BTM XIV: It's a wrap

 

Congratulations (and thank you!) to everyone involved with Boston Theater Marathon XIV! What an amazing day -- ten hours of theatre has never felt so fast!!! Team Gabromatis (I made that up just now) -- Patrick Gabridge, his daughter Kira, and I -- completed our second running full running by not running. You know what I mean. StageSource's Kristin Baker and Julie Hennrikus did too, as did the anniversary-celebrating Deirdre Girard. Who else out there saw every play?

Voices of BTM XIV: Gary Garrison

 

 

 

Not Capt. Picard...Gary Garrison

There’s a special place in heaven for people like Kate Snodgrass, who work tirelessly for the benefit of other playwrights. Kate’s been pushing this rock (the Boston Theater Marathon) up the hill for well over a decade, and it never ceases to amaze me that she does so without any real audible complaints or regrets. The work that it takes to get something like BTM up on its feet is nothing short of monumental, and she does the work from a place of great love and support for her fellow artists – and, I might add, to the necessary neglect of her own work as a playwright. Still, year after year, Marathon after Marathon, she’s there in our inboxes, strongly committed with an enthusiasm and passion for sharing stories that I just don’t see paralleled anywhere else in the country.

Voices of BTM XIV: Deirdre Girard

Deirdre Girard and Steve Faria

Love and Romance at the BTM…

Sunday, May 20, is my 30^th wedding anniversary and my husband and I will be spending the entire day at The Boston Theater Marathon. It might not sound romantic but I find something kind of quirkily cosmic in the fact that while we have both individually participated in past Marathons, this is the first time we are involved in the same year. My play Frickin’ Woodpecker, about two South Boston bus drivers who contemplate the mysteries of women, Yankees’ fans, and Muslims, will be produced by Underground Railway. I feel like I hit the BTM lottery with the intelligence of director Megan Sandberg-Zakian, and the hilarious but touching performances by actors Steve Barkhimer and Barlow Adamson. 

Voices of BTM XIV: Ronan Noone

Ronan Noone

Thoughts on the Boston Theater Marathon

I have two ten minute plays ready for both 2013 and 2014.
I can't say they will be accepted, but I anticipate the opportunity.  

As it stands,
I read and reread my submission throughout the year before I submit it.
I organize a cold reading of that play.
I excise words and I replace lines until it sounds like music.

It's all a little neurotic for a ten-minute play, isn't it?
Rakish playwrights sounding out character traits in their head,
looking into open space while imagining the blocking,
the mise en blah blah,
the audience reaction,
and gathering friends for mock performances
before being fully satisfied that the piece,
the play, is worthy of submission.

Some of My Very Best Friends are Playwrights.

Kristin Baker, ticket in hand

I’m doing a marathon, and that’s why Alexa asked me to guest blog here. Which makes sense, sort of. Because it is a theater marathon, not a running one.

I am not a playwright. I mean, I’ve written some plays here and there as a part of being a theater generalist (I have also acted, directed, taught and administered.) But being a playwright, I think, is as much a way of seeing the world as it is an activity.

I remember the first time I realized playwrights were actual people you could know. I saw a play by Industrial Theater written by Bill Donnelly. I wasn’t too far out of undergrad where most of the playwrights I’d encounter were dead or foreign or shrouded in mystery. I went in with no knowledge of the play or the company (free ticket offer from StageSource: more about that later). The play was Apocalypso and it was Totally. Freaking. Awesome. Totally transformative. I was completely enthralled with this world, these characters, this dialog. Mind blown. 

BTM XIV running order announced!

 

12-1 PM

Preview of Coming Attractions by Andy Dolan, Merrimack Repertory Theatre

Saving Walter Cronkite by Cliff Blake, Simple Machine

Lycanthropy by Danny Sklar, Theatre on Fire

A Game of Chicken by Sean Walsh, Centastage

Nothing Personal by Tom Kee, Actors’ Shakespeare Project

The Comfort Station by Robert Brustein, American Repertory Theater

1-2 PM

Shrapnel by Yavni Bar-Yam, Nextdoor Theater Company

Love, Billy Bunny by Peter M. Floyd, Emerson Stage

The Flying Winter Princess by Mary Conroy, Stoneham Theatre

The Experiment by George Matry Masselam, laulapides Company

Storrow Drive by Jefferson Navicky, Playwrights’ Platform

BTM XIV: The Warm-Up Laps

It’s difficult to believe that BTM weekend is just a week away, isn’t it? Here’s a look at the three plays that will be featured in next Saturday’s Warm-Up Laps readings. Presented in association with the Boston Center for the Arts, each of these new works is supported by one of the BCA’s resident companies. The Warm-Up Laps are free and open to the public; seating is limited and based upon availability. 

Check ‘em out.

The Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street, Boston

Saturday, May 19

Voices of BTM XIV: Andrea Fleck Clardy

Andrea Fleck Clardy

Although I am old enough to have a grandchild taller than me, I only got around to writing plays fairly recently. So I still feel like a fledgling, thrilled with an adolescent euphoria when one of my plays is chosen for production.

I don’t altogether like writing plays. It’s hard to get started, tough to get the character’s voice clear in my head. What I love is the rewriting, getting the tone right bit by bit, finding the pace, hearing the characters say lines I did not consciously invent. A play that started out being about death and keeping secrets evolved into a play about the deepest sort of friendship.

This is the second time I’ve had a play selected for the Boston Theater Marathon. Between the first and the second times, I took a playwriting course taught by Kate Snodgrass, the CEO and Fairy Godmother of the BTM. She focused on subtext, the meaningful message that is never explicitly conveyed. So I’ve been pondering the subtext of the Boston Theater Marathon itself.

Voices of BTM XIV: Grant MacDermott

Grant MacDermott

I still sort of can’t believe something I wrote is going to be produced. I also can’t believe I was asked to write about my own writing. The fact that anyone wants to hear what I have to say is incredible; whether it be fiction and spoken by others on stage, or in a blog and read at someone’s convenience. As someone who has always been an actor, the idea of using my own words can be incredibly foreign. And to be honest, scary. So forgive if I stumble. I can blame the playwright if I sound funny on stage when I’m in an acting role. But now, I’m the playwright. Wow.

Why am I here? The Boston Theater Marathon. Let me say this: I love the BTM. I love that it is an even playing ground. The biggest actors in Boston share the stage with someone who has perhaps never done a play in their lives. The biggest theater companies with giant budgets strip down to bare bones, and the smallest companies get to inhabit a beautiful technically advanced space that they otherwise never would be able to perform in. A first time playwright like me gets to have my words on a stage that has housed great writer’s words. We are all nothing because we are all everything. That is pretty cool. And it is so fleeting that everyone treats that day with utmost respect. It feels like a theater high holy day. For me anyway. But I’m a theater geek.

Voices of BTM XIV: Jack Neary

Jack Neary

I’m pretty sure I’ve been represented in all but one Boston Theater Marathon since the inception of the great enterprise. I don’t know what happened that year. I probably just misplaced Ellen Colton and Bobbie Steinbach’s phone numbers or something. In any case, the Marathon has been a springtime rite for me for almost all of its lifetime. For the past few years, my plays have had the honor of occupying the final slot of the day. I don’t know if this is because the plays are good or because Kate likes me to lock up after everyone leaves the building. I don’t mind locking up, but I do wish the party would break up a little earlier so I could get home at a decent hour.

I love participating in the Marathon for many reasons, not the least of which is the theatre-savvy audience sitting out there in those plush Calderwood seats, reacting knowledgably to my show biz themes. When a playwright can email Israel Horovitz to ask permission to use his name (multiple times) in a play, and then have the man himself sit in the audience and laugh at the jokes, that’s heaven. What a community to play to, he said, trying not to end a sentence with a preposition.

But first, that *other* Marathon...and a 26.2 Brew

I'm not much of a beer drinker, and the only marathon I'll ever complete is, well, you know. So it was pretty surprising last week when I found myself completely absorbed in this conversation (see below) between WGBH's Callie Crossley and Jim Koch, co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company. They chat about the artistry of craft beer, the passion behind the process, and the entrepreneurship that drives the company (which makes all the Samuel Adams beers). I especially liked the stories about the early days of the company, founded in 1984.

This year, the company has introduced a special limited edition 26.2 Brew to celebrate Boston's other Marathon, which incorporates coriander and salt. Bottoms up!

Look for Alumni News tomorrow.

Plays and Playwrights of BTM XIV

Announcing the plays and playwrights of Boston Theater Marathon XIV. Congratulations to all you beautiful people (all 53 of you -- this year, we're SUPER-sized!):

Shrapnel by Yavni Bar-Yam

Saving Walter Cronkite by Cliff Blake

3 AM by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

The Comfort Station by Robert Brustein

The Writer and the Talker by Con Chapman

Gay Paree by Andrea Fleck Clardy

The Flying Winter Princess by Mary Conroy

Sarcasms Anonymous by Robbi D’Allessandro

Wishful Thinking by Beth Derochea

Preview of Coming Attractions by Andy Dolan

Alumni news, in brief:

Plenty of alums are on the bill for Boston Theater Marathon XIV. The line-up will include Peter M. Floyd, Deirdre Girard, Heather Houston, Melinda Lopez, Walt McGough, Ronan Noone, Rick Park, Michael S. Parsons, and Donna Sorbello. Keep an eye on this space for much, much more about all things BTM in the coming weeks...

Boston's Fresh Ink Theatre Co. announced its very exciting 2012-13 season last week, which will feature Ginger Lazarus' The Embryos, Emily Kaye Lazzaro's Girl Sports, and [BTM regular] Patrick Gabridge's Fire on Earth...

And speaking of Patrick Gabridge, check out the latest of his blog's excellent "Juggler Interviews" -- a Q&A series which focuses on writers busy parenting while still making time for their art -- featuring BPT alum John Shea...

Wes Savick's Yesterday Happened: Remembering H.M., a science theater collaboration between Underground Railway Theater & MIT, opens this Thursday at Central Square Theater. H.M. features Wes' BPT classmate Steve Barkhimer...

Les Hunter's adaptation of Turkish playwright Ozen Yula's For Rent opens April 11 at NYC's LaGuardia Performing Arts Center...

Walt McGough shared some thoughts about writing non-human characters with fledgling dramatists last week, as part of the Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project's New Noises Festival. Get a taste of his talk here...