A GREAT honor!

I want to extent my sincere thanks and appreciation to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center located in my home state of Connecticut. I learned today that my play “Shadows of Men” is a semi-finalist for the extremely prestigious O’Neill Theater Conference.

From the O’Neill website:

“Each year a community of professionals gathers in the serene setting of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in order to support playwrights and new works for the theater.  The National Playwrights Conference strives to create a supportive environment that empowers playwrights to their own process and to experience the play with a professional company.

In the years since its inception the National Playwrights Conference has developed more than 600 plays… Virtually every major American playwright has been part of the Conference, including Julia Cho, Rebecca Gilman, Regina Taylor, John Guare, Israel Horovitz, David Henry Hwang, David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, and August Wilson.”

2008 LOGO REMAKE_FINAL

The very fact that my play is a semi-finalist is a tremendous distinction of which I am very proud. It is very difficult to get a nod from the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.

This nod makes me very happy.

That was quick…

I received a nice little gift in the mail today – a note from Branch County Community Theatre (BCCT) – informing me that my new play “Philosophus” placed third in the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence.

BCCT Logo

Branch County Community Theater is based in Coldwater, MI and is a vital artistic component to its community. The Robert J. Pickering Award specifically “was established to honor past member and playwright, Bob Pickering, and to provide a vehicle for playwrights to see their works produced.”

Out of 125 entries this year, “Philosophus” was third place – a great honor! I only completed the play about a month ago, so, when I sent it to BCCT, it was “fresh off the presses.” I have never completed a play and had it recognized so quickly – especially among such a large pool of applicants – by such a respected organization.

Many thanks to BCCT (and Robert Pickering) and best of luck to the first place winner!

Yay for TNT POPS!

Today I received the news that my play “Shadows of Men” ended up as a finalist in the TNT POPS! New Play Project of 2016. “TNT” (or “Texas Nonprofit Theatres, Inc.“) is “a statewide service organization” designed to promote and support theatrical organizations in Texas. My script about John Dos Passos during the Spanish Civil War made it into the top 15 scripts submitted for the contest – a great honor!

My play “Encore, Encore” was previously a finalist in the 2014 TNT POPS! New Play Project contest. The play has since gone on to receive one staged reading and three productions.

Thanks so much to the judges for their interest and best of luck to the eventual winner!

Many thanks to ATHE!

I am very pleased to say that my play “Encore, Encore” is officially a finalist in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Award of Excellence – a top pick among 150+ other plays. The award “honors a new play marked by sophisticated and nuanced storytelling, with the potential to make a major artistic impact on contemporary theatre.” This is the second year that play submissions have been accepted for this award.

The award itself is sponsored by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) – a comprehensive non-profit professional membership organization that advances theatrical interests in college and university theatre departments and among administrators, educators, graduate students, and theatre practitioners.

You can find out more about ATHE here!