Saturday, April 13, 2013

"Magellanica" monologues in the Drew University Congress on Ecstatic Naturalism

And now, for something completely different!  

On April 13, I worked with Sloane Drayson-Knigge and a wonderful little cohort of actors to present monologues from my play "Magellanica" to the philosophers who were attending the Congress on Ecstatic Naturalism at Drew University.  I visited Sloane's "Women in Theater" class at Drew last year, as well as an undergraduate theater class.  This was a different kettle of fish, but very enjoyable, always, to work with actors on characters and voice and help them more fully inhabit the lives they are living on stage.  They did a great job.  I think the philosophers liked it!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Guest teaching at CUNY Hostos College

CUNY Hostos theater professor Angel Morales directed a production of "Song of Extinction"at the college last year.  I was able to meet him, his actors, his colleagues and his audience through a series of events planned around my play being named Book-of-the-Semester, and was very impressed with him. So when he asked me to come and guest teach a playwriting unit to his theater class in April, I was glad to do it.  I talked with his students about how a playwright begins to think about how to write a play -- about goals and obstacles, characters, a sense of place, and story structure.  It was a lovely morning!