BTM XVI -- thanks everyone!

Thank you to everyone who played a role (onstage or off) in the success of Boston Theater Marathon XVI yesterday! We hope you had an amazing time...we sure did!!!

BTM XVI today!

Don't miss Boston Theater Marathon XVI! Tickets

Voices of BTM XVI: Abbey Fenbert

Abbey Fenbert

"I think all plays should be ten minutes long." 
- My Dad

The basic criterion by which I gauge all works of theater I create or consume is this: Am I bored now? A play can be long, it can be slow, it can be quiet or experimental or sad — but like hell does a play have the right to bore me. That’s offensive.

We’re a civilization of zero time. If my play’s dull, I’ve stolen your time and whittled ever so slightly at your will to live and now you’re counting the vowels in the program and the tree they killed to print it died for nothing and it’s all my fault.

High stakes yo.

And we who hoard time will be skeptical of theater in marathon form. But ask yourself the only question that matters: Are you bored yet? At a festival like BTM, you cannot be bored. Your dad cannot be bored. Every ten minutes, the world changes.

Voices of BTM XVI: Rick Park

Rick Park

The good news: my play got accepted into the Boston Theater Marathon! The bad news: I won’t be in town to see it. I’ll be at a graduation in Tampa. This happened last year too: I got a play in the BTM and had to be at a work conference in Las Vegas (seriously). So I never got to see the magic of Maureen Keiller, Sarah Newhouse and Dorothy Dwyer performing From Your Mouth to God’s Ears directed by Allyn Burrows for Actors' Shakespeare Project (although I was thrilled to hear it at their first rehearsal). And now it is happening again—I will be lucky to see a run thru of The Doppler of My Heart in a rehearsal room. But it’s not just seeing my own plays that I will miss (again) this year. There are so many other things that I always look forward to that I will have to miss again. So here are ten things that I will miss by not being at the Calderwood that Sunday in May:

Voices of BTM XVI: Stefan Lanfer

Stefan Lanfer

Last year, we bought a family membership to Boston’s Museum of Science. We’ve taken our kids there a dozen times since. It is such a playground of the mind. There is so much to see and do. Yet, without fail, whenever we go, my seven year old, James, drags one of us, or all of us back to the lightning show, to that massive, whirring Van de Graff Machine and its display of awesome electric power. He has seen it so many times, he could give the presentation himself.

There is just something irresistible about lightning.

Jon Jory, long-time producing director at the Actors Theatre of Louisville has likened the 10-minute play to a “theatrical bolt of lightning.” This Sunday, at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston’s South End, there is lightning in the forecast - 10 hours of lightning strikes in the 16^th annual (and my first) Boston Theater Marathon. “It doesn’t last long,” Jory continued, “but its power can stand your hair on end.”

BTM XVI's Warm-Up Laps this Saturday, May 10

This Saturday's Warm-Up Laps -- readings of three full-length plays -- will feature Romeo Chang by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich at 12 p.m. (sponsored by SpeakEasy Stage Company); Judith by Julian Olf at 2 p.m. (sponsored by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); and One Day Earlier by Constance Congdon at 4 p.m. (sponsored by Huntington Theatre Company). The Warm-Up Laps are presented in collaboration with The Boston Center for the Arts and their resident theatres in Hall A on the second floor of the Calderwood Pavilion. The readings are free and open to the public.

BTM XVI running order announced!

BTM XVI SCHEDULE OF PLAYS

12:00 - 1:00 PM

William Donnelly’s Grass Hog, Battleground State

Alan Brody’s Reassurance, Emerson Stage

Toby Armour’s Machsom Watch, Lau Lapides Company 

Sherry Kramer’s Cake, Moonbox Productions

Michele Markarian’s Lies, Fort Point Theatre Channel

Brandon M. Crose’s Going Viral, Boston Actors Theater

1:00 - 2:00 PM

Rick Park’s The Doppler Of My Heart, Company One

Charles Draghi’s The Sin Eater, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Robert Brustein’s The Press Assess…, Suffolk Theatre Dept. 

Karla Sorenson’s [Dis]Connected, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

Richard Dresser’s Love, Dad, American Repertory Theater

Voices of BTM XVI: Hortense Gerardo

"No photos, please." Hortense Gerardo

The Boston Theater Marathon, like its namesake running event, has become a rite of spring to the theatrical community, thanks to the vision and sustained excellence in stewardship of its founder, Kate Snodgrass. I've never run a marathon, but I do like running in short bursts. Three miles at a time, tops. In high school I was on the track team, and I liked running low hurdles.  Hundred meters. And I was fast, but I kept undercutting my time because I couldn't help looking behind when the baton was being passed to me in the relays, or looking to the side in a heat when someone was about to pass. I think those bad habits are emblematic of the way I used to approach my work as a playwright.

Voices of BTM XVI: Lisa Kenner Grissom

Lisa Kenner Grissom

I am thrilled to be back at the Boston Theater Marathon and so honored to be among the cadre of talented writers, directors, actors, stage managers—and everyone behind the scenes—who make this Boston theatre tradition happen. I was born in Boston, raised in Swampscott, and have stomped on many of Beantown’s grounds from Brighton and Brookline to Newton and Cambridge. To have my work performed here, where my friends and family can experience what I do, is truly a dream come true.

In reflecting on this year’s Marathon, I was reminded of the first time I met Kate Snodgrass. It was the summer of 2010 at the Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive, a ten-day immersive writing workshop led by some of the finest dramatists and theatre professionals in the country including Gary Garrison, Mark Bly—and Kate.

Voices of BTM XVI: Richard Schotter and Phil Schroeder

Richard Schotter

Richard Schotter and Phil Schroeder (who collaborated on the music included in Richard’s The Sussman Variations at BPT in 2012) have joined forces once again, this time for the ten-minute musical The House of All Alone about a father and daughter dealing with ageing and illness. I had some questions…

KAM: I can only imagine the complications of writing a ten-minute musical (or any musical, for that matter). When I think about people writing songs together, I think of Elton John and Bernie Taupin faxing lyrics and music back and forth to one another. What’s your process like?

PS: At least me and Richard aren’t sharing a small flat in England somewhere like those guys were in the beginning. It’s a lot like passing notes back and forth, though. He writes a few pages, I score as much as I can. We actually did start in the same room together at the beginning, which was great. But that was in January and most everything after that has been shared electronically.

Voices of BTM XVI: David Susman

David Susman

Last year was my first experience with the Boston Theater Marathon. I loved it, of course. A full day of theater—what’s not to love? It was a privilege to see my play staged alongside works by playwrights I’ve admired, and to be part of Boston’s theater community.

But I didn’t fully understand or appreciate the magnificence of the event. I was a novice, and I was caught up in my own wide-eyed enjoyment. Since then, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that a play festival—even a “regular” one, a small one—has a hundred moving parts. I’ve learned that a festival organizer has to be, all at once, a logician, a visionary, a personnel director, a motivator, a taskmaster, a promoter, a cheerleader, and a hell of a hard worker. I’ve learned that 53 plays in ten hours is insanely ambitious. Lunacy, really. It shouldn’t be possible. But it happens every year, and happens wonderfully. The fact that proceeds are given to an excellent cause only makes me love it more.

New BTM branding unveiled!

BTM XVI's One-Minute Sprints

The Dramatists Guild New England and Boston Playwrights' Theatre are co-hosting the One-Minute Sprints as part of the annual Boston Theater Marathon (BTM) weekend.

What’s a One-Minute Sprint? It’s a one-minute play on the theme of “TIME IS RUNNING OUT” that will be read by four very talented Bostonian actors(two men, two women). It’s great fun and a chance to hear many different voices.

WHAT | The One-Minute Sprints (a.k.a. one-minute plays) as part of the BTM Warm-Up Laps readings at the Boston Theater Marathon
WHEN | Saturday, May 10, 2014
WHERE | The Calderwood Pavilion, Deane Rehearsal Hall (2nd Floor)

Plays and playwrights of BTM XVI

Six Piece Chicken McNuggets by Amy Adler

Machsom Watch by Toby Armour

The Accident by Richard Ballon

Reassurance by Alan Brody

Eskimo Pie by Stephanie Brownell

This is what an avalanche of BTM XVI submissions looks like...

...in case you were wondering!

BTM XVI deadline Nov. 15

The Boston Theater Marathon (BTM) will be held in May and will benefit a designated charity. The BTM will include 50 plays to be performed by hundreds of Boston’s actors, directors, technicians, and volunteers, each one produced by one of at least 50 New England theatre companies.

The submission deadline is November 15. Acceptance will be acknowledged in early spring.

Script Eligibility

• All scripts must play under 10 minutes.
• Ten pages maximum. IF YOUR PLAY IS MORE THAN 10 PAGES LONG, IT WILL BE INELIGIBLE FOR THE FESTIVAL.
• Please use a 10-point font or larger.
• No more than two submissions per author. This includes coauthored pieces.
• Minimal sets and props suggested.
• Submissions will be accepted from New England-area playwrights only. The states of New England are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
• New England does not include New York. Sorry. 

Signs of fall

It's not just the crisp evening air giving us a hint of the season to come: This envelope holds the first submission to Boston Theater Marathon XVI!