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...

McGough/McGough

 

Walt -- sideline, or plan B?

'The Haberdasher' opens tonight!

Alumni news, in brief:

Cliff Odle's Our Girl in Trenton will be produced as part of the CFA's New Play Initiative, opening on Oct. 17. The play is also the School of Theatre's official 2014 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival entry...

The Compass Rose by Ronan Noone was nominated for four awards at Origin Theatre's 1st Irish Festival -- Best Play, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The play will soon be available on Indie Theater Now... 

Lydia Diamond began her year-long residency at the American Voices New Play Institute at D.C.'s Arena Stage on Oct. 1...

The Farm by Walt McGough is onstage at Penguin Rep through Oct. 20...

It Came From Rhombus!

Hear scenes from some of the plays Rhombus playwrights' group has developed over the past ten years in the anniversary extravaganza It Came From Rhombus! The evening will include readings of work by past and present Rhombus members, which is a roster of BPT and BTM alums. Proceeds from the event will benefit Rhombus' creative home -- Boston Playwrights' Theatre!

Monday, October 7, 7 p.m.
Facebook event here

Alumni news, in brief:

Kate Snodgrass will be on the "Playwrights Creating Opportunities" panel at next month's Dramatists Guild National Conference in Chicago...

Ronan Noone's The Second Girl will be one of the Vineyard Playhouse's Monday Night Specials (the theatre's summer reading series of new plays) on Aug. 5...

Argos Productions will ring in 2014 with a production of Walt McGough's The Haberdasher! A Tale of Derring-Do!...

Jonathon Myers' current interactive project, featured on Polygon...

We blog: John Kuntz on his "80s ladies"; things Colleen Hughes learned from the 1991 classic My Girl; Walt McGough on the immediacy at the heart of playwriting...

Opening night for Paper City Phoenix

Boston Actors Theater is producing a three weekend run of Walt McGough's Paper City Phoenix, right here at BPT. It opens tonight. Break legs, everyone!

Alumni news, in brief:

Walt McGough’s Paper City Phoenix opens this week, produced by Boston Actors Theater…

Ronan Noone and Kate Snodgrass will join Richard Dresser this weekend to respond to ten-minute plays in the annual installment of Salem Theatre Company's Moments of Play. Meanwhile, Ronan’s Brendan will make its West Coast premiere at Theatre Banshee in Los Angeles…

John Greiner-Ferris, Ginger Lazarus, and Emily Kaye Lazzaro are all taking a Mad Dash this weekend with Fresh Ink Theatre and Interim Playwrights…

Learn to write a ten-minute play with M. Lynda Robinson, in her four-week workshop at The Gloucester Writers Center…

Alumni news, in brief:

Melinda Lopez talks about Becoming Cuba with The Coast News…

Lydia Diamond contributed the script to Central Square Theater’s Never Far From Home: Love Songs About Leaving, which opens next week…

Zayd Dohrn’s new play Muckrakers opens next week at Barrington Stage…

Rick Park is The Duke in Commonwealth Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, opening in July…

“It’s the connection,” says Walt McGough…

Alumni news, in brief:

A nice review of Karen Zacarías' The Book Club Play at Atlanta's Horizon Theatre...

Monica Bauer's Porter's Will is on the bill of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity Reading Series on June 8...

Ginger Lazarus contributed to the scripts of not one, but two films (Love Hurts and Behind the Scenes of Love Hurts) selected for the "Best Of" night at this year's Boston 48 Hour Film Project on June 11...

Ronan Noone was part of this year's Dorset Theatre Festival Writers Retreat (hosted by Theresa Rebeck, in collaboration with The Lark New Play Development Center)...

Underground Railway Theater's Distracted (directed by Wes Savick) is a Boston Globe Critics' Pick...

Walt McGough offers a .gif to the world (well, three of them, to be exact)...

Alumni news, in brief:

A preview of Monica Bauer's The Maternal Instinct, which bows at the Brighton Fringe tomorrow...

Molly Smith Metzler on the origins of Close Up Space, which plays at Houston's Main Street Theater through June 16...

Karen Zacarías was the opening keynote speaker at the One Theatre World conference earlier this month. In this Q&A, Karen talks a little about her early inspirations, upcoming projects, and why she'd like to have a glass of wine with Marlo Thomas (Can I come too?)...

Work by Zayd Dohrn (and wife Rachel DeWoskin) is included in the current issue of 236...

Chicago's Sideshow Theatre Company (for which Walt McGough is literary manager) is one of four theatres selected for the inaugural class of the Victory Gardens Theater's Resident Theater Program...

Alumni news, in brief:

Zayd Dohrn's Long Way Go Down opens this week (May 17) at the Art of Acting Studio in Los Angeles, in a production by its professional company, the Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater...

The Book Club Play by Karen Zacarías opens at Horizon Theatre in Atlanta May 16...

New plays by Peter Floyd, Deirdre Girard, K. Alexa Mavromatis (whose play features fellow alum Steven Barkhimer), and BTM vet Patrick Gabridge -- this season's New Voices @ New Rep Playwriting Fellows -- will be read next week in New Rep's Festival of New Voices...

The Farm by Walt McGough (which was part of our 2011-12 season) will open at Stony Point, NY's Penguin Rep in September...

Read about Werner Trieschmann's recent project with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic...

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...

Alumni news, in brief:

Lots to look forward to in the way of alumni productions this spring and summer…and beyond. Here’s a round-up (by no means all-inclusive, of course):

John Greiner-Ferris’ Plank will get “Fresh Produce-d” by NYC’s The Glass Eye on April 18…

Can’t Wait Productions will present MJ Halberstdt’s The DaVinci Commission in May…

Molly Smith Metzler’s Close Up Space opens at Houston’s Main Street Theater on May 23…

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:

Donna Sorbello was one in a cast of very familiar faces in ABC's The Makeover, which was filmed in Boston last summer. If you didn't catch it, look for it in re-runs on the Hallmark Channel...

M. Lynda Robinson – and members of her 10-minute play workshop at the Gloucester Writers Center – will present staged readings of new work on Feb 10…

Emily Kaye Lazzaro will next appear onstage in Heart & Dagger’s production of A Dream Play, opening on Feb. 22…

Alumni news, in brief:

Plays by Walt McGough (Paper City Phoenix) and Masha Obolensky (Marvelous Fruit) are finalists for this summer’s Source Festival in Washington, D.C….

John Kuntz was voted Broadway World Boston's Best Actor (Medium Theatre) for Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of The Hotel Nepenthe (which he also wrote)…

Alumni news, in brief:

Mark your calendars for Jan. 5-7! Lots of alums have contributed brand new one-minute plays to debut in the second annual Boston One-Minute Play Festival. In fact, most of the playwrights have some sort of connection to BPT -- take a look: Liz Duffy Adams, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich, Steven Bogart, Michael Bradford, Elisabeth Burdick, Elenor Burgess, Bill Doncaster, Thom Dunn, Stephen Faria, Peter Floyd, Patrick Gabridge, Deirdre Girard, Kirsten Greenidge, David Valdes Greenwood, Israel Horovitz, Colleen M. Hughes, Dan Hunter, Obehi Janice, Lila Rose Kaplan, Ginger Lazarus, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Christopher Lockheardt, K. Alexa Mavromatis, Grant MacDermott, Walt McGough, James McLindon, Tyler Monroe, Nina Louise Morrison, Mwalim *7, Natalia Naman, Jack Neary, Rick Park, Lindsay Soson, Noah Tobin, Ken Urban, Joyce Van Dyke, and Jaclyn Villano. See you there…

Alumni news, in brief:

One-act plays by Michael Parsons (The Lighthouse) and Jaclyn Villano (The Rain Fell Up), and ten-minute plays by MJ Halberstadt (w4m) and Jaclyn Villano (Ratings Worthy) will be presented at the KCACTF Region 1 Festival. The event will be held in Hyannis in January...

Walt McGough has been announced as one of the Huntington Theatre Company’s 2012-14 cohort of Huntington Playwriting Fellows. Catch a reading of his play The Haberdasher tonight at 7 p.m. at BPT, part of Boston Actors Theater’s Beantown Reading Series…

A very nice review of Fresh Ink’s production of Ginger Lazarus’ The Embryos, which starts its final weekend of performances on Thursday...

Alumni news, in brief:

Not one, but two opportunities to celebrate the talents of Steve Barkhimer this week: On Sept. 13, Bark opens in Stoneham Theatre’s Lumberjacks in Love, and the following night his Blood Rose Rising: Immaterial Girl (which he co-wrote with Ben Evett) opens at Naga in Cambridge…

Melinda Lopez takes a bow this week in The Mother F**ker with the Hat at SpeakEasy Stage…

Hey, Game of Thrones fans: Here are some screen savers of the landscapes from Disruptor Beam’s social game Game of Thrones Ascent, for which own Jonathon Myers is narrative designer and writer…

Walt McGough’s Priscilla Dreams the Answer will soon be published by Playscripts…