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EPISODE 4: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

  You’re back! Thank you, Josie and Melissa, for the continued comments! Keep them coming everyone; they help me know that someone is out there, and the engagement is helpful. If you’re here for Episode 4, please take a minute to subscribe at upper right so you don’t miss a post and fall behind. Thank […]

EPISODE 3: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

      You’re back for the third installment! If you’re enjoying this, please take a minute to subscribe at the right so you’ll be alerted whenever I post a new episode. (I’m so proud of myself for figuring out how to add that subscription form so please use it lol!)     And if […]

EPISODE 2: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS: A Play In Process

    Thank you everyone who showed up for Day 1. I edited there to say, and I’ll also say here, that I’m in the process of trying to get my daughter or somebody to figure out how I can add a subscribe button to this blog (if you’re MailChimp and WordPress savvy, hit me […]

EPISODE 1: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

  PLEASE NOTE: This play has undergone substantial revision since this rough draft process. If you’d like to read the current draft, please contact me or, for NPX members, click here. I seemingly have to say this because a reviewer saw fit to read this blog entry and use its information to help him supplement […]

10 LIES PLAYWRIGHTS ARE TOLD (AND WHY WE SHOULDN’T BELIEVE THEM)

. Much mythology surrounds the vagaries of this business and the paths to success. Some myths we’re told by others; just as many we tell ourselves. Overwhelmingly, they seem to be protective devices to explain away slow years—or even slow careers. Often they become ways to deny how much constant effort it can take—particularly for […]

PLAY SUBMISSION OPPS ARE DECREASING–NOW WHAT?

. Coming up on October 1, I have made a full 100 submissions fewer than last year and even of those I’ve made, a whole slew of them were isolated cold queries about specific plays for specific reasons, i.e. not responses to general calls for plays. Without those targeted queries, I’m guessing I’m at about […]

TEN YEARS A PLAYWRIGHT: celebration and reflection

  Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. This is my actress daughter’s favorite quote, one that’s been adopted by her twin sister—a computer coder/YouTuber—who has it as her computer wallpaper. It’s my favorite now, too.   Never let up […]

NETWORKING AND FOLLOW-UP, or “I submit like you said; what else?”

  In my blog post, How To Submit So Your Plays Get Produced (recently recorded as a Dramatists Guild webinar!), I talk a lot about getting your work out here. And why it is so important because you’re not only showing people that you’re consistently in the game, not a hobbyist but a serious contender, […]

10 STEPS TO SURVIVING A BAD REVIEW

  Whether it comes in the form of feedback from a reader, a blog post, or formal newspaper review, harsh words sting. Devastate. Create self-doubt. No less than Teresa Rebeck has talked about how difficult it was for her to recover from a bad review. But in a subjective, collaborative, artistic world, they are going […]

Does the first line of your play make an impression?

  Plenty of plays start with “Hello?” and go on to be good plays; I’m not disputing that. What I am disputing is why any playwright, when there is an opportunity to deliver an opening line that creates the world of a play, that establishes something, would choose not to take it.   You don’t have to […]