I'm raising children. I'm writing plays. I don't have the luxury of making the two mutually exclusive. Toss in a husband and this is my life. And oh, yeah, there's also that 9 to 5 I took on in October '08...
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The 6 Women Playwriting Festival has announced its ten-minute playwriting contest exploring the theme “MIXED EMOTIONS.”
This fourth annual women’s playwriting festival is sponsored by The Pikes Peak Arts Council, The Pikes Peak Library District and Manitou Arts Theatre (MAT). The festival will be held April 2010, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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Today is my daughter’s 3rd birthday. In celebration, I’m gifting myself with a box of “some slack”. After 3 months plus of not blogging, I’ve decided to stop beating myself up and just get back to it.
So as I’m off to make the most of my daughter’s day, check out WSJ theater critic Terry Teachout’s thoughts on the debate-sparking, widely-publicized playwright gender bias study recently released by Emily Glassberg Sands, an economics student at Princeton University.
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The Pulitzer prizes will be announced tomorrow afternoon at Columbia University. Which play will be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama? Word has it that Lynn Nottage’s RUINED may take home the honor. Read the rest of this entry »
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This past Wednesday I got together with director Sheri Mann Stewart and actors Joan Q. Scott, Ivy C. Purdy and Gordon Danniels (all fine folks) for a first table read and rehearsal of my short play, SAVED IN 17 SYLLABLES. It was a surreal but gratifying experience, hearing the words and characters once in my head and on my page now interpreted and personified by others.
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This entry’s inspiration is provided by a mom playwright I actually know personally and think is fabulous!
A hearty, “Congratulations!” to Vynnie Meli, whose play, JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS, has been selected as the winner of the 2009 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition. A story centered around the members of an all-female, “mixed-race” jazz band touring through the Deep South during World War II, JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS will be produced as a part of the Essential Theatre’s 2009 Power Plays Festival this summer at Actor’s Express.
Check out the video below to hear from Essential Theatre artist director Peter Hardy, the play’s director Betty Hart and Vynnie herself at 2:15 into the clip. If you’re in or plan to be in Atlanta July 5-August 2, put this on your summer must-see list.
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“I write for as many hours as I can carve out of a day, or until my sense of humor has utterly abandoned me. These days, since I’m currently on leave from my day job, that means I write during regular working hours, and then if I feel there’s something I didn’t get to that I don’t want to lose the thread of, I’ll work some more after my kids are asleep. I don’t make hard and fast rules, but the one thing I don’t like is to go for a couple of days without writing at all–it makes me unsettled.”
–Melissa James Gibson, award-winning mom playwright, quoted in “The Craft” Front Matter of the March/April 2009 issue of The Dramatist
Thanks, Melissa. I needed to hear that.
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I said a couple of posts ago that if my 10-minute play submission was selected, you’d hear it here first. Well… some time has elapsed since the announcement, so actually it was heard here first. 
Sorry. Such is the life of a mom playwright, however well-meaning.
If you’re in the Atlanta metro area and are so inclined to save the date, please do so, and let me know which performance day strikes your fancy. I’d love to meet you.
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Poet, Momplaywright
Today is a historic day in the United States and for that matter, the world. On this inauguration day of President-elect Barack Obama, after he takes his oath of office, after he gives his highly anticipated speech, the world will hear from Elizabeth Alexander— poet, essayist and momplaywright (Diva Studies). In these weeks since being selected by Obama to compose and read a poem for the occasion, this mom of a nine year-old and ten year-old (boys) has been, in her spare time, crafting her words and preparing to share her gift that will unveiled today.
So when you tune in for the amazing and historic inaugural event at noon, be sure to hang around to hear from and salute a momplaywright. There’s so much of significance today worth noting.
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Happy New Year!
The holidays are a glad wrap, and I’m ready to get on with 2009. In the wee hours of this morning I’ve written and just submitted (on deadline) a 10-minute play for a June production consideration. Not a bad way for a mom playwright to kick off the year, though I feel I’m going to pay for the “all-nighter” later today. 
If anything happens with it, you’ll hear the news here first.
How are you planning to exert your playwriting power this year? Let’s make like Nike and ‘Just Do It’!
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As my life is still consumed as of late with my new day job, which consists of grant writing and management for a nonprofit, I take personal and professional interest in the announcement of American Theatre Wing (best known for putting on the Tony Awards) giving away $125,000 to 50 NY nonprofit theatre companies this past Friday. Watch the broadway.tv video re the event here.
One recipient of special note, Women’s Project and Productions.
Kudos to American Theatre Wing, and congrats to all the grant recipients. Looking forward to seeing new works by mom playwrights mounted by you real soon!
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