Boston Theater Marathon May 12!

That's right, it's marathon time again!  This year's Boston Theater Marathon will take place on Sunday, May 12, from noon until 10pm, at the Boston Center for the Arts/Calderwood Pavilion Theatre..  It'll feature 50 (yep, 50!) ten-minute plays by 50 New England playwrights, produced by 50 different theatre companies.  It's my very favorite theatrical event of the year. 

I'm fortunate to be included yet again--this will mark the 10th time I've had a play in the Marathon.  New Rep will produce my short, goofy play, Curse the Darkness.  Bridget O'Leary will direct Robert P. Murphy, Lisa Tucker, Erica Spyres, and one other actor (TBA).  My play will appear in the 3-4pm slot, but take the challenge and come for the entire day.  (I will be on hand to watch all 50 plays.  You can do it, too.  Pack a snack.  Dark chocolate is my secret.)

Not only is this an amazing way to see a huge cross-section of amazing Boston theatre, it's also a fundraiser for a good cause--the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund, which provided grants to members of the theatre community facing unexpected crises and dire needs (floods, fires, medical emergencies, theft, etc.).  So come have a blast and do some good at the same time.

To Binge or Not to Binge (or to Submit or not to Submit)?

Tomorrow, March 1st, we start the 22nd Playwright Submission Binge challenge, where a group of playwrights take up the challenge of submitting a play, every day, for 30 days.  I started this group 11 years ago, with the intention of making my marketing chores a little more fun (and effective).  What resulted was the creation of an extremely supportive and energetic online community of playwrights (almost 750 from around the world) who focus on the marketing and business side of playwriting.

Each day, after we submit our work, we report back to the group about what we submitted, where, and why.  The "what" helps tell other writers a bit about what we're writing.  The "where" is an act of great generosity--most people are able to share the submission guidelines and contact info.  The "why" is a tool that helps each writer focus on making smart submissions, targeting the right play to the right theatre, rather than indiscriminately scattering their scripts across rocky theatrical ground.

There is, justifiably, a question that's brought up about our endeavor:  Is submitting scripts actually worth it?  Don't most productions come about due to direct personal contacts?  Aren't you a hundred times more likely to get a script produced by someone you know, than by someone you've never met?

The answer is yes and no.  I think.  Let's find out.

I can say that the members of the Binge get a LOT of productions.  We did a member survey in 2011 that showed that almost 75% of our members got a reading, production, or publication directly as a result of their Binge submissions (the respondents to that survey were responsible for more than 2,700 submissions to theatres around the world over the course of those 30 days).

That being said, I think most professional, full-length productions are the result of relationships with theatres.  But each of us only has a limited number of contacts, whether we're newbies or if we've been at this for a while.  And sometimes (most of the time, actually), those contacts don't lead to a production, especially for full-length plays.  At that point, the writer has the option of either putting her script in a drawer, or doing some research and sending the script out to the right places (sending it to the wrong places is a complete waste of time, and, yes, there are mostly wrong places for each script).

I thought I'd look over my own readings and productions over the course of the past 12 months and see which happened as a result of non-invited submissions or from direct, personal contact.

Here's the list:  (it's not as impressive as it might seem--most of these are ten-minute plays)

• reading of Flight in NYC, from the id Theatre.  Well, this one's tricky.  They asked to do the reading, but only after the play was selected from a submission to the Seven Devils Playwriting Conference.  So this was an unconnected submission, originally.
• Production of Curse the Darkness by the EBE Ensemble in NYC.  Blind submission--I saw a listing somewhere, probably in the Binge.
• Production of Newton's Call in American Globe NYC-15-Minute Play Festival.  I'd worked with them before, but it was still a standard blind submission.
• Production of Organic Seed by Boston Actors Theatre. I'd submitted another play to them, in response to a call for scripts.  They did a reading, and later mentioned they were looking for plays for a summer play festival.  So it was kind of invited, but really it started due to a submission to a call for scripts.
• Curse the Darkness at Flathead Valley Community College and the Blue Slipper Festival in Montanta, and Seoul Players in South Korea.  All submissions to calls for scripts.
• Christmas Breaks produced by Playing on Air, a new radio program.  They approached me, after reading the script in an anthology produced by Playscripts.
• Second Look produced in the Boston Theater Marathon.  Blind submission process.
• will/did/is produced as part of the T Plays.  I was invited to participate (for my 3rd time in this festival).
• Fire on Earth, developed and produced by Fresh Ink.  I submitted to their call for scripts.  I think I'd met Jessie Baxter, the literary manager, once, but otherwise I didn't know them.
• Measuring Matthew produced as a film.  The director found me by stumbling across my web site.
• Pumpkin Patch produced outdoors in London by Liminal Space.  The director/producer happened to remember seeing the play in a festival in 2007, where she'd directed a different piece.
• Escape to Wonderland, read by City Theatre in Miami.  Blind submission.
• Flight workshopped by the Huntington Theatre Company.  Well, I submitted to compete with a very limited pool of other playwriting fellows.  But my initial HPF application was just a normal submission to a call for scripts--I went in not knowing the literary staff at all.  I got lucky.  I'm going to count this as a connected submission, but also keeping in mind that the initial contact was not.
• One-Minute Play Festival.  I was invited.
• Curse the Darkness and Second Look, produced at the Firehouse Center for the Arts.  Submission to a call for scripts.

So,  in the past year, submissions with no particular contacts yielded me 12 readings and productions.  And my connections/relationships/past work got me 6.  (For the record, in 2012, I submitted 87 scripts and 10 queries to various different theatre opportunities, both through contacts and blind.)

Which means, as much as I'd like to be able to count on a few choice e-mails and cups of coffee to keep getting my work onstage, I will be participating in Binge #22, trying to meet the challenge of getting my work out there.  (You can sign up here.)

I'm curious, though.  Do my results match up with yours?  I hope you'll leave a comment below and let me know how you find productions for your scripts.

Fire on Earth Opens Friday (and a fun preview video)

Yep, Fire on Earth opens this Friday at the Factory Theatre in Boston, produced by Fresh Ink.  Come check it out.  Oh, and check out this cool video that they put together of interviews with folks involved with the show (including me).

Fire on Earth opens February 1 at the Factory Theatre

My play, Fire on Earth, about the men behind the creation of the English Bible, opens February 1 at the Factory Theatre in Boston's South End.  The show is produced by the fabulous Fresh Ink Theatre and will run from February 1 - 16.  You can get your tickets here.

I am super excited by this production.  I've been at most of the rehearsals, and it's been an absolute joy to work with director Rebecca Bradshaw and our very talented cast (Omar Robinson, Bob Mussett, James Fay, Brett Malinoswki, and Scott Colford).  This is a play about three men whose faith and friendship face the most extreme tests, and I've loved watching the real-life friendships grow between everyone involved.

I've been working on this play for a super long time, with readings of the early version from Rough and Tumble in Boston, the Lida Project in Denver, and the Cotuit Center for the Arts on Cape Cod, and then developed with most recent version with the Huntington Theatre Company, Rhombus, and Fresh Ink.  Now it's finally time to see the results of all the development, fully produced, on stage.
Did I mentioned that I'm excited about this one?  I hope you'll check it out.

(Look for more photos here soon, as we get some promo and production images.)

My novel, Moving (a life in boxes), is now an ebook!

My newest novel, Moving (a life in boxes), has just been released as an ebook.The story is about a married couple, Jed and Lila, who are compulsive movers. For them, moving boxes, packing tape, and open houses are the ultimate aphrodisiacs. They meet on a moving day, Jed proposes on a moving day, and they end up moving 18 times in 18 years. They move for fun, to recover from tragedy, and for new opportunities—until Lila decides she wants them to put down roots, in Boston.  Her decision pushes their marriage to its limits.

This is a novel about a marriage challenged by wanderlust, regular old lust, obsession, infertility and adoption, and race. Really, it's a book for grown-ups about marriage and what happens when you and the person you married aren't the same people you were at your wedding.

Moving (a life in boxes) is available from Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble, for $2.99.  (You don't need to have an e-reader to read the book--at Smashwords you can buy a pdf that you can read on your computer, or you can read Kindle books on your PC with a free app.)

I hope you'll check it out and help spread the word.  Any actions you take--rating the book on Amazon or Goodreads, reviewing the book on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords, or mentioning it to your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter--will help this book find an audience.  Word-of-mouth from my friends and colleagues will be the single most important factor in the success of this book.  The word started going out yesterday, and I'm already grateful for the responses I've gotten.

Balancing Act

Balance.  That's the trick in any writer's life--how do I balance the need and urge to write and attempt to have some sort of career, with the rest of life?  Now that I've begun farming, that balancing act has gotten a little trickier.  In some ways, adding farming to my life makes sense precisely because it provides a counterpoint to hours spent at a desk staring at a computer screen, or in a dark theatre at rehearsal.  Most of my farming time is spent outside, engaged in physical labor, all while solving some very specific physical puzzles--how do I grow the most vegetables possible, in a specific plot of land, in the amount of time afforded by daylight and my energy and budget.  And even more important, it helps me more fully experience the world and meet new people (so I have more to write about).

But in adding this new avocation to my life, the question arose--would it crowd out writing and theatre?  In my ideal life, I would love to spend half of my year on farming and half of it writing.  Theoretically, farming has the potential to work this way, as long as I decide not to extend my growing season with greenhouses and other techniques.  I can get crops in the ground in April and stop farming in October, and spend the rest of the time on art.

This arrangement is not likely to pay a living wage.  Of course, neither writing plays or farming full time is likely to make that happen.  Theoretically splitting my time between writing and farming will slow my writing career.  I might write less and get less of my work published and produced.  That's a tradeoff I'd have to consciously choose, much as I knew that becoming a father would make me write less, but also lead to a more fulfilling life (I'm glad I made the choice I did).

I'm a numbers guy, as many of you know.  For a while, I've been trying to track the time I spend writing and marketing my work.  This year, I tracked my time even more closely than ever, trying to understand how this writing/farming split might work.  As the end of the year nears, here's how I've spent my time:

Writing (actual writing and research):  386 hours  (my goal was 400.  Just missed it!)

Rehearsals, Meetings & Productions of my work:  274 hours

Marketing (including submissions, networking, admin, blogging):  231 hours


For an entire writing career time of about 891 hours.



And for farming (including field work, planning, marketing, classes, etc.):  734 hours

Driving to our farm (which is about 45-60 minutes from home):  191 hours


For writing I did not track commuting time (but perhaps I should), but I went to about 100 meetings, mostly in town, and that would still add up to another 100 hours, by bike, T, and car.


So if I were to include commuting and travel time, I spent about 1,000 hours on my writing stuff, and about 925 on farming.  (All of these are under-reported a bit, especially marketing, e-mail, and web time.)

Oddly enough, last year, when I tracked actual writing time and rehearsal time together, I spent about 600 hours on both, and an additional 217 hours on marketing.   That means that this year, even though I added farming to the mix, I actually ended up writing a little bit more than I did before.  Which gets back to the old addage of, "if you want something done, ask a busy person."  Sometimes, if you want to do more, you just need to do more.  Obviously, there are a limited number of hours in the day, so I did cut things out, and I had a lot of help and forbearance from my family. 

The good news is that looking at these numbers makes me feel like I actually have a chance at finding this writing farm/balance that I'm searching for.  In 2013, I'll be farming twice as much land, but am hoping not to spend much more time doing it (I'm getting faster at doing stuff as I gain skills).

Do any of you track your writing time?  If so, how many hours to you spend actually writing?  Do you have time goals for the week, month, year?  I hope you'll comment and share.

My Current Juggling Act

Juggling takes a lot of focus, whether it's clubs or writing projects.

Now that farming season has ended, my writing season has picked up full speed.  I've got a whole bunch of projects that I'm juggling at the moment, as well as upcoming productions.  Here is some of what I'm up to:

• My latest novel, Moving (A Life in Boxes), will be coming out as an ebook in about two weeks.  I've got make sure people know about it and finish getting it proofread and formatted.
• I'm about to do revisions on the book for a musical (a commissioned work) adaptation of Penny Noyce's novel, Lost In Lexicon.
• I just finished a first draft of a new full-length play, Distant Neighbors, and am working on it in Rhombus and in the New Voices @ New Rep program.
• We start rehearsals for Fire on Earth with Fresh Ink. on Monday, and I'll be making revisions fairly steadily until we open on February 1 at the Factory Theatre in Boston.
• I have a couple short plays in the One-Minute Play Festival coming to Boston Playwrights Theatre. Rehearsals start soon, but revisions are quick on short plays.
• I'm supposed to write a ten-minute play, set in a garden, for production this spring in London by a small company there.  (They performed Pumpkin Patch last year.)
• If I can clear the decks a little, I'm ready to finish the next draft of an historical novel about Civil War hero Robert Smalls.
• And I have two short plays in the upcoming New Works Festival at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport (but shouldn't have to do rewrites on them).

It's a good thing I'm not farming over the winter.  It seems like a lot of balls to have in the air, but I actually find myself more productive when I'm juggling a lot of projects at once.  It forces me to stay disciplined.  And one thing I've learned over my years writing is that I never know which project might suddenly catch fire and find the right people at the right time and have a chance to leap forward to find a larger audience.  Maybe it'll be one of these.  Maybe it'll be the next one.  Or the one after that.

And sometimes I miss a ball and they all come crashing down for a while.  But like in juggling, it's just a matter of picking them back up and starting over.

Yep, every juggler drops the balls sometimes. There's nothing to do but pick them up and start over.