Alums and friends among 2011 IRNE nods

A number of BPT alums and friends appear on the list of IRNE nominations, announced earlier this week.

Lydia Diamond’s Stick Fly (produced last spring at the Huntington) is nominated in the Best Play (large theatre) and Best New Play categories. Lydia is also nominated in the Best Play (small theatre) category (along with fellow alums John Kuntz and Melinda Lopez) for her contribution to Company One’s Grimm. The Underground Railway production of Lydia’s Harriet Jacobs is also represented in some of the acting categories.

Melinda’s play From Orchids to Octopi (produced by Underground Railway Theatre last season) is nominated in the Best Play (small theatre) category, as is Brian Tuttle’s Her Red Umbrella (11:11 Theatre Company).

On stage, Alice Duffy was nominated for her performance in BPT’s production of Michael Towers’ Five Down, One Across; Steven Barkhimer’s performance in Gloucester Stage’s Table Manners is nominated in the Best Actor, Drama category.

And, of course, the nominees include so many of our favorite actors, technicians, designers, and other theatre artists that you really just need to review the whole stinkin’ list. Congratulations everyone!!!

Globe calls Ti-Jean "fresh and compelling"

Read the full review here.

Click here for tickets, related events, and additional information.

Behind the scenes at MYPP

How do you write a ten-minute play? Or, more succinctly, how do you teach others to write a ten-minute play?

I’m not sure there’s a single correct answer to that, but since I promised to post an update about the students at Walnut Hill participating in the Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project (MYPP), I figure it may be fun to pull back the curtain a bit to what goes on behind the scenes.

Ten-minute plays are full-length plays in microcosm: They should have a beginning, middle, and end; relatable characters; metaphor. I’m not ashamed to say that I love them. Short plays allow me to experiment, take risks, and just plain ol’ have fun. But speaking of fun, I digress:

The whole experience began with a meeting between Allan Reeder (Walnut Hill’s Director of Writing & Publishing) and me. He told me about the students, what their writing is like [many already have written plays, under the guidance of none other than our own Ronan Noone, who is on staff there – BIG shout-out to Ronan here, whose students are great], the kinds of projects they generally take on, etc. Allan told me that he likes providing specific frameworks for the projects he gives his students; and, while there are a few experienced playwrights in this group of twelve, most focus on poetry or fiction and would be writing plays for the first time.

Let the Sawzall bring us together

A few years ago the box office at Boston Playwrights' Theatre had something like bullet-proof glass protecting the individual inside from the dangers of the outside world. To order tickets you had to bend down really low and talk into a slot in the glass.

In an effort to make the box office more approachable, and less like a gas station on the New Jersey Turnpike, I asked Marc to cut the glass out. I think I remember Marc standing with both feet on the box office with a large saw in his hands mercilessly hacking away at the sides of the window (I may also have dreamt this and woken up in a cold sweat).

The gulf between theatre and theatre patron has been bridged. We no longer fear the outside world and the patron may no longer feel isolated behind a quarter inch of safety glass. Special thanks to Marc and the good people at Milwaukee Electric Tool Company for bringing us all together.

Who's got your back?

I ran into this quote, maybe, 140,000,000 times this weekend in various places. Maybe you did too, in your travels around the World Wide Web. But I like it, so:

When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in support of the war effort, he asked, “Then what are we fighting for?”

It made me think of this: 'Who’s got your back?', about the ongoing saga of NYC's Center Stage. Long, but worth the read. 

I'd like to ruminate further on all this here, but I've got a play to write, man.

Ti-Jean Heralded "not to be missed"

Read the full review here.

The BPT/Underground Railway Theater production of Ti-Jean & His Brothers runs at Central Square Theater through March 13. Click here for tickets, related events, and additional information.

Kuntzie discusses new play in The Globe

Here's Johnny!

John Kuntz's The Hotel Nepenthe, part of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project's Winter Festival, opens this week and runs through March 6. Read the article here.

Also, check out Kuntzie's blog for some great photos! 

Tickets: 866-811-4111, www.actorsshakespeareproject.org

Take the TCG survey!

As part of Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) Field Conversations project, TCG is gathering the opinions and insights of theatre artists through the TCG State of the Artists Survey. The goal of the Field Conversations is to investigate the relationship between individual artists and institutions, and to identify the successes, challenges and ways of strengthening relationships in order to strengthen our field. 

The results of the survey will be incorporated into a Field Conversations report and the accompanying Field Conversations article that will be distributed and published in the July/August issue of American Theatre magazine. If you are an individual theatre artist, please take a moment to complete this survey. The survey takes about 15 minutes and the results are completely confidential.
 

Action: Deadline to complete the survey is February 24. Visit the TCG Web site to learn more about Field Conversations and click here to complete the survey.

Barkhimer, Obolensky awarded MCC grants

Steve Barkhimer

BPT alums Steve Barkhimer and Masha Obolensky are among the 29 Massachusetts artists recognized by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) for creating work of exceptional quality in the disciplines of music composition, playwriting, and sculpture/installation.

Steve was awarded a $7,500 unrestricted grant; Masha was distinguished as a finalist, and awarded a $500 grant.

MCC's Artist Fellowships recognize the unique contribution made by artists to the cultural vitality of the Commonwealth. The fellowships provide direct assistance to Massachusetts artists to recognize excellence and creative ability, and to support further development of their talents. MCC chronicles the impact of these awards in the Fellows Notes section of its blog, ArtSake. Over the years, many artists of national and international prominence have won MCC fellowships.

Congratulations, guys! (Okay, Bark – now you *have* to finish the fish play!)

My Spidey Sense is Tingling

If anyone is near the theatre today, filming begins on the Boston Playwrights' Theatre behind the scenes retrospective. We'll be taking a look at the theatre from the inside OUT!

Any suggestions for titles? I was thinking:

Boston Playwrights' Theatre: Play Wright or Go Home

Boston Playwrights' Theatre: I'm Not Going Up That Alley

or

Boston Playwrights' Theatre: Turn Off the Dark

Uh oh. Where are they taking Steve?!

Walcott's 'Ti-Jean' opens tonight

BPT founder Derek Walcott’s play Ti-Jean & His Brothers opens tonight at Central Square Theatre in Cambridge. A co-production of BPT and The Underground Railway Theater, the play celebrates the beginning of BPT’s 30^th anniversary year.

Tickets are available here.

A few years ago, Derek discussed the genesis of BPT with BU Today (I think the interview was conducted by phone, so Derek sounds a little like he’s trapped in a sardine can, but stick with it and enjoy some of the history of our little theatre):

Play by Hughes named KCACTF national semi-finalist

BPT alum Colleen Hughes’ ten-minute play The Mouse has been named a national semi-finalist for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). 

Playwright Colleen Hughes

If selected as a national finalist, The Mouse will be one of four ten-minute plays presented at the national festival in April. National finalist plays are cast with professional actors from the Washington, D.C., area, and compete for a $1,000 cash prize.

Plays by Deirdre Girard (Delivery) and John Zakrosky, Jr. (Ten Hours of Sleep) were also presented in the ten-minute category at the regional festival last month in Fitchburg; Deirdre’s play The End of the Argument also competed there in the one-act category.

There are numerous KCACTF awards categories for all types of student theatre artists. For the uninitiated, here’s how the ten-minute competition works:

Playwrights submit their work each fall. Plays from each KCACTF region (ours, Region I, covers New England and Eastern New York) are read by at least two readers from a different region. The top six choices are invited to Region I’s festival in January. At the festival, each playwright works with an assigned director to rehearse a public reading of his/her play. Two festival respondents respond to each play. 

From those six plays, two are chosen as national semi-finalists; those plays are then held in consideration for the national festival in Washington D.C, as national finalists. 

Thinking about writing that one-man (or one-woman) show?

"By the time they realize how pathetic they look reenacting a family dinner scene by themselves, it's already too late..."

The Onion reports that certain groups are prone to do that...

Happy Friday!

Getting new plays on the map

Boston Playwrights' Theatre is ON THE MAP!

What could happen if the new works sector of the U.S. theater collaboratively created a Map of itself, harnessed and shared its infrastructural knowledge about itself, and then came together to design powerful information tools that all belonged to the commons?

The answer to that question -- or at least the beginning of one -- is online in the form of the brand-new New Play Map, a pilot project of the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage, and built by...YOU!

Read all about the project here and more here

BPT is on the map. Are you?

Searching the theatre

The other day I went searching through the theatre for a large black box. I was sure I had seen one before so I poked about here and there. Exploring a theatre is like rummaging through a dead relative's home…but BETTER!

The costume room at BPT is located up a flight of stairs next to the box office. It's packed with all manner of wigs, hats and men's sport jackets. I swear I only wore the long yellow wig for, like, a second.

If you continue further up into this room you'll find a closet. I'm pretty sure this is where you access John Malkovich's head* or at the very least Gary Sinise's.

Back downstairs and to the rear of the building are two dressing rooms filled with props. My favorite finds have been a meat hook and a machete…

If you keep walking you'll eventually make it to Marc's workshop and loft. I'm almost positive the floor was painted by Jackson Pollock and I think I found another machete. I had a feeling my black box was in the loft so I climbed the stairs and started searching through the piles of furniture and odd bits of scenery. This is where we keep all kinds of fun stuff. After trying to climb a ladder to…nowhere, I managed to find my black box.

I brought the box downstairs and thought about the kind of place I worked. I'm glad I'm not and insurance salesman.

*Unlike the Sunsphere at the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair, this room is not filled with wigs.