And Now, A Little Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion

Not to toot my own horn, but I have two articles in the latest version of American Theatre, and one un-bylined interview with Alan Cumming (the official answer is because I was not interviewing him as myself, but rather, as American Theatre).

But you should read them, either in print, online, or in our new digital (via Zinio) form. So many options, however will you choose? I had a mixture of fun and frustration writing these articles, though the research for them (which included flying to Louisville, KY and Costa Mesa, CA) was so memorable and, in the case of talking to Alan Cumming, a perverted hoot.

One is a summation of the Humana Festival of New Plays in Louisville and the Pacific Playwrights Festival in Costa Mesa. I saw 15 plays in the course of two weekends, which meant that when I got back to NYC, I was pretty theatered-out.

The other article is about theater trailers, for those who are interested in creating one, how to go about doing it. Fun times...

Chattering

I was at the 2012 Humana Festival of New Plays in Louisville, KY this past weekend. Aside from fighting a cold and thus having to control my alcohol intake (which meant a lot less bourbon than I had planned to have), I saw 8 plays and sat on a panel called "Critiquing Criticism: (re)imagining the future." Though I was lucky enough to be sitting beside Polly Carl, moderator and HowlRound editor, Bill Hirschman of the American Theatre Critics Association, and Gordon Cox of Variety, I also felt a tad uneasy. If only because I had only been doing this professionally (eg: getting paid to write) for less than a year, and this was my first Humana outing. And I'm still working on the art of holding back pithy remarks...

"But that is why I asked you!" said Kirsty Gaukel, who works at the press office at Actors Theatre of Louisville, who hosted the festival. Apparently at this stage of my career, being young is an asset (especially in a field that is dominated by writers and head honcho artists in their 40's and 50's). It must have been my Twitter account...

In short, it was a conversation that I had an endless amount of time at Syracuse. And surprisingly, almost everyone enjoyed my comments. Maybe it is easy being green... Here's the video below (with me in the preview image). And look for my Humana retrospective in the July/August issue of American Theatre.

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