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Humble Play: New Play Festival of Appalachian Ohio and more

October 8th, 2012 donnahoke

It’s kind of funny that my last post (which was WAY too long ago) was my interview in Insight for Playwrights. Beginning this month, I am actually taking over the editorial portion of that newsletter, and will be conducting those interviews myself (the former editor contacted me because she remembered I had an editorial background). If you’re not familiar with the newsletter, you should be; it’s a great resource for theater submission and contest information. If you’re interested, check out the website and if you’re a playwright interested in being featured, email me.

This past weekend, I visited the lovely Athens, Ohio to see my play, Flowers in the Desert, read as part of the Humble Play New Play Festival of Appalachian Ohio. The event was co-sponsored by ARTS/West, The Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble, and The Corporation for the Performing Arts and featured readings of three new plays,  and workshop, “What to Do With a First Draft, “presented by award-winning playwright Y York.  Though I was only able to stay for my reading on Thursday night of the three-day festival, I had a great experience.  Y opened with a brief explanation of how a play comes to be, and then actors Brian Evans and Katherine Scholl, both of Brick Monkey, took the stage as Flowers’ Joe and Britt.  They did a wonderful job, capturing moments that were even better than I  imagined when writing the text. I was also pleased with the quality of feedback that came from the post-reading talkback from both an extremely engaged and intelligent audience and from Y, with whom I shared a leisurely breakfast the following morning. The entire event left me excited about this play and inspired about playwriting in general. If you haven’t previously submitted, I wholly recommend looking for it next year. FYI, Flowers in the Desert will get another reading on December 3 at Road Less Traveled Productions, and then I’m ready to send it out!

Last week, I had a preliminary reading of Seeds, which opens March 1, at Road Less Traveled, with director Kristen Tripp Kelly, and actors Diane Curley, Todd Benzin, Kelly Copps, Pamela Mangus, and Diane DiBernardo, that left me more excited than ever about this piece.  So much of what they showed us was so dead on that it can only get better with actual rehearsal.

In other news, a new play, You Haven’t Changed a Bit, has already gotten two hits, and one is for radio! That’s a first for me. And Black and White  gets its third production in East Haddam, Connecticut, which makes a total of fourteen states and three countries where I’ve had productions.  (Maybe I need to get a map and some thumb tacks!) I’ve also finished Act 1 of my newest full-length, A Kind of Salvation, and completed a first draft of a commission that I’ll talk more about later. It’s been fun but, as always, I wish I had more time to write!



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