Open Wardrobes

I haven't been keeping up with the blog much lately, owing primarily to the recent birth of my son. It has been a fairly eventful spring though in terms of writing, especially on the 10-minute play front. Circus of Fate was recently performed by The Renaissance Guild in San Antonio, Texas as part of their ActOne series, and has also been accepted by the MN Shorts Festival in Mankato, Minnesota this September. NUTS! was recently used by a class at Belleville Mennonite School in Pennsylvania and will be performed this summer as part of Summer Shorts 5: In the Garden in Williston, North Dakota. And a theater in the Philippines is planning on staging a Filipino translation of Look Mom, I Got a Job! this fall as part of a theater festival, that play's first production. My play Stalled Kiss is part of the Big Kiss Off, an event created by the Playwright Binge list, and I know it (along with many other Kiss plays) has already been used by one school so far. That project I am sure will bear fruit in its target date of Valentine's Day weekend, 2011 thanks to the efforts of Paul Barile who has spearheaded the project.

On the full-length front my mystery play A Slip in Time was recently performed by the International Academy of Suriname, my first South American production which means I have now had plays performed on six out of seven continents! (Now to find a way to be performed in Antarctica...) And lastly The Princess and the Moon is due to receive its premiere this summer with the Shade Tree Players in Bismarck, North Dakota (which I will be attending the opening night of), plus I just had an email the other day from a theater in Iowa that wants to produce the play this December. My published plays also have upcoming performances in Nebraska, New Mexico, Michigan, etc.

It feels good to have so much going on with my plays, and right now especially to finally be finding some success with the 10-minute ones. I've said this before, but in the end it comes down to just plugging away. Most of the above productions are the result of me sending plays out to various festivals and contests, and in the case of The Princess and the Moon, sending out on the order of 200 cold queries to theaters. The two upcoming productions gives me a success rate of 1% on those, which sounds low but for me just reinforces that it's a numbers game. As long as the play is a good one, send it out enough and you will eventually find that person who loves it and wants to put it on. And to hear that "Yes!" it what makes it all worthwhile.