February 24-26 -- "Partners" in the Briefs Festival in St. Louis!

From February 24-26, 2012, my short play "Partners" will be showcased in the Briefs Festival in St. Louis, Missouri, produced by That Uppity Theater Company, in partnership with Vital Voice Media.

"More than a traditional theatrical production, BRIEFS is a community event, innovatively bringing together a diverse audience from the LGBT community, straight allies, local businesses, and local artists and involving eight different directors and playwrights."

"Partners" is one of my most popular ten-minute plays. It's a comic little piece about a cop who brings her male work partner home to meet her female *partner* partner, and the fireworks that ensue. It was most recently seen in Boston, at Another Country Productions' SLAMBoston event. I'm proud to have it included in the St. Louis event.

For more information, check out this article by Vital Voice Media or this feature in West End Word or this article in Alive Magazine.

Finished a draft of a new full-length play!

I had a wonderful weekend at Passage Theater in Trenton, workshopping the new play that I have JUST finished -- a five-character murder mystery called "If I Did This."  A big thank you to Passage for organizing this wonderful event, in which eight members of our playwriting workshop were able to work with directors and actors from New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia -- more than sixty theater artists in all!  Thank you, also, to my friend David Hilder for his dramaturgy and directing, and to my wonderful cast:

• Chad Hoepner, as mystery novelist Hal Walker
• Kathryn Markey, as senior editor Brett Martin
• David Crommett, as real estate agent (and acquitted murderer) Donnie Lawrence
• Brielle Silvestri, as Donnie's teenage daughter, Miriam Lawrence
• Nedra McClyde, as detective Hayden Quinn

Now...  delving into the rewrites!

Passage Theater Playwrights Lab Retreat! 

David Hilder, directing our merry little band of actors.

Characters, from left to right:  Brett, Hayden, Hal, Donnie, Miriam.

Characters at the music stands:  Brett, Hal, Donnie.

If I Did This
90 minutes
Five Characters:  2 Men / 1 Woman / 2 characters that can be played by either men or women (all any race)

Grieving mystery novelist Hal Walker has been sent by his editor, Brett Martin, to the home of Donnie Lawrence -- infamously acquitted in the murder of his wife.  But Hal didn't anticipate the presence of Donnie's teenage daughter, Miriam, nor the emotional undertow that his own wife's death creates as he attempts to ghostwrite Donnie's book "My Story."

"Infinite Black Suitcase" hits the bookshelves!

The mail lady delivered the best package today!  My author's copies of "Infinite Black Suitcase" have arrived from Samuel French.  What a wonderful feeling, to hold a book in your hand and think, "I wrote this."

Copies of "Infinite Black Suitcase" and "Song of Extinction" (published in 2010) are available for purchase from the Samuel French bookstores or website, or from Amazon.  I hope you'll buy one today!

The Car Plays race into Costa Mesa and San Diego!

I love starting the new year with a couple of new productions!

In January and February, Moving Arts -- my home theater company in Los Angeles -- is reprising what has become its signature event, The Car Plays.  After successful participation in last year's Radar Festival, we've been invited to participate in two more Southern California festivals -- the Off-Center Festival at the Segerstrom Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, and the Without Walls Festival at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.  I'm proud to have a play in each production.

The Car Plays roll into Segerstrom Center for the 2012 Off-Center Festival.

The Car Plays are a unique event.  When you buy a ticket, you have just purchased one row of five cars -- and there is a ten-minute story in each car.  There are usually three rows all together -- fifteen short plays.  Ushers escort you from one car to the next when each play is done.  Paul Stein brought the concept to Moving Arts, and continues to be the artistic director and producer of the event, along with producers Steve Lozier, Kim Glann and Cece Tio.  You need great producers -- a really great team of everybody, really -- to make this event work.  It requires precision, clock-work timing, and a lot of heart and hard work from all the writers, directors, actors and ushers to bring you the most intimate theater experience you'll ever find.

"Car Plays is a brilliant and inventive concept, a kaleidoscope of situations that draw snapshot portraits from life, with soulful acting and cinematic details that's so close to home and physically intimate that it blurs the distinctions between theater and life."

-L.A. Weekly

Now playing in the Off-Center Festival at the Segerstrom Center

Bohemian.  Like You.
Written by EM Lewis
Directed by Darin Anthony
Featuring Peter James Smith, Daria Balling and Warren Davis

Richie has known Melody and Don forever.  But he didn't know they did this...

The cast of "Bohemian. Like You."  Warren Davis, Daria Balling and Peter James Smith heat up the front seat!

This car is our stage.  "Bohemian. Like You."  Written by EM Lewis and directed by Darin Anthony.

More Information:  Segerstrom Center "The Car Plays" site

Press:  LA Stage Times (article by Don Shirley)

Coming soon to the Without Walls (WoW!) Festival at the La Jolla Playhouse

Reveille

Written by EM Lewis

Directed by Sam Woodhouse

Featuring (TBA)

Leonard's only son has signed up for the military.  He leaves for boot camp this morning.

More Information:  La Jolla Playhouse "The Car Plays" site

Press:  U~T San Diego

Looking back at 2011; looking forward to 2012!

It's a nice tradition to take note of accomplishments at the end of the year, and make goals for the year ahead!  So on this first day of January, 2012, I'd like to do just that.

In 2010, I took a great leap into uncertainty when I quit my steady, reliable day job doing tech support at USC (which I'd held for nine years) to accept a year-long playwriting fellowship for the 2010-2011 academic year.  I was excited to be able to write full-time, and to live within a train ride of New York City for a while.  

"Song of Extinction" promo poster for the Guthrie production.

The timing was good.  "Song of Extinction" had done rather well, so 2011 became part follow-up on that success and part working on new projects, in good combination.  In February and March, 2011, "Song of Extinction" was produced at the Guthrie, in their Dowling black box theater, by Theater Latte Da.  It felt really lovely to have a production at a theater with so much history.  They brought me out for 24 very chilly hours in Minneapolis, so I got to see what they did with the play; I was very pleased!  Peter Rothstein did a wonderful job directing the play, and I loved seeing how they brought my little story to life.  This year also marked the first high school production of "Song," at Harmony High School in Florida.

"Song of Extinction" at the Guthrie, produced by Theater Latte Da.

I joined a playwriting workshop this year in Trenton, which has been lots of fun, and a weekly playwright/actor "workout" in New York City, where playwrights bring pages and the actors bring them to life.  I miss my old Los Angeles playwriting group, but it's great to be meeting some new folks to work with.  I do better when I have places to bring my pages on a regular basis.

I wrote a short play called "The War Museum" which was read in Flux Theater's "New World Iliads" show (supporting their mainstage production of Ellen McLaughlin's "Ajax in Iraq").  That was fun! I also had two readings of "Magellanica" at the Lark, both directed by my friend and fellow playwright David Hilder.  I'd like to continue to try to get to know New York theaters, and hopefully work with more of them in the new year.

"Strong Voice" premiered in Halcyon Theater's 2011 Alcyone Festival.

Questions of faith in "Strong Voice," directed by Margo Gray.

"Strong Voice," which I wrote for Halcyon Theater's Alcyone Festival in Chicago, had its premiere.  Ultimately, I felt like it was ready for a workshop production and some more rewriting, more than the festival production it received, but I was glad to have had the chance to try my hand at an adaptation for the first time.  It wasn't really an adaptation proper... but Halcyon had challenged five women writers, myself included, to either adapt or riff upon the themes of a woman playwright from 1850 or earlier.  I selected Hrosvitha of Gandersheim -- a woman who lived in a convent in the Dark Ages, and wrote some odd and interesting little plays and poems about Christian women who had their faith challenged.  My play was about a woman whose faith is challenged by the events of 9/11, and a murder investigation in her community which she and her neighbors are caught up in.  I hope to revisit the play at some point in the next few years, to see what it wants to become in its next iteration.

"Drop-Off Day" premiered in Moving Arts "The Car Plays" in the Radar Festival in Los Angeles.

My short play "Drop-Off Day" -- about a woman who is dropping her daughter off at the dorm, as her daughter leaves home for the first time to attend college -- was included in Moving Arts' "The Car Plays," which joined other fun and exciting productions from Los Angeles and around the world at this year's Radar Festival.  Moving Arts has been my Los Angeles theater home since I started writing plays, so it was great to have another project with them.  The Car Plays has been one of their most successful events.  (Short plays, produced inside actual cars, to an audience of two at a time!)  The Car Plays will be playing at two festivals in 2012, and I'm pleased to have a play in each -- "Bohemian. Like You." in the Off Center Festival at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA in January 2012and "Reveille" in the Without Walls Festival at San Diego Rep in La Jolla, CA in February 2012.

My wonderful actors and director for the SlamBOSTON production of "Partners."

Speaking of short plays, "Partners" was back at SlamBOSTON again, at Another Country Productions, and made the finals.  It's a comedy about a lesbian cop who brings her rednecked cop partner home to meet her life partner.  That play is headed to St. Louis next, for an appearance at Uppity Women Productions' "Briefs" Festival in February 2012.  Some ten minute plays just keep on giving!

I had two opportunities this year to mentor kids who were writing plays -- one with the Blank Theater's Young Playwrights Festival in Los Angeles, CA and one in Passage Theater's State Street Project in Trenton, NJ.  I love helping kids work on their plays!  I'm pleased that 2012 will bring a new chance to do so in an even more involved way: I'm going to be the Playwright-in-Residence at SPARC's New Voices for the Theater high school playwriting residency in Virginia in summer 2012.  A big thanks to my colleague Babs Lindsay for connecting me with this opportunity.

Ellen at Giverny.

The year has brought with it extraordinary opportunities for travel.  Over the summer, I made my first trip abroad and got the very first stamp in my little passport!  Through a friend of a theater friend, I was given the opportunity to stay in a flat in the middle of Paris for three weeks, with the only cost being the care of two cute French cats and the plane ticket.  It was an amazing trip!  Paris is so beautiful!  I walked everywhere, saw bridges and museums and monuments and gardens galore, and am absolutely sure that a play will come out of it at some point.  

In the fall, I took three theater trips in quick succession.

Here are the four winning playwrights from ANPF 2011, along with artistic director Doug Rowe and me.  This photo, taken by Elizabeth von Radics, was featured in American Theater Magazine.

I was host playwright for the Ashland New Plays Festival again, in Oregon (great fun!).  I love Ashland so much!  We had a very strong line up of challenging plays this year, and the readers did an extraordinary job in bringing them to life.  As always, I was able to sneak in a few shows at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and a quick trip to the farm while I was in my home state.

Our bold gang of theater makers, sitting out on the front porch in Independence, Kansas, after a wonderful week of hard work, good eats, and lots of fun.  Peter Ellenstein, who made it all happen, at the top, representing the Inge Center for the Arts.  Director Stephen Brackett and his playwright, Ken Urban.  Chuma Gault, Ben Corbett, and yours truly.  Heather Alicia Simms, Mark Pinter, Mina Kim, and my director, Laura Savia.

I flew from there to Independence, Kansas, where I stayed for two and a half weeks at a writing residency in William Inge's childhood home (along with my colleague Ken Urban).  I worked on and had a reading of "Magellanica" (parts one and two), and taught some playwriting classes at the local high schools and community college.  It was a wonderful experience, and I got some good writing done on the play.  I felt like William Inge's ghost was encouraging me along.

"Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" was a finalist for the HotCity Greenhouse Festival in 2011, and will have its world premiere with them in St. Louis in September 2012.

HotCity Greenhouse Festival 2011 playwrights:  Christopher Wall (Shake and Be Saved), EM Lewis (Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday), and Gino Dilorio (Release Point).

I flew from Independence to St. Louis, Missouri -- changing gears to work on "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" -- a comedy about a woman who decides to leave her life behind to become a commercial fisher in Alaska, but whose family refuses to let her go.  This was really the first play I ever wrote, and I've been hoping to figure out a way to revisit, rework and fix it up.  The play was a finalist in HotCity Theater's Greenhouse Festival, and they brought me and two other playwrights -- Gino Dilorio and Christopher Wall -- out for a week of work on our plays.  I felt really good about the rewrites I was able to do with the help and support of my director, dramaturg and cast.  The reading went great!  And HotCity has selected "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" to have its world premiere on their stage in September 2012.  I'm absolutely delighted!  It's nice to have another full-length play finding its first staging to look forward to.

"Infinite Black Suitcase" is now available for purchase from Samuel French!

The year was capped by Samuel French's publication of my first produced play, "Infinite Black Suitcase."  It's now available for purchase from their website, and I hope you'll buy a copy!  It's also available from Amazon.com.  Only $8.95!  According to the website, "it's the story of one day in a small Oregon town and three families who are trying, in the most loving and human ways, to deal with death and dying."  I feel like I first became a playwright when this play was put up by Moving Arts in a workshop production at the Los Angeles Theater Center in 2005.  It had its premiere when it was produced by TheSpyAnts in 2007.  I'm so glad that it is moving forward into a new life in publication!

My fellowship ended in May of this year, but by living somewhat frugally and eating lots of homemade soup, I've been able to extend my happily jobless full-time writing for a bit longer.  It took me a little while to get into the rhythm, but now I'm really starting to get some good work done.  So I guess one of my main goals for 2012 is going to be to try to figure out a way to continue to live simply and happily while writing full-time, if I can swing it.  I would also like to finish the two full-length plays I'm working on now -- "If I Did This" (a sort of murder-mystery/psychological thriller) and "Magellanica" (my epic Antarctica play).  In February, I'm going to be workshopping "If I Did This" at Passage Theater in Trenton, NJ.  I'm hoping to have a reading of a bigger chunk (if not a completed draft) of "Magellanica" this spring.

In France, amongst the flowers.  May the coming year be as full of joyful adventures as the last one was!

A big thank you to all the theater companies, directors, dramaturgs, playwrights, actors, tech folks and other theater people who I was lucky enough to work with in 2011.  May 2012 bring peace, prosperity and great projects to your lives!  

"Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" in HotCity Theater's Greenhouse Festival in St. Louis!

HotCity Theater's 6th Annual Greenhouse New Play Festival.

The third stop in my Fall 2011 theater festival triple-header was the HotCity Theater Festival.  My play "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" was a finalist in their annual Greenhouse Festival, and they brought me out for a week of working on my play, culminating in a reading.

It was great to be back in St. Louis, and seeing all the nice folks at HotCity again.  My play "Song of Extinction" had been a finalist back in 2008, and I'd attended then and really liked the people and the plays they'd chosen.  When I saw their call for submissions, I scrambled to find something to send, because I knew they were good people -- and the kind of theater folks I want to work with.  Lo and behold, they picked my play to be a finalist again!

"Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" is my very first play.  Earlier than "Infinite Black Suitcase," even, which was my first produced play.  I wrote "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" in the playwriting class that changed my life.  I took it after I'd finished my graduate program at USC.  I'd worked out in the world for a year or two, then returned to work on staff at USC -- and one of the benefits of working at the university was the opportunity to take classes.  I chose to take a class back in my old writing program.  The playwriting class happened to have a seat open.  I took it!  And I've written almost nothing but plays since.  It was divided between a two-week intensive with the sweet and wonderful Paul Zindel ("The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds") and the rest of the semester with Lee Wochner, who became a real mentor to me as I struggled to become a playwright.  The assignment was to write a one-act play.  "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" was the play that poured out of me.

A poster for "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday."  Writing plays is hard.  Writing *about* your plays is even harder...

"Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" is a comedy about a woman who decides to leave her life behind to become a commercial fisherwoman in Alaska, and about her family, who has decided that they will do absolutely anything to keep her from going.

HotCity had created posters with playwright's notes on them for each of the three finalist plays -- "Release Point," "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday," and "Shake and Be Saved!" -- and displayed them in the lobby, so audience members could see what they were getting into.

Three plays were selected for the 2011 HotCity Greenhouse Festival.  My compatriots were Gino Dilorio, whose offering was an uncompromising two-hander called "Release Point," and Christopher Wall, who had written a fierce farce called "Shake and Be Saved."  I liked both of their plays very much.

Me and the guys.  Playwrights Christopher Wall, EM Lewis and Gino Dilorio.  They are fantastic writers, and I was lucky to be  at the HotCity Greenhouse Festival in such good company!

HotCity brought in a dramaturg to work with all three of us on our scripts -- the incomparable Liz Engelman.  We each had our own director and set of actors.  We had alternating rehearsal and writing days throughout the week, which gave us time to work on our scripts.

I was very pleased to have this chance to work on "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday."  Being such an early play, I didn't have a lot of craft when I wrote it.  I didn't like the ending.  And there were some clunky bits that I'd been itching to get my hands on.  This was the perfect opportunity to go back in and really make this play into what it wanted to be... what I thought it could be.  Because in spite of its faults, I've always had a soft spot for it.  It's a family play.  It's a comedy!  It's a brother/sister play.  And it's got a lot of my heart in it.

The view from my room at the Ignacio Hotel -- a very nice establishment, across from St. Louis University, and right down from the theater.

What is a visit to St. Louis without a stop for barbecue???  Christopher, Gino and I walked over to Pappy's for lunch one day, for what was both a great lunch and an amusing experience.

My lunch at Pappy's.  Pulled pork sandwich with Sweet Baby Jane BBQ sauce, sweet potato fries, and deep fried corn on the cob.  Yes, you heard me right!

Actors hole punch their new pages and insert them into their scripts.  Lots of rewrites!

My team was outstanding.  My director was Annamaria Pileggi, who teaches at Washington University. She had brought together the funniest, most wonderful actors to be my cast.  They even assigned me a "Playwright's Assistant" to print up my pages for me and help with logistical issues and read stage directions -- the sweet and very responsible young Sarah Wagener.  I wrote like a mad woman all week, and by the time Saturday night -- the night of our reading -- rolled around, we were ready!  I thought we were ready...

And we were!  Lots of fun, lots of laughs... just a beautiful night.  Standing room only.  Several friends in attendance, including Hannah Joyce-Hoven, who had been in my reading two weeks earlier at the Inge Center, and happened to be in town to see her sister.  I was walking on air.

The cast of our HotCity Greenhouse Festival reading of "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" included:

Julie Layton as Lynn Hallaby
Antonio Rodriguez as Kelly Hallaby
Lavonne Byers as Margie Hallaby
John Contini as Hudson Hallaby
Michael Kastelein as Gary White
Eric White as Ray Arendt

I'm pleased to report that HotCity has selected "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" to produce in 2012!  The play will have its world premiere in September.  I am absolutely delighted, and can't wait to return to St. Louis!

HotCity Theater in St. Louis, MO will be producing the world premiere of "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" by EM Lewis in September 2012.

A Residency at the Inge House with Magellanica

Fall 2011 Inge Residency!  Top: Program Director Peter Ellenstein.  Next row: Director Stephen Brackett and his playwright, Ken Urban, actors Chuma Gault and Ben Corbett, and playwright EM Lewis.  Bottom row: actors Heather Alicia Simms, Mark Pinter and Mina Kim, and my director, Laura Savia.

From October 27 through November 12, 2011, I was able to spend some wonderfully focused time working on my play "Magellanica: A New and Accurate Map of the World" in Independence, Kansas.  I was the lucky recipient of a residency in William Inge's childhood home, thanks to the William Inge Center of the Arts.

I met Inge Center director Peter Ellenstein several years ago, when we were both attending the Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky.  I was receiving the Steinberg Award for "Song of Extinction," and he requested a copy.  He liked it!  And ever since, we've been communicating back and forth, trying to find a good time for me to come out to Kansas and do a residency.

The timing we finally decided upon couldn't have been better.  I'd been having some trouble finding my way into part 2 of the epic play that "Magellanica" is proving itself to be.  The prospect of working in depth with a director and a bunch of actors on the play for a focused week sounded like just the thing.  And I'd never been to Kansas!  I love seeing new places and meeting new people.

I flew directly from Oregon, where I'd been the Host Playwright for the Ashland New Plays Festival, to Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the nearest airport to little Independence, Kansas.  Peter picked me up, and we drove the ninety minutes back to the small town where William Inge grew up.

I was the first to arrive; Peter allowed me to come early and stay on after our workshop week, in order to smooth my travel arrangements -- going from ANPF to Inge to HotCity in St. Louis, without having to schlep back to New Jersey between.  Being the first to arrive meant I got to pick my room.  I knew instantly which one I wanted: the first one I saw.  It was at "the dark at the top of the stairs" -- with windows on three sides, looking down on the back yard and neighboring houses.  I loved it!

The beautiful Inge House in Independence, Kansas.  What a place for a residency!

The sign by the front door.  Historic house.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright William Inge.  He wrote Picnic, Come Back Little Sheba, Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Splendor in the Grass.  Many of his plays and films were set in small towns in the mid-west like the one he grew up in.

William Inge's childhood home is just beautiful -- graciously sized, with a big porch and a nice yard.  I stayed there with my director, Laura Savia, who flew in from New York, and the other resident playwright, Ken Urban, who flew in from Boston (where he teaches at Harvard).  The other director, Stephen Brackett, and the out-of-town actors -- Mina Kim, Chuma Gault and Mark Pinter, all stayed over at Peter's house, two blocks away.  The rest of our casts were made up of local actors -- and by local, I mean actors from Independence Community College, where the Inge Center is housed, actors from the community of Independence, and actors from as far away as Tulsa.

On the first day of our workshop week together, we had table readings of both plays with everyone in attendance.  The two casts would be working separately through the rest of the week, but it was nice to begin things as a single, cohesive group.  Ken's play "The Correspondent" is a tight, three-character play about a man who is haunted by his past.  My play, "Magellanica: A New and Accurate Map of the World" is a sprawling Antarctic adventure story, about a group of scientists wintering over at the South Pole station in 1985.

Ellen and Laura by the Verdigris River.  (Photo by Chuma Gault.)

The Verdigris River.

Fourth and Locust -- our street corner in Independence.  All the leaves were golden, and we had beautiful crisp fall days while we were there.

Through the week, we alternated rehearsal days and writing days.  Several of our trusty group liked to cook, and we ended up sharing meals more often than not.  Is there anything more bonding for a group than breaking bread together?  And washing dishes together afterwards?  We worked hard, but there was time between for walks to the reservoir with Laura and Chuma, drinks with some visiting theater artists from Canada, a visit to the local "Neewollah" festival (Halloween spelled backwards), and a stop at the local library to hear one of my actors, Gary, talk about his experiences as a Peace Corps worker in Fiji.

Laura and I took a day trip out to the Laura Ingalls Wilder historic site.  Such fun!  We both read and loved all the books when we were kids.  (Laura had to, since her name is Laura, after all...)

We gather around the table.  Stephen, David, Heather, Mina and Mark at one of our big family-style dinners.

The writing challenge I was facing with my play was how to begin part two of a play that I believe is going to have five parts in all, and cover eight and a half months in the lives of my eight characters.  It was a time-traveling problem, really.  I couldn't cover every moment of every day in those eight and a half months, while my characters were locked in at the South Pole during the winter season.  And I wanted to write the play in such a way that I could reach outside that time and place when I needed to -- back to the Antarctic explorers like Scott and Amundsen and Shackleton and Byrd, and forward to the questions of climate change that are a major focal point of polar science today.  I needed a pliable structure that would allow me to do everything I needed to do, and how I began part two was going to tell the audience -- and me -- how I was going to do that.

There is nothing like some good table work with a smart director and cast.  And it was fun to have my director, Laura, staying there in the house.  Several times, I printed out pages and took them into her room, sitting on the end of her bed while she read them.  Or she'd make tea for us, while I was working on rewrites.  Actors came in and out.  Sometimes they brought libations.  It was a friendly, fruitful week. By then end of it, I'd figured my way into part two, posited a new structure for part two, and answered my structural questions about the play as a whole.

My desk, in my room at the Inge House.  I loved my room so much!  It has windows on three sides, and was full of light and inspiration.

Script.

The reading went very well.  I was so proud of my cast!  The discussion after was lively.  We had a pair of little girls in the audience who asked wonderful questions... and one of them showed me the tooth she had lost during the reading when I talked with her afterwards!  Everyone wanted to know what happened next... which was great feedback to receive, and great encouragement for me to keep writing.

It was awfully quiet in Independence after everyone else left.  But I was happy to have some extra writing days before i left for my next gig in St. Louis.  And I was able to make myself useful, teaching playwriting workshops at Independence High School, Labette County High School and Independence Community College.  I also visited the William Inge collection at the college, where many of Inge's books, paper and memorabilia are housed.

Many thanks to the Inge Center's Peter Ellenstein, Hannah Joyce Hoven and Bruce Petersen for all their help during my residency, to my director, Laura Savia, for her excellent direction and dramaturgy, and to my splendid cast:

Chuma Gault as Captain Adam Burrell
David A. Lawrence as Freddie de la Rosa
Hannah Joyce Hoven as Dr. Morgan Halstead (USA)
Mark Pinter as Dr. Vadik Chapayev (USSR)
Mina Kim as Dr. May Zhou (USA)
Ben Corbett as Dr. William Huffington (Great Britain)
Peter Ellenstein as Dr. Lars Brotten (Norway)
Gary Mitchell as Dr. Todor Kozlek (Bulgaria)
Heather Alicia Simms - stage directions

Magellanica reading at the Inge Center.  From left to right:  Heather, Peter, Gary, Hannah, Chuma, David, Mina, Peter and Ben.  Directing: Laura Savia.

I hope I'm able to return to Independence some time, and share the rest of the story with them!