Zoom Rebroadcast: The Making of Medea’s Medea

The Making of Medea's Medea: A Mockumentary Play by Chas Belov, in a 45-minute version, will have a rebroadcast by Third Citizen Theatre Company for one week (March 8, 7 am, to March 15, 7 pm), together with three other shorts (5-15 minutes each) inspired by Greek mythology on the theme of revenge as part …

October 18 Reading: Earthquake Weather

My work-in-progress comedy-fantasy Earthquake Weather will have an online staged reading on October 18, 2020, produced by Playwrights' Center of San Francisco, directed by Libby Vega and performed by Roberta Morris, Karen Offereins, Julie Sarabia, Ava Maag, and Cary Ann Rosko. San Francisco: Astronomical rents. San Andreas Fault. Elves. Shoe-making, home-wrecking elves. Four women – …

Sex on Stage

I've made a post on my other blog, The Lark's Nest, about sex on stage. Explicit content/NSFW.

Playwright, sheath thy checklist

When playwrights go to theatre, we presumably go to enjoy ourselves. We may be thrilled, bored, surprised, offended, delighted, so many possible reactions. When playwrights are called on to give feedback on other playwrights' work, we suddenly become scientists, detectives, housekeepers. Scientist, detective, and housekeeper are honorable professions. Nevertheless, I believe the practice of bringing …

How do you recommend to an omnivore?

I love iTunes, and I love the variety of songs I can purchase from the iTunes store. But sometimes I wonder what their computers must "think" of my varied tastes. I even wonder whether I might be messing up their recommendation software. And a similar question applies to theatres who want to market to me. …

Reaching 100: on being promiscuous

A year or three ago, Theatre Bay Area Magazine mentioned that it had a database which allowed them to track audience members across multiple theatres' productions. They mentioned that one audience member was particularly "promiscuous" in their theatregoing, crossing the threshhold of ninety-some Bay Area theatres in three years. That theatregoer is not me, but …

Making fire in a crowded theatre

If realism in theatre is so important, why doesn't smoke go away when the scene ends? Why isn't the smoke instantly smellable throughout the theatre rather than wandering here and there according to the vagaries of physics and the ventilation system or lack thereof, turning up in ones nostrils several minutes later, taking this audience …

Erasing history

Some theatre Web sites are not particularly playwright-friendly. There is some very basic information theatre Web sites need to contain to attract the playwrights and plays they want and keep unsuitable ones away.