New Year, New Goals, New Shows

2016 has come to a close and 2017 has begun. In the past I’ve talked about how I’ve wanted to spend the new year blogging more, writing more, producing more content. I think I write a variation of this blog every year. this year, the goals are the same; blog more, write more, create more content.

Lets look at what I’ve written in the past year though. I adapted my play  #JohnDoe from podcast format to stage format and had it performed by my local theater, Hays Community Theater, in late April/early May. You can watch these (not very well recorded but still) performances on my YouTube page.

In late May/early June I worked on three new short plays; The Suicide Club (based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson), A Knack For Living (a play set in the old west), and Moonlight (based on The Moonlight Road by Ambrose Bierce). At least two of these will be performed in the upcoming season of Sherri’s Playhouse, heard on the podcast Chatting With Sherri (the same podcast where Murder At Home and #JohnDoe premiered). In addition, I wrote some new 10-minute plays including Thoughts And Prayers in response to the Orlando shooting in June, which was performed in Kalamazoo, MI.

In December, I started work directing a new play for Sherri’s Playhouse as well, Sherlock Holmes and the Terror By Night Train. I came up with the story, my writing partner wrote the script, and I added in additional material. I’m really proud of this cast and can’t wait to share this story with you. It’s coming January 29th.

What does 2017 hold for me? I’m hoping to get Warning Shots, my monologue for young female actor, into the hands of some students for forensic competitions this year. I’d also like to get Superstar, a 10-minute two-hander, into some students hands as well. Both of these are available here on my website, along with some other free scripts. I’m working on an adaptation of the medieval poem The Owl And The Nightingale,  that I think would make for an interesting contemporary political themed piece.

Other goals include getting #JohnDoe into other theaters, seeing more productions of Tom Sawyer and Allie in Wonderland, getting a production of my adaptation of A Christmas Carol and continue writing about the arts and arts advocacy as needed.

So here is to more blogging, more writing, more content creation in 2017 (it probably won’t happen by the way 😉 )

#PlaywrightRespect and why it’s important

If you missed the hullabaloo over the weekend regarding the #PlaywrightRespect hashtag on Twitter, here is an overview. Saturday, the talented Donna Hoke posted a call for new, never produced, never published ten-minute plays from a group called Words Players. Donna went into great detail about WHY this call was offensive to playwrights in her blog post (which I linked to in a previous blog) and suggested tweeting about, using Facebook to spread the word, etc, using the hashtag #PlaywrightRespect. If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you saw that I was madly tweeting and retweeting about it. Words Players responded by not allowing anyone to post on their Facebook page and ignoring the tweets and hashtag. When this same issue was presented last year at this time, the management at Words Players responded with,”if you don’t like it, don’t submit”. Which is a response many of us chose to not do last year and this year.

The respected theater producer and blogger Howard Sherman picked up on the issue and blogged about it himself on Sunday. In that blog, a commentator who works with Words Players asked why this was such a big deal.

This is why.

I’m a working playwright, involved primarily in Theater for Young Audiences and community theater. I work with a lot of bright kids, smart talented kids, with aspirations of being theater teachers, dance teachers, English teachers or performers. During a recent rehearsal of a big name Music Theater International (MTI) licensed musical, I noticed the actors were taking minor liberties. Skipping a word here, a line there, rearranging words. To most people, this would not be a big deal, but I wanted to take this opportunity to teach these 16-21 years old (with a few 30 year olds and older thrown in) something. I sat down and opened up MTI’s licensing agreement at the front of the script and read to them and had them read along, the agreement that we are not allowed to change words, etc as written. It was like seeing a light bulb go off. This was something they had never been taught.  As I explained, “even if I wasn’t a writer and this wasn’t a hot button issue with me, I would still be talking to you about this because this is what the license says we have to do.”

The #PlaywrightRespect hashtag was chosen because that is what theaters are not doing when they make blanket changes, lines, gender, etc. without at least consulting the playwright. There is a difference between interpretation and changes to the script. Here’s an example, I recently had a production of my TYA adaption of Alice in Wonderland done by a children’s theater education program in Atlanta. My script says this:

HATTER crosses to the table, sits down and the chair breaks. He sighs and begins to work on it.

What they did was one of the funniest, couple of minutes of physical comedy I’ve seen a young actor do. It wasn’t anything I had imagined, but it was a legit choice that respected what I wrote. However, they respected every written word. They had a chair break and they had the Mad Hatter work on the chair. They said every word of dialogue as written.

We could choose to not send in our plays, and many of us have made that choice. HOWEVER, the reason this is an issue to many of us is because we share the same goals as you and your company do, to educate the next generation of theater and art creators and that starts with teaching respect for the writer’s words. The writer’s who have spent hours, days, weeks, etc into crafting a play that you want to produce. By asking us to write a brand new work, even one that is ten minutes long, without respecting the words and the time it takes to write that, is insulting to us. It’s like asking for a gift and then breaking it because it wasn’t the right color, or whatever. It doesn’t teach children about the collaborative nature of theater but rather encourages a culture of entitlement.

Summer Lovin’ (The Theater)

Last summer (2014) I thought was going to be my busy summer theater summer, but it looks like this year is just going to be as busy. Last year, it was acting in Into The Woods for Hays Community Theater, acting in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for Phillipsburg Community Theater, and acting and directing a show for Sherri’s Playhouse, heard on BlogTalkRadio. I then finished the summer with a stage version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. this year, I’m co-directing Legally Blonde for Hays Community Theater (my home stage), Allie In Wonderland will be performed in Stockton, KS as the inaugural play for Rooks County Community Theater, and I’ll once again be writing, directing, and acting in Sherri’s Playhouse. Plus, I need to do edits on one play and work on some others. I also have a potential commission coming up, so fingers crossed for that. I’m also wanting to make a trip this summer to Hutchinson, KS for Smallville ComicCon and to see the Hutchinson Community Theater production of It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman! (aka The Superman musical) and to Denver for Book of Mormon!

Yes I’m crazy like that, but I’m also the same guy that flew to Atlanta on a Thursday and back to Kansas on a Friday to see PageOne Studios there do Allie In Wonderland. You may have noticed there’s some pictures from that show on my website. I’ve also updated my webpage to include FREE SCRIPTS! PDF copies of some of my monologues, one-minute plays, and duets are available for download, perusal, and performance. I just ask that I’m informed of the performances. Right now you’ll find 13 original works up there. Why 13? Well 13 is my lucky number, that’s why.

I’ll try to blog as often as I can, but with a summer this busy…

A GoFundMe Campaign

Dear Friends,

Yes, I consider you a friend if you read and follow this blog. If you follow me on my Facebook page, you know that I’ve launched a GoFundMe Campaign. Why? Well, my “brilliant” (not my words, the words of the producing company 😉 ) play ALLIE IN WONDERLAND is being produced by the good folks at Page One Studios in Roswell, GA (that’s just outside of Atlanta) in March. That also marks the 5th year anniversary of Allie In Wonderland’s premiere performance in HIill City, KS. I would love to “travel down the rabbit hole” to ATL and see Allie performed by these wonderful students. Thus, the GoFundMe campaign. So far, I”m just inches away (well technically $10 away) from the halfway goal of $800.

If you have a few dollars, coins, sheckels, drachmas, whatever to spare, would you please consider throwing them my way? I know money is tight, tight, tight for all of us, but know that I appreciate all the support, even just the reading of this and sharing it on Facebook or something. I’ve got a list of rewards including but not limited to copies of my plays (both digital and physical), cookies, treats, and much more.

You can find out more at my GoFundMe Page at http://www.gofundme.com/AllieInATL or by clicking the links above.

Thanks again you guys ROCK and keep Wonderland alive!

Everett!

EVERETT ROBERT: BEING AN ACTOR HELPS MY COMMAND OF DIALOG

An Interview I did with Ognian Georgiev, a Bulgarian broadcaster, writer and blogger!

EVERETT ROBERT: BEING AN ACTOR HELPS MY COMMAND OF DIALOG.