Winning trio

A trio of Boston KCACTF winners at last month's National Festival in Washington, D.C.: Rick Park (L) won the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting for Gay Guy, Fat Girl; Lesley University's Lisa Kenner Grissom (C) won the National Ten-Minute Play Award for Tattoo You; and Michael Parsons (R) won the Rosa Parks and the John Cauble Playwriting Awards for his play Homeland and one-act The Lighthouse. All three of these fabulous writers also had short plays in last weekend's Boston Theater Marathon XV (including Lisa's winning play).

BTM XV -- thank you!

Thank you to everyone -- onstage and off -- who contributed to the success (and fun!) of Boston Theater Marathon XV. We hope you had as great a time as we did. See you next year!

Voices of BTM XV: Steven Barkhimer

Steven Barkhimer

Odd I never thought of it. The Boston Theater Marathon is turning fifteen, and I moved to the Boston area fifteen years ago. It has somehow gone underappreciated by me that I was in the very first one!  So in a sense the Marathon and I have “grown up” here together. I was present at its birth, if not its conception, and have loved it from its glorious birth through its rambunctious infancy. And even though it has outpaced me in terms of reaching a certain maturity, my feelings for it are entirely undiminished.

But oh! I remember it as a kid – it was so lively, so exuberant, so – so impossible! And yet, there it was! Organized as intricately as a multi-pronged military invasion and running with the efficiency of a Swiss train. And all taking place, quite improbably, in the space so many of us now regard as home, the Boston Playwrights' Theatre.

Voices of BTM XV: Obehi Janice

Obehi Janice

I have a confession. I just started playwriting.

Everybody says this, but I too have wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. Writing has always come first to me, even though now it’s a second vocation. When I was in Kindergarten, I deemed myself an “author” and made makeshift novellas out of construction paper, yarn, and those thin pieces of big lined paper. My stories were often about white boys who lost their dogs and had terrible, horrible, no good very bad days. My writer’s voice developed in middle school when I discovered Sojourner Truth’s oratory, and then in high school when I created my own speeches. In college, it clicked: even if there are no acting roles for me, there are many if I write them. Solo performance, then, has been my medium of expression. When I’m not doing theater or commercial work, I’m usually touring my solo show FUFU & OREOS.

I have another confession.

How many times have you walked right by this?

Alumni news, in brief:

Lots of alums will have work onstage this weekend in Boston Theater Marathon XV and The Warm-Up Laps, including Steven Barkhimer, Deirdre Girard, John Kuntz, K. Alexa Mavromatis, Ronan Noone, Rick Park, Michael S. Parsons, Wesley Savick (in collaboration with Michael Wartofsky), Phil Schroeder, Michael Towers, Sinan Ünel, and Joyce Van Dyke...

Lisa Loomer's Distracted -- directed by Wesley Savick -- opens at Central Square Theater this week...

Les Hunter's play Cyrano de Bergen County, New Jersey was produced last month by Belton High School in Belton, Texas...

Great insight from Lydia Diamond on HowlRound.com...

Some familiar names were part of Fresh Ink's season three announcement last week...

BTM XV: The Warm-Up Laps Saturday, May 11

Steven Barkhimer

12 p.m.
Windowmen by Steven Barkhimer
Sponsored by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Directed by Brett Marks  

In 1981, Stevie is just out of college with a degree in philosophy and finds himself working – where else? – at the fish market beneath the Brooklyn Bridge with tough streetwise salesmen. He is the junior co-worker to Joe, and they man their stations at a window where they must record sales and handle thousands of dollars in cash at lightning speed. Despite their very different backgrounds, Steve and Joe develop a friendship, but Steve soon finds himself complicit in a scheme that robs the company, a scheme that is coming under intensified scrutiny by Leo, the flinty no-nonsense boss. When push comes to shove and the situation becomes dangerous, possibly even life-threatening, Stevie is treated to some challenging lessons about friendship, loyalty, honesty, and negotiating the complexities of adult life.

BTM XV running order announced!

12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Obehi Janice’s RED DRINK, Bad Habit Productions 

Charlene A. Donaghy’s SLIDING, Wheelock Family Theatre

Rick Park’s FROM YOUR MOUTH TO GOD’S EARS, Actors Shakespeare Project

Gail Phaneuf’s LAPSE, Boston Actors Theater

Joyce Van Dyke’s WHITE HOLE, Boston Center for American Performance

K. Alexa Mavromatis’s THE QUIZ, Wellesley Summer Theatre

Voices of BTM XV: Terrence Kidd

Terrence Kidd

Regular readers of this blog know The Boston Theater Marathon is the greatest day of theater this town has. My first time in “The Marathon” my parents, who – save The Phantom and The Lion King – are not theater-goers, came from out of town. It was a great weekend, and not just because it was the first time they saw something I wrote produced. The day was made greater because once we got to the Calderwood they didn’t want to leave. My Dad said, “ Let’s stay for one more. Want to?” And Dad is the kind of guy who (endearingly) acts like he never wants to do anything. My mother – a self-professed part-time misanthrope (like her son) – said she found something to identify with in every play we saw – and we stayed for seven hours!

That’s a lot of identifying.

Voices of BTM XV: Lisa Burdick

Lisa Burdick

I was going to write a compare and contrast essay about what it’s like to participate in both Boston Marathons. In fact it was almost done. That was before. That essay is saved on my hard drive waiting for the right time to share it, perhaps next year. Perhaps the year after that. 

Instead I find myself thinking about what it means to participate in this year’s Boston Theater Marathon. It’s got those words in the title, Boston and Marathon. Those two words will forever be linked with the events of Monday, April 15th, 2013. We can’t escape it. It’s like having your birthday be September 11th. People will always pause. 

But this is our event, 50+ playwrights from New England, 50+ theater companies from Boston, 50+ directors, dozens of crew members, hundreds of actors, all Bostonians. I find myself thinking about art’s place in the world after a tragedy. Here in Boston we’ve had our sports teams to inspire us after a difficult week. But we also have our artists. Art can inspire and heal and bring people together. The Boston Theater Marathon brings the theater community together like no other event. It inspires us too. Perhaps this year it will even help heal us. This city has adopted the phrase “Boston Strong” as a rallying cry, a slogan to use as we pick ourselves up and show our resiliency. The theater community understands because when we keep going, when we pick ourselves up, when we show our resiliency, when we say “Boston Strong,” we’re just finding a new way to say “The Show Must Go On.”

--Lisa Burdick


We hope you’ll join us on Sunday, May 12 for Boston Theater Marathon XV (and for The Warm-Up Laps on May 11!). Click here for tickets and event details. See you there!

Alumni news, in brief:

Emily Kaye Lazzaro’s Girls’ Sports opens this Friday at the Factory Theatre, produced by Fresh Ink…

Marvelous Fruit, Masha Obolensky’s most recent play, was selected as a PlayPenn finalist this year…

Lots of alums this year on the bill of Boston Theater Marathon XV: Plays by John Kuntz, K. Alexa Mavromatis, Ronan Noone, Rick Park, Michael S. Parsons, Wesley Savick (co-written with Michael Wartofsky), Phil Schroeder, Michael Towers, Sinan Ünel, and Joyce Van Dyke will be featured in the two-day event, May 11-12…

Taking Up Space, by John Greiner-Ferris, is one of seven new works in Provincetown Theater’s 2013 Spring Playwright’s Festival this weekend…

Monica Bauer blogs about Death by Talkback…

Plays and Playwrights of BTM XV

Saturday Matinee by Allan Appel

Cleavage by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

Violence by Robert B. Boulrice