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One of my resolutions habit goals for this first quarter of 2018 is to get up close to more plays. The more you know, the more you know how, you know.  January is a long dark month for theatre people.  Only a few shows stand in the limelight this time of year. So when you can’t go to the theatre you bring the theatre to you.  My first week of 2018 had me reading seven play scripts, one of which was Lachlan Philpott’s Silent Disco, which may be the subject of another blog post some time because it is so damn good. There are literally thousands ofRead More →

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As we saunter into the fresh pastures of 2018, I permit myself to hope for a jolly good picnic of a year. I certainly have all the accoutrements of it. If it is true that planning is everything, to wit, to woo, absolutely everything is sorted and I haven’t a thing to worry about. I have procured a Michael Hyatt Full Focus Planner. Also known as an FFP.  A what? “Is that the full-priced version of the SDP, the Somewhat Distracted Planner?” my friends dryly enquired at our annual twixt-Christmas and New Year lunch.  Arched eyebrows were my reply. If you have ever made a newRead More →

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In: Playwriting, Theatre, Writing

A weird but inescapable fact— making theatre is to cause a huge group of artists with a huge variety of skills and creative drives to come together to produce a single, comprehensive, cohesive piece of art.  It’s a miracle that not more blood is spilt over it.Read More →

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In: Playwriting, Politics, Theatre, Writing

  The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. — Stella Adler I was reading an article about the 2014 film “Selma”, a Black rights film. The director was saying that the release of his film could not have been more timely, with the latest round of civil unrest regarding violence against black people in America. The Black Lives Matter movement had by then caught the attention of American and world media. He did not claim to have designed the film to coincide with the tumult,Read More →

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In: Plays, Playwriting, Reading Plays, Uncategorized, Writing

There’s revenge. Served hot from anger. There’s revenge served in cold measure. Then there’s revenge served neither hot nor especially cold. We call it justice. I’ve heard this play being described in various places as a dark comedy, a murder ballad, a riff on ancient myths, and a performance poem. It’s all those things. Bleeding clever clogs Cerini.Read More →

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In: Dramaturgy, Playwriting, Theatre, Uncategorized, Writing

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.” —Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904 Good Old Chekhov’s Gun Theory. It mostly works on the principle that everything within a story should be necessary to the telling of it.  Gun on stage?—someone gets shot for sure.Read More →

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In: Uncategorized, Writing

“Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty” —UK dramatist, William Archer. (Don’t worry, I’d not heard of him either. A largely unsung Scottish drama critic, playwright and dramaturge of the late 19th/early 20th century. His big claim to fame is his English translations of Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen.  But with this statement, he gets promoted to first-class genius. )Read More →

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In: Dramaturgy, Uncategorized, Writing

Watching movies should count as study time for writers. Along with reading novels, going to see plays and listening to radio drama. That is if you take the time to deconstruct your experience of them. And, good news,  you don’t have to be a lit major or a dramaturg to gain insights.Read More →