Complete first draft of my biography as a playwright. it is 4800 characters I was a neurotic, reclusive teenager living in Cleveland, Ohio, when I saw a touring company of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” and decided that I wanted to do write dialogue and have an audience laugh and cry en masse. I wanted to see my characters in three dimensions and have different actors interpret them in different ways. And best of all, with play writing, you don’t need the grinding rules of grammar to confine you…me…the playwright. However, my parents forced me to start college as a Business major, commuting to Cleveland State University. A wise English Instructor there saw that my essays were not standard (or particularly grammatical) and commanded me to drop out of Business and enter the English Department because he “knew” I was a writer. Being a very strange girl, I transferred instead to the Theater Department, which had limited courses. This forced me to transfer to Ohio University and become an actual Playwriting Major in the Theater Department. This included having to construct sets and take dance lessons. I learned to light a set and took diction classes. In a nutshell, I was taught to write not only with words, but also with sounds and lights and props. And instead of waiting for reviews, I enjoyed an instantly responding audience and learned from many actors and directors who would each add their own interpretation of my words and free it from the dead piece of paper. As was my wont, I disobeyed my adviser and became a Philosophy minor, which was perfect for my kind of play writing. My play ‘Lullaby Dance’ was chosen for production in 1970, just as the Kent State riots shut down the entire Ohio State system. By 1971, the scene construction and dancing classes had sent all the other Playwriting Majors running to the English Department. Ohio University decided that, as I was the only remaining Playwriting Major, they would cancel the major. I could not afford an extra year of college and, being a dumb Hippie, I dropped out and married and disappeared to Atlantic City until I arrived in Philadelphia in 1976, which is where my playwriting career finally began. I studied playwriting in workshops at The Philadelphia Company and directed a production of “God’s Boys”. I studied playwriting at Theater Center Philadelphia, where I also worked as a Producer for their New Plays Project at The Painted Bride. There can be no greater training for a playwright than refereeing a screaming fight between a Director and a Playwright and keeping a production together. I learned humility and putting together publicity and ran the lights and sound if needed and had to actually act (badly) if an unpaid actor didn’t show up. The New Plays Project of Theater Center Philadelphia did a full production of my one act play “The Last Shot” in 1979. In 1983, my husband and I finally moved to New York City. (Well, the New Jersey suburbs.) In New York, I studied playwriting with Will Scheffer at Ensemble Studio Theater, Arthur Kinoy at Primary Stages, with Jeffrey Sweet, and with Patrick Meyers and Terry Schreiber, at the T. Schreiber Studio. Patrick Meyers helped me to earn a New Jersey Foundation for the Arts Grant and a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Prize for “Absolute Square”, which Terry Schreiber directed a tryout reading of at McCarter Theater for Jujamcyn (Broadway Producers) with Danny Aiello. They chose to produce “Hurley Burley” instead, but I have played in The Big Dance. Yes, I have signed a Broadway contract that was not picked up. My modern version of “Alice in Wonderland” (written with David S. Macy) was named “Alice ‘91” and was the only Non Shakespearian play produced by King’s County Shakespeare Company in the park in the summer of 1991. An independent company called “A Woman’s Eye” produced an evening of my 2 one-act plays, “Backing Into Hoboken” and “Toujours Seule” in New York City in 1992. 12 Miles West Theater Company of Montclair NJ did a full production of my one act play, “Son’ in 1998. Ensemble Studio Theater Summer Project did a stage reading of my two-act play “Frenzy Witchcraft” in 1999. Finally, Cocteau Repertory did a staged reading of my two-act play “Sails on the Mountain” in 2000. I was then diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and the medications caused depression. I took a hiatus due to taking a bad medicine from 2000 to 2010. New medications have made it possible for me to write again. The Multiple Sclerosis affects my walking, but I can still drive, take a bus, walk and come into New York. And I can still develop plays, which I have done through the Theater Group in my Unitarian Church where readings of “The Talking God” and “Amour Americain” were done. I consider “Amour Americain” to be my masterpiece and I would love to see it be at least read and considered for your most prestigious prize.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 23:02:02 +0000
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