The waiting game of theatre.   The play is finally done.  Well not done because it’s never done done, but done-production-ready-done which means the playwright is ready to go into rehearsal to make whatever last tweaks/changes that there are to be made.   OK  - so I had a read of There or Here at PTNJ and the consensus has been reached of the play is production ready.   So now what?

I wait, I send it out,  I ask other people to send it out, I pray to the theatre gods, I watch The Secret on youtube forty-bazillion times (I actually don’t but perhaps I should), and I wonder how to make the ball start rolling…where will the personal tipping point happen.   Because for me - it ain’t done til it’s up on the stage.

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Writing from Playpenn in Philadelphia, land of brotherly love, humidity and play development. Working with the lovely and talented Michelle Volansky who is no longer a signature on the bottom of letters from theatres to me, and Amy Feinberg and graciously allowing us to co-exist with her in her house with her husband and two children. We are now calling it the Big Love House as we balance the precarious Mommy/Theatre Artist balance dance. Had a looong conversation with Emily Morse about that yesterday… we aspire to a theatre where all parents can work with childcare and no guilt. Does it help that Julia is singing songs from Annie?

First time Amy and I have actually worked together and it’s going really really well. Nice.

Working on THERE OR HERE - good work getting done I think. Laying in some clarifications in the play. Late nights… rewriting in my dreams and in the now-rainbow-script (todays pages are goldenrod). Getting a deep admiration for Paul Meshegian who put this whole thing together…

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birds opened last night - packed house, beautiful production - one of the few times I’ve really felt the design of a play of mine elevating and illuminating the text to the next level, the last scenes finally worked (rewriting up through previews, always nerve-wracking)…photos to come…homeward bound.

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off to the opening night of birds at Rorschach shortly… -  a “challenging” week to say the least but it’s an incredible production team, kick-ass design team, fabulous actors.  I can’t believe I’ve been here a week - a blur of rehearsals, previews and rewriting.   And I can’t believe I’m going tomorrow but the play continues on….always find that strange, how my presence is so not essential to that part of the process.  Strange good and strange weird….

Tired - but good tired….

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So casting is finally complete (spit three times so the theatre demons won’t cackle at my expense) for THERE OR HERE  at Playpenn in Philadelphia this summer.  This has been such a challenge - and I find myself wondering how we spread word for things before the internet?  Here I am writing a play that needs three East Indian actors (and my questions about myself writing a play that requires three East Indian actors are endless - is this a stupid move?  is this a savvy move?  who the hell am I to write a play about this?  how can I write about someone who I am not?  But I am always who I am not when I am writing.  Aren’t there hordes of East Indian actors dying to play a part written for them rather than just another minor role or begging someone to see that an actor of color can play anything (and why can’t I find them?) so says the white jewish girl from long island who has never has a jewish actress for the lead in what she likes to call her “big jew play”  The Last Seder.)

OK - I digress.   So we are cast - finally - for the workshop in Philly and I want to give major major kudos and large amounts of respect for Paul Meshejian who opted to choose this play, knowing casting would be a challenge.  I can’t wait to get started and meet everyone.

As for THERE OR HERE here - Sundance did an AMAZING reading that Philip Himberg directed in one short afternoon. Kind of one of those - wow, first reading and the play is working revelation readings - a nice audience, all theatre fans (and film agent).  Grateful on all accounts for those who kicked ass that day  - Marin Hinkle, Bernie White, Purva Bedi,  Viji Nathan, Aly Mawjii, Beth Ruscio, and the serendiptious theatre gods that pointed all directions to Purva (two mentions and then PlayPenn’s Paul Meshejian seeing her across the crowded room at the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Rep and saying “if she can act, we’ve found our Neera”.   There are so many ways there is magic in theatre and this is one of them - finding the right actors for a play and then having them take it to a whole other level.

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check out the interview on the Rorschach theatre blog.

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Sunday I fly off to DC for tech rehearsals and dress and opening for birds. I got the first taste a couple of weeks ago at the first readthrough and first few rehearsals. God, I love working with Wendy (McClellan) - brilliant at asking the right questions and a director I trust. I can’t always leave the process and not be nervous about what some director is doing to my play, but her I’m not nervous about, I just can’t wait to get back to see it. The space - an old church - is an inspiration (ok, lacking in air-conditioning but an inspiration) and the set - wow. Look at a drawing by Jake Muehlausen - brilliant designer.

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to tout fellow dog ear member Mickey Birnbaum -  I escaped and had a Mickey Birnbaum theatre weekend this past weekend, seeing Bleedrail at the Boston Court and Big Death and Little Death at The Road (still open so run, don’t walk to go).   It’s always fascinating - and somehow heartening (if that’s a word) - to see the evolution of other playwrights plays.  Both are plays I’ve read many draft of  -  both have been signifigantly rewritten over time, into produciton.  I always feel like everyone else’s plays spring forth fully formed and mine are reshaped painstakingly out of lumps of clay.  Just to see how Mickey’s successfully changed, became more defined, makes me feel like, oh, we’re all in the same long drawn out process of discovery.  Thank God!

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Ahhhh, the news from Sundance did send me into a tailspin -  one of 17 out of over 700 submissions…almost made it to Utah but not quite.  Lovely to know I was picked out of the pack without an nepotism moving me along…bummer that I have no insider track to get there.   So the good, the bad.  Another line for the resume but real sadness about not getting into something I really wanted to get into.   The good news - I AM going to Playpenn in Philadelphia to workshop There or Here in July.   It excites me - the response the play has been getting (semi-finalist at 7 Devils as well) - and now we are beating the bushes to find Indian actors in Philly for the three roles.   That puts me into the “isn’t the internet amazing” zone as I put out the call on big cheap and nyu and I’m getting contact by actors all over the world.  How did we used to do this?  How did we used to do anything?

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OK - I’m not starting this post by saying I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve blogged…I’m not I’m not I’m not….suffice it to say, happy chanukah, merry xmas, happy new year, happy valentines day and wishing you a splendiferous st patricks day tomorrow - There, I’m all caught up.

Seriously, though, I’ve been busy…not too busy to blog (I could give up falling asleep on the couch some night if I could stop the sleep from taking me over) perhaps but busy none the less. CUTS - the evening of plays by Dog Ear playwrights based on duplicity and a pair of scissors - opened at the ROAD THEATRE in North Hollywood, and is getting nice attention, though I haven’t been too thrilled with printed response to mine. It’s one of those frustrating things - a reviewer who has become a friend came and loved it but feels she can’t review it because she’s too close to many of the playwrights in the group. Then another reviewer comes from her paper and I get dissed. Somehow doesn’t seem fair. But I’m proud of what I see in the evening overall - and every time I look at it I am just so impressed by the other playwrights in the group, the wonderful ways in which they craft words. I do feel like I’m part of a playwright family that believes in theatre the way I believe in theatre.

Opening weekend of CUTS I was lucky enough to be brought to NY by First Look Theatre company for a firstlook@newplays workshop of BIRDS that my lovely and talented collaborator Wendy McClellan directed. The play went on a crash diet that week - lost over 20 pages - it was everything a workshop should be creatively. Which is wonderful because we’re opening the play at Rorschach Theatre in DC in June - Must say that I loved the cast - Deanna McGovern, Kathleen Butler, Aysan Celik, Matt Seidman, Jeremy Colpitts (and Brie Eley rocking with stage directions) and their input over the course of the week was invaluable. Also our stage manager Carol Sullivan was unbelievable. It brought me back to my old stomping ground at Tisch’s Dramatic Writing program where I went to grad school, so that was surreal, being back in NYC, without husband and child, writing til 2AM, and then heading down to 721 Broadway and encountering the familiar faces of Gary Garrison, Len Jenkins, Mark Dickerman, Robert Honor. Makes me always wonder about the alternate me, the one who didn’t go to Padua, didn’t move to LA, the me still wandering alphabet city somewhere…that me…was I that me that week?

And news - just got the word I received an DURFEE/ARC grant for birds at Rorschach, which gives us the money to bring in our designers of choice. Hurrah. AND I’m a finalist for Sundance Theatre Lab with my new play, THERE OR HERE, which just blows me away.

And one last thing - come to the Victory Theatre and see the upcoming reading of ….AND THE TWO ROMEOS….MARCH 25th, 8 pm…

more to come - soon I hope….

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