexander Graham Bell.

The plot covers a year in the life of Meucci, his firebrand wife Esterre (Esther) and their house crashing friend Giuseppe Garibaldi, the famed Italian revolutionary.  A love triangle, corporate greed and the dawn of telecommunications ensue.

Garibaldi

This unproduced play was originally commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, in 2005-06 (this same pairing by a science foundation and an Off-Broadway theatre  produced my hit play Tesla’s Letters in 1999).

The awesome cast includes Paul McElwee, Michelle Eugene, Mark Cairns, Mike Hagan and  Brendan Norton.  The reading will be directed by Josh Hitchens.

There will be a Q&A of this work-in-progress with the audience afterward and I would value your attendance and your input.  The event is FREE but seating is limited so please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

A post-crypt to Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead will happen next Sunday 11/6/11 when in my first official act as a PDC @Plays & Players Playwright-in-Residence I will solicit audience volunteers to use my 1917 original Fuld Ouija Board to try and contact one of the ghosts believed to be haunting the historic, century-old Plays & Players Theatre on 17th Street and Delancey Place in Philadelphia, PA.

I am told that many of the bar staff who work on the 3rd floor in the private Quig’s Pub have spotted the ghost of deceased longtime bartender Leon passing through the room on occasion. Many actors over the years have often encountered the ghost of a little boy standing on the main stage, and others insist that the ghost of famed Broadway actress and Plays & Players’ first president Maud Skinner haunts one of the dressing rooms. We shall see…

The shenanigans start on November 6 at 6:30pm at Plays & Players’ 3rd floor Skinner Studio & Quig’s Pub (RSVP required, see below) as they welcome playwrights Jeremy Gable, Brian Grace-Duff and myself as the three 2011-12 resident playwrights and bid goodbye to the three 2010-11 residents Joy Cutler, Greg Romero and Quinn Eli. There will be a meet-and-greet happy hour from 6:30pm-7pm with a toast to the outgoing residents, brief presentations from the new playwrights (this is where the Ouija board comes in) from 7-7:30pm, and a pizza party celebration from 7:30pm-8pm.

The competitive residency at Plays & Players aims to provide artistic development for Philadelphia’s professional playwrights. The playwrights utilize the Plays & Players Theater to undertake personal explorations of their work, ranging from traditional table reads to finding a quiet space to write and draw to listening to the dreams of visitors.  All activities are playwright driven. So…

Who knows what this year will bring? Find out with us.  RSVP REQUIRED.  Please email Plays & Players Artistic Director Daniel Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org.

Plays & Players Theatre on 17th and Delancey Streets in Philadelphia, PA.

Fresh on the heels of a highly successful Philly Fringe show I am delighted, surprised,  and thrilled to have been named one of Philadelphia’s three 2011-12 PDC@Plays & Players Playwrights-in-Residence.

The Philadelphia Dramatists Center (PDC) is a membership community of playwrights, collaborating artists and audience members dedicated to creating and nurturing new work.  PDC develops resources, stimulates creative partnerships and participates in the ongoing national dialogue about how and why theater is created.

The historic Plays & Players Theatre turns 100 this year. It  began in 1911 as a private social club, similar to the Players Club in Manhattan, devoted to expanding and developing new theater experiences for and by its wealthy membership. The first President, actress Maud Skinner, was the wife of the famed American actor Otis Skinner.  The Plays & Players Theatre building on 17th and Delancey, then called the “Little Theatre of Philadelphia,” first opened its shows to the public in 1913 with a mission to produce “American plays of ideas.” And they meant it.   Plays & Players sought out and produced cutting edge work by America’s newest playwrights including Philadelphia premieres in 1916 and 1919 of  some of the earliest plays by Eugene O’Neill (Before Breakfast) and Susan Glaspell (Suppressed Desires and Trifles), the world premiere in 1949 of Bevan & Trzcinski’s acclaimed Stalag 17 before it moved to Broadway, and an early performance by actor Kevin Bacon in 1974.  Once an exclusive club, Plays & Players has grown over the years into a professional quality theatre devoted to supporting established and emerging Philadelphia artists in practicing and performing their crafts.

I know what you’re wondering: is it haunted? Finding out will be my first order of business.  I am told that many of the bar staff who work on the 3rd floor in the members-only Quig’s Pub have spotted the ghost of deceased longtime bartender Leon passing through the room on occasion, then there’s the oft-spotted ghost of a little boy standing on the mainstage, and others insist the ghost of Maud Skinner haunts one of the dressing rooms. We shall see…

Here too is a terrific video tour of Plays & Players made by mysterious stranger Lance Davis last month.

WHAT:  Material v. Memory, A Walk Through 11 Perishable Events 

WHEN: Tuesday 9/28/10 at 6:34pm sharp (early start due to loss of sunlight; this is an outdoor event)

WHERE:  UPenn’s Kelly Writers House in the Arts Cafe; 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia,  PA 

COST:  This event is free and open to the public; no reservations required

You will be taken on a short and lovely evening walk across UPenn’s beautiful campus, stopping along the way to see site-specific performances 3-5 minutes long. I have written and will be performing “Dream Me Up a Bartender” in an old trolley car, a darkly comic monologue about fear, fathers, drinking and the meaning of nightmares.   In keeping with the event’s theme all pieces will be performed one time and one time only, then they’re gone forever with the sinking sun.