Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “New Plays”
In need of some comedy? Who isn’t? Join Ed Decker, Artistic Director of The New Conservatory Theater Center, director Nicole Meñez, and me for a Sneak Peek of “The Law of Attraction” on Facebook Live, Friday, May 22 at 5 pm! Actors Chelsea Bearce and Cary Ann Rosko will read the first two scenes of the play, and there will …
I came across this list of characteristics of a mythic hero, which is what each of the Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective’s members are. Judge for yourself: Has courage: must act in the face of mortal threat. Cowardice repels readers. Is good at what they do for a living: Or else readers won’t respect them. Has a special talent: Could be …
I think I have noted before that I enjoy working with genres. Trying to understand how they work, first, and then subverting them for fun. I’ve done this with screwball comedy, and the thriller. Now, in Escape from the Asylum, I’m trying it with a mystery that doesn’t involve murder. First, a look at the mystery as art form. Some …
The New Conservatory Theater Center in San Francisco has announced its 2020/21 Season, and the world premiere of “The Law of Attraction” is a part of it! We are scheduled to open January 15, 2021. Pandemic permitting. The show is sandwiched in between “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “The Glass Menagerie,” so no pressure, I guess. Here’s the marketing …
The research for this play, the sequel to “The Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective,” is involved and dense. It’s also shocking, and quite moving. The topic of women locked up as “insane” when they weren’t is part of a very long and intersectional history of women being treated terribly by the medical profession, women of color worst of all. Horrendous medical …
Returning to my series on terrific free theater podcasts, I recommend Playing on Air. Playing on Air is a radio show and free podcast dedicated to short plays by America’s best contemporary playwrights, a new way to experience theater on demand, absolutely free. They are dedicated to increasing the accessibility of high-caliber theater, promoting the work of the stage’s greatest …
The Orange Tree Theatre in the UK is offering a free streaming event of their production of Amsterdam by Maya Arad Yasur. The play will be streamed free on January 27, 7:30 pm. Here’s the link to watch. Amsterdam description: “An Israeli violinist. Living in her trendy canal-side Amsterdam apartment. Nine months pregnant. One day a mysterious unpaid gas bill …
The sequel to The Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective, Breaking Out of Bedlam, will feature a locked room mystery … specifically, a woman disappears from a locked room. According to John Dickson Carr, a master of the genre, there are seven solutions to a locked room murder. Robert Adey expanded Carr’s list considerably. In his book Locked Room Murders. Adey identifies …
Did you know you can read all of my full-length plays on the New Play Exchange? You have to create a free account, but then you can download all the plays in pdf format and read them, for free! There’s lots of playwrights (more than 10,000) on the Exchange, many of whom have written only ten minute plays, in case …
Ronald Knox was a mystery writer in the early part of the 20th century who belonged to the Detection Club, a society peopled by such legendary mystery writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterton, and E. C. Bentley. Among his novels: The Viaduct Murder, Double Cross Purposes, Still Dead. Knox was also a Catholic priest, which is perhaps …