Alumni news, in brief:

The Accident

The nominations for this year's Elliot Norton Awards include nods to Steven Barkhimer (Windowmen) and Peter M. Floyd (Absence) in the Best New Script category. Windowmen is also nominated in the Outstanding Production, Outstanding Ensemble, and Outstanding Design categories; Alex Pollock is also nominated for his performance in Windowmen...

Ronan Noone's short film The Accident (based on his ten-minute play I Glue You and starring Mary McCann and Andrew Rothenberg, above) was an official selection for the Boston International Film Festival earlier this month, and is also an official selection for the Montclair Film Festival next month...

Alumni news, in brief:

Heather Houston's Supergravity and the Eleventh Dimension opens July 11 at the Factory Theatre, a production by Vagabond Theatre Group...

Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly is part of Arden Theatre Company's 2013-14 season...

Gregory Fletcher directed a reading of the new musical The Fairy Hoax at WorkShop Theater Company last weekend...

Peter M. Floyd's play Absence (a finalist in the 2013 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition) was read on the main stage of Atlanta's Alliance Theatre this week...

Jinxed, by K. Alexa Mavromatis, is included in the new Smith & Kraus anthology The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2012. The volume also includes plays by BTM vets Christopher Lockheart, Nina Mansfield, R.D. (a.k.a. Bob) Murphy, and Marisa Smith. Kirsten Greenidge's Milk Like Sugar (which began its life as Annie Desmond Gets a Tattoo in BTM XI), is in S&K's New Playwrights: The Best Plays 2012, also just published...

And speaking of BTM plays, Ronan Noone's Boyfriend and Phil Schroeder's Bad Dogs and Best Friends were featured in Image Theater's 3 For 3 last weekend...


Alumni news will return on July 9.

Alumni news, in brief:

Demonio at The Hunt

Deirdre Girard’s Direct Line is on the bill at Image Theater’s FemNoire Mar. 29-30; also this week, her thesis play The Christina Experiment will be part of Stony Brook University’s Rogue Reading Series…

Gregory Fletcher’s short play The Moon Alone is being produced in the festival Boxers & Briefs by Off-Off-Broadway's Artistic New Directions at Theatre 54 in the Shelter Studios and Theatre, March 27-31. Directed by Troy Miller, it features Leigh Dunham, Lue McWilliams, and Bridget Ori.

M. Lynda Robinson (and actor and casting director extraordinaire Kevin Fennessy) will offer a workshop on Mar. 30, The Business of Acting: Approaching a Career, at Zero Point Theatre Company…

Rick Park’s short play Men on First and Third (formerly Go to Helen Hunt For It, part of BTM XII) was voted “Best in Snow” at the Snowdance 10-Minute Comedy Festival…

Karen Zacarías reflects on her residency at Arena Stage…

BPT @ AWP

BPT will have quite a presence at this week’s annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), here in Boston:

• Gregory Fletcher is one of the presenters this morning in "The Ten-Minute Play: The Essential Ingredients;"

• Tonight’s keynote will feature BPT founder Derek Walcott in conversation with poet Seamus Heaney;

• And on Saturday morning Steven Barkhimer, Lydia Diamond, John Kuntz, Melinda Lopez, and Kate Snodgrass will present "Playwright as Actor/Actor as Playwright" and discuss creating characters from their perspectives as trained actors. (Melinda, Bark, and Johnny wrote about this very thing for Playwrights’ Perspective last fall – check out their posts!)

Way to represent, BPT!

I Heart Stairway to Heaven

When I teach playwriting classes to high school students, one of my favorite plays to share with them is Gregory Fletcher’s Stairway to Heaven, which won the 2004 National Ten-Minute Play Award at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival.

Students connect to the play – about two teenaged siblings on the morning of their father’s funeral – because the characters are instantly familiar (and their interaction so real) to them. The play’s dialogue is simple, but layered; its structure is very clear; it is funny, sad, sweet, and true – a terrific play to talk about with first-time playwrights. My group at the Academy of the Pacific Rim in Hyde Park, where I am mentoring students for the Massachusetts Young Playwrights’ Project this year, is no exception. They loved it. [Random suggestion: I also like pairing this play with Walt McGough’s Two Socks Discuss Loss, to show students two very different ways of illustrating onstage the ways we move through grief and into the future. Steal this idea!]

Alumni news, in brief:

Jinxed (Photo: Taylor Reynolds)

Gregory Fletcher’s new play Uploaded was part of the Whitley-Moiser Foundation’s Summer Readings 2012 series of new American plays in NYC earlier this month, featuring Michael Learned, June Gable, and Phil Mills. He will also start a new job this fall as Director of Theatre at CUNY Kingsborough Community College…

Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea is on the calendar for Mixed Blood Theatre’s 2012-13 season…

The creative team behind K. Alexa Mavromatis’ Jinxed took home seven awards at Looking Glass Theatre’s Spring Writer/Director Forum last month in NYC, including Audience Favorite for week one of the fest and the judges’ award for Best Production (a tie with Regina Robbins’ It’s Just the Radio, also a multiple award-winner)…

A rave review for Monica Bauer’s Made For Each Other…

Underground Railway’s production of Car Talk: The Musical!!! (by Wes Savick, music by Michael Wartofsky) has been extended through Sept. 2…

What’s required

Sunday’s April Fool’s “opportunity” has made me think this week about the more serious side of the submissions game. The requirements in Mark Harvey Levine’s hilarious piece are, of course, deliciously over-the-top…but we’ve all seen that crazy call with a million hoops to jump through, that really does seem to require everything short of cramming a woodland creature in an envelope. What requests are unreasonable?

I've also been thinking about the fact that my submission habits – and views of what is acceptable for theatres to require – have shifted a bit over time. For example, paying fees was once my line in the sand and I never used to pay them. Ever. For any reason, to anyone. Now I will from time to time (though over the course of a year I can count those submissions on one hand), if the theatre gives prizes to writers or someone I know personally recommends the theatre.

But enough about me.

Alumni news, in brief:

Demonio and Cha Cha celebrate Monica Bauer

The world premiere of Becoming Cuba, by Melinda Lopez, will be part of San Diego's North Coast Repertory Theatre's 2012-13 season...

John Kuntz's Miss Price (revisited) will be presented as part of Gloucester Stage Company's Play Reading Series in July...

Check out Molly Smith Metzler at yesterday's "The Scribes Speak" panel at the 36th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville...

Here's a wonderful review of Karmo Sander's short Face It, which played at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival earlier this month...

Now playing at Central Square Theatre: Underground Railway Theater's production of Deborah Lake Fortson's ABIYOYO (based on the story song by Pete Seeger), and next up will be Wesley Savick's Yesterday Happened: Remembering H.M. produced by Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, a science theater collaboration between Underground Railway Theater & MIT...

Gregory Fletcher is directing Shooting Crows, by Jack Rushen, for Davenport Theatrical's Developmental Reading Series on April 2... 

Sinan Ünel's A Mad Person's Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage is part of the lineup of Stage Left Studio's Left Out Festival April 14-25... 

When you see Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play, don't miss the photo display in the lobby...

Alumni news, in brief:

Cha Cha Picante celebrates Deirdre Girard at her play The Christina Experiment...

A launch party and concert will be held at BPT to celebrate the publication of Dan Hunter's new book Iowa? It's a State...Of Mind on Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m. The evening will feature delicious food by Sivika Pon Hunter, as well as book excerpts and songs written and performed by Dan Hunter. Please RSVP to attend. Books are also available for purchase online...

Alumni news, in brief:

The Book Club Play

Check out the new Web site for Joyce Van Dyke’s Deported… 

Stick Fly meets the press…

Zayd Dohrn’s Want opens 10/27 as part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s 7th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work (watch this space for more on this project later in the week)…

Actress Kate Snodgrass was featured in the reading of Don Cohen’s Length of Stay at the Munroe Center for the Arts, directed by Melinda Lopez…

New video for Karen Zacarías’ The Book Club Play, now at Arena Stage…

Gregory Fletcher interviewed Sons of the Prophet star Santino Fontana for the Stage and Cinema blog…

Will Fancher’s The River Was Whiskey opens this week right here at BPT…

Alumni news, in brief:

John Kuntz, photo by Stratton McCrady

John Kuntz’s award-winning The Hotel Nepenthe is now available as an e-book, from Concord ePress…

Sinan Ünel’s Pathétique will be part of Hartford Stage’s Brand:NEW playreading festival in November…

Emily Kaye Lazzaro will take the stage this December as a member of the cast of the New England premiere of classmate Walt McGough’s Priscilla Dreams the Answer, produced by Fresh Ink Theatre Company…

Check out Gregory Fletcher's contributions to NYC’s Stage and Cinema blog…

John Shea has a new Web site – find information about his work, his blog, and more at www.pages2stages.com...