Pages

Sunday, April 22, 2012

A good thing going

Okay, so I just have to share this. I talked to four of the playwrights from the Six Women Playwriting Festival last night and they're very jealous of The Drama Lab.

Turns out that their playwriting groups typically consist of three or four playwrights reading each others' work at one of their homes. They couldn't believe we get up to 20 people at our readings and meet in a real theater and have experienced actors read the plays.

In fact, Maureen Brady Johnson (she wrote All Things Must Pass) asked if we would read one of her 10-minute plays and send her the feedback. I never thought about doing something like this, but I'm always open to new ideas so if it's all right with all of you, I think we should give it a try (I'll take care of sending her the feedback).

Anyway, I just want to thank everyone for their continued support. It's you who've made the Drama Lab the success that it is!

And I want to send a special shout-out to Birgitta and Jim for letting us use their wonderful theater in the first place. Thank you so much!

Onward and upward!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

By leaps and bounds

Yep, that's how much we're growing. We had a whopping 21 people at our meeting last night, including 2 new readers and 2 new writers.

We started out by reading part 4 of my full-length comedy mystery, The Butler Did It! (No, we don't know who did it yet.)

Next we read Going Feral, a short wacky comedy based on a "hard-core" animal lover that Tim Phillips knew.

After that we read two hilarious scenes from Will Triangle, a detective spoof by Jeff Schmoyer, who has been one of our most insightful commenters over the last few months. I was glad to see him take the plunge into the playwriting waters.

We finished up with the first part of an ambitious adaptation of Paradise Lost by Jeff Keele, who has done a considerable amount of work with THEATREdART. One of our new readers, Buck Buchanan, got rave reviews for his sonorous reading of the part of Lucifer.

By the way, the interesting thing about having so many people is it makes my earlier poll question a moot point. If we I'd asked everyone whether they'd prefer to move the meeting date when we need to so that we could always get the stage, or keep the meetings on the second Monday and use the back room when we have to.

Well, if we keep getting 20+ people to our meetings--and I hope we do!--there's no way we can make the back room work. So if you guys can stay flexible, I promise I'll send out notice of any meeting changes as soon as I know.

Anyway, I've already confirmed with Jim Jackson that the stage is available at our normal meeting time next month, so let's plan to get together on Monday, May 14. Same MAT time. Same MAT channel.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

April meeting moved to Monday, April 16

The MAT is always a crazy place, what with classes and rehearsals and shows going on seemingly round the clock. But next week will be even crazier than usual because the MAT will be rehearsing not one but six casts for the upcoming Six Women Playwriting Festival.

For this reason, Jim has asked that we move our meeting to the third Monday of the month, April 16. This works out better anyway because it means we'll get to use the stage.

So I hope everyone can make it on the 16th. And believe me, we'll need you! We've got a record five pieces scheduled to be read.

Our May meeting will return to the second Monday of the month, May 14.