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….