My 2025 in Review

Hi Friends!  Happy Holidays!  Here is my 2025 rundown.

Another year of being a full time playwright!  It's been about 2 and a half years now.  I feel like I'm still getting used to it.  I think part of me thought there would be so much time in the day for writing and thinking and there's definitely more time than there was when I was working full time, but administrative tasks of playwriting don't go away and like I've said before, I have more of the home work now, including driving the kid places, getting him up every morning and parenting when he gets home every day.  So my days are shorter than they were.  But I'm not complaining.  I'm very lucky.

This year I wrote the last 2/3 of a screenplay, the last 2/3 of a full length play as well as 3 one act plays and 3 full length plays.  I was also paid to write an outline of a screenplay.  

Also we are slowly working on a musical version of Kodachrome.

In production news, overall I had 3 more than last year (193 vs 190)  It was 106 full lengths, 82 one acts, 5 nights of short plays. Compared to last year, a few more full length productions and fewer one act productions.

I had the same number of productions of full lengths at theaters as the past 2 years (23 theaters).  27 colleges did my plays.  The rest of the productions were high schools, and the odd middle school or theater camp.

There were 23 productions of the full length version of Kodachrome and 30 productions of the one act version.  Counting both versions, Kodachrome has now had over 200 productions.

Full lengths this year included 28 productions of Marian or the True Tale of Robin Hood, 25 of The Bookstore, 8 of The Christmas Tree Farm, 6 Clown Bar, 2 Clown Bar 2, 1 Clown Bar Christmas, 1 Hearts Like Fists, 2 Hearts Like Planets, 1 Night Children, 2 Bart and Arnie, 1 Adventures of Super Margaret, 1 Fat Cat Killers, 1 Incendiary, 1 Such Small Hands, 1 New Love, 1 Starry Night and 1 Elsewhere (in Turkish).

Four published plays this year.  Hearts Like Planets, Bart and Arnie, The Girl Who Cannot Be Hurt.  I'm excited for the Marian Musical to be released for licensing sometime in the new year!

Some posters from productions this year.  This year saw NYC premiere of Fat Cat Killers, world premiere of Such Small Hands, fancy NOLA Project production of Clown Bar 2, New Love premiered in Belgrade.

I ran 7 races.  (five 5ks, one 1 mile, and one 5 mile--the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving, the latter of which I last ran about 30 years ago.)  I probably ran slower than last year.

We took our son to Disney World.  Went camping in CT, hung out on the Cape.  I was in Anaheim for the Chance Theater production for almost two weeks.  Was at a silent writing retreat with stillwright in upstate New York for a week.  Visited Lehigh University to see the Bookstore.  Went to Little Pond for the Flux retreat.  Worked on a play at the CT Theater Exchange.  Was in and out of NYC quite a bit.  Saw Kodachrome in Canton, CT.  Went to NY Comicon. 

This year I was again in a writing group for parents with Project Y, and took part in Flux's Core Work writing group.

I became a Creative Partner at Flux Theater Ensemble.

What else happened this year?  We had to have a pipe replaced in our back yard and had to live at my parents house for a week so we could take showers.

Otherwise, things are good.  Hope all is well with all of you.

Happy New Year!

Here are my previous years in review.

2024

2023
2022
2021

2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1123: Chester Poon

Chester Poon

Hometown: Springfield, MA

Current Town: Brooklyn

Q:  Tell me about The Hardest Goodbye.

A:  The Hardest Goodbye is my very first play. I've always wanted to write a play, but never knew how to start or what to write about, but I guess you could say I had a light bulb moment. It started as an idea I came up with one night while watching YouTube. I was watching these two ghosthunters doing random things in an abandoned hotel and they were doing a collab with these other two video game content creators. The whole thing looked absolutely ridiculous and it was obvious at least to me that a good portion of it was somewhat scripted in the way that reality shows are scripted. So I thought it would be hilarious if a play was written depicting this. I've also desperately wanted to see more ghosts and ghost stories in plays in general. Maybe it's what I'm exposed to in the theater, but it's rare for me to come across a ghost story come to life on the stage. I picked one ritual that the real-life Youtubers did and just started writing. It quickly evolved into what I think ghosts are really about and what captures our imagination. I have a hot-take. I don't believe in ghosts, so for me, ghosts are really just something that our senses can't quite identify or understand. That "not-knowing" is what sometimes fuels our fear of ghosts or the ghostly. But to me, ghosts are also intriguing in that they have a tendency to represent grief and loss in our imaginations. And that's the story I wanted to tell.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  Well, writing this play got me going, so I'm writing another one. For a period of time, I got really into the concept of lucid dreaming. That's about all I'm willing to share at the moment.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  More ghost plays! More plays about ghosts! More plays with jump scares!

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I'm pretty basic. I like a good time. I wanna experience both the laughing and the crying/sad mask that's associated with theater. 

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I mean, I'm just starting out myself, so I don't really know anything, but if I could talk to a younger version of myself that hadn't started writing yet, I'd tell him to just start writing. What held me back for so long is that I thought I sucked at writing dialogue. And honestly, the earlier iterations of this play did kinda suck, but I kept working at it. So, don't be afraid that your play is going to suck. It probably will at first, but just keep at it. It'll get better. I also found that it helps to let go of the ego and allow yourself to be vulnerable in your writing.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Plugs? Like, as in promo something? I have a public staged reading for this on Dec 2nd!

 

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Two More Weeks of Fat Cat Killers in nyc

https://www.sparkplugproductions.com/

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My 2024 Year In Review

Hi!  Happy Holidays everyone!  Here's my 2024 in review.

I made a living this year!  A modest living-- So like imagine an overworked non profit level salary but take the overwork part away.  It's not really the kind of money you want to make as a 47-year-old man with a preteen child at home but I was able to be only a playwright all year because my wife brought home the health insurance.  

This year I wrote one one-act play, one full length play, one graphic novel adaptation, one feature film script,  and am a third of the way through another feature and a third of the way through a new play.  I worked on the book for the musical version of Marian too with composer and lyricist Masi Asare.

I ran four 5k races.

This year my book Letters To A Young Playwright came out from Applause (now Bloomsbury)  My graphic novel adaptation of Clown Bar came out from Rare Earth.  (Art by Carl Mefferd.)  Clown Bar Christmas was published this year by Concord.  The Christmas Tree Farm was published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.

Hearts Like Planets will come out from DPS (Broadway Licensing) soon and Marian The True Tale of Robin Hood, THE MUSICAL will come out from Concord (Sam French).

In 2024, I had 101 full lengths productions,  87 one acts, 1 musical,  1 night of short plays (190 total)  Last year was 79 full lengths and 59 one acts.

23 of the full lengths were at theaters, (same number as last year) 16 at colleges or universities, (down from 19).  The other 62 were high schools with a few camps and middle schools thrown in. (Last year that number was 37.)

There were 27 full length productions of Kodachrome, (up from 19); 36 one act productions of  Kodachrome (up from 14);  31 Marian (1 less than last year); 1 Touring production of  Elsewhere in Türkiye, in Turkish.

4 productions of Clown Bar 2; 4 productions of Clown Bar; 5 productions of Hearts Like Fists;  18 productions of The Bookstore (six more than last year); 4 Night Children; 4 Christmas Tree Farm; 1 Sex Writer; 2 Bart and Arnie; 1 Marian Musical.

I had productions in Türkiye, Malaysia and Ethiopia and a whole lot in Canada.

Bart and Arnie premiered at Idiom Theater.  And Poly Prep.  Melancholics Anonymous will do in in Minneapolis in the new year.

The Sex Writer went up in NYC.

This year I was in a writing group for parents again with Project Y, and took part in Flux's Core Work writing group. Did a signing at the Drama Book Shop with Jackie Goldfinger.

Apart from being in NYC a lot, for Clown Bar 2 (Directed by Andrew Block) and The Sex Writer (Directed by Phil Cruise), I also went there for Comicon for the fist time. 

 Developed our musical at Penn State and at the International Thespian Festival in Bloomington IN. (both Directed  by John Simpkins.) Visited New London MN to meet the first group to do all three Clown Bar plays. (Dir Matt Hegdahl)   I was honored to again attend the Flux Retreat at Little Pond.  I took trips for family to DE and VA.

Next year, there are 30 full length productions so far slated for 2025.  There will be 2, possibly three productions at TCG theaters, one of which will be a not-yet-announced production of Clown Bar 2.

Such Small Hands opens in Feb at The Chance Theater in Anaheim CA.

Love to you and yours!  Hope we all have a great 2025!

Here are my previous years in review.

2023
2022
2021

2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

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Clown Bar Graphic Novel

is now available

https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/674511f3f288c701316de9dc

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I Interview Playwrights Part 1122: Corey Allen

Corey Allen

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Current Town: Austin, TX, and Brooklyn, NY

Q:  Tell me about Methods in Madness and Polly, a dumbshow for smart people desperate to survive the fallout.

A:  Methods in Madness is an interdisciplinary “salon” investigating the connection between mental health and creativity. It grew out of research I began two years ago into a growing mental health crisis plaguing the Black community. I was interested in interrogating the ways this largely silent struggle specifically impacts artists and chose to look at four 20th-century artists who publicly or privately battled with mental health. As a multidisciplinary artist who is also neurodivergent, I have often felt a certain fragmentation or compartmentalization in my work, so Methods became a container to integrate various facets of my creative practice into one violent confrontation.

It is an experiment, a meditation, and an autopsy of sorts. I use the word experiment because it’s an evolving examination of a constantly changing relationship across various artistic disciplines. It’s a work in flux, which has been radically supported by my creative home, FLUX Theatre Ensemble. Through a series of collaborations with a mix of artists, Methods is an art installation, an immersive audio experience with filmed and live performance components that invites audiences to enter the mind of an artist and consider the ways their own “madness” informs their art and vice versa.

Polly, a dumbshow for smart people desperate to survive the fallout is a unicorn of a play. Largely written during the “Great Reset” of 2020, it worked its way out of me as I watched the world unravel. In it, we follow the eponymous character through a series of disorienting confrontations as she navigates a brutally absurd upside-down world and fights to survive the fallout of her life.

Q:  What else are you working on now?

A:  I’m forever tinkering with something and love experimenting with new forms. Flux produced a sprawling immersive audio drama, Our Options Have Changed, which I wrote for. Methods in Madness contains a fair bit of poetry and scene fragments that I find interesting. There are a few short films gestating at the moment, and I am about to return to my vault… I have a Baldwin-inspired feature screenplay, Negrosis, I’m looking to produce, as well as a Sartre adaptation that was workshopped at The Cell in 2021.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  You know, funnily enough, I don’t have lots of precise memories from childhood. Much of it feels like a wet watercolor painting. I was an only child and a latchkey kid, so I mainly remember spending time on my own, much of it in front of the television, which I suppose does explain something about me… But the first story that comes to mind happened when I was about 13. I was visiting my aunt and cousins in this remote desert town in California. She was my favorite aunt, and I loved spending time with her and getting away from home. Well, my two cousins were a few years older than me and were tasked with watching me while their mom worked the nightshift. One evening, although we were supposed to stay at home, being teenagers, we had plans of our own. My cousins had friends who lived in a town twenty or so miles away, and they wanted to go hang out.

Now, Ridgecrest, where my aunt lived, was really out in the boonies, so there was very little around. I remember us piling into someone’s Ford Escort hatchback and riding with both windows down as we traveled about 45 minutes to an hour away. It was a blur of teenage shenanigans I don’t really recall—I was an NPC tagging along after all—but I do remember at some point, we realized we had to get back before my aunt got off work. That’s when we discovered the person who drove us there couldn’t drive us back. It was late at night, and because we weren’t supposed to have left the house, my cousins didn’t want to call their mom. And, being teenagers, none of us had much money (or cell phones), so my eldest cousin decided we could walk back or at least get close enough to afford a taxi.

I don’t know how many miles it was, but I remember walking along this two-lane highway in the middle of the night, with very few cars passing. One of my cousins was crying because she knew we were going to be in deep trouble. We eventually came to a gas station, called a taxi, and waited 30 or 45 minutes, but it never came, so we walked some more and eventually made it home—after my aunt. They got grounded.

Wow! I haven’t thought about that in a very long time. I suppose it explains my appreciation for an unplanned adventure. I love road trips—really, all trips—and long dark roads with hints of danger. These things find their way into my work, I think. I often feel like that backseat passenger, watching tales unfold.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  So many, and for various reasons. In no particular order: I adore Lorraine Hansberry. I love Beckett, Brecht, and Pinter. I appreciate William Inge and Tennessee Williams. I have tremendous respect for Adrienne Kennedy, August Wilson, and Tony Kushner.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Visceral, embodied, uncomfortable, messy, intimate, or epic storytelling is what I long to experience in the theater. I like being challenged and completely immersed.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  I think too many playwrights are concerned with getting it right. The only way to discover your work is to identify the mysteries you’re most interested in solving and then allow them to guide your work. Chase what you can’t quite grasp—it’ll lead you somewhere you never expected. Yes, that pursuit may be long, and you may have to spend a lot of time in the wrong places, but those answers will eventually reveal themselves. If you follow them and write the things that only you can write in the way that only you can write them, you’ll do fine. And don’t worry about getting lost. That’s where the magic happens.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Check out Our Options Have Changed and Sharing Power!

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The Sex Writer in NYC, Oct/Nov

I have a new play opening in NYC Oct 30.  Come if you can.

Jane's father, an "important" writer, has just died by suicide, and Jane goes home to her small town to deal with the aftermath. Jane is a professor and writer of spicy romance, and as she meets new possibilities and old loves, she narrates all her sexual longings as she struggles to deal with the grief from her father's death and the feeling that he deserted her a long time ago. Thin Duke/Sparkplug Productions present Adam Szymkowicz's world premiere.

https://www.tdf.org/shows/22111/the-sex-writer

https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/thin-duke-productions/66fad10d4abcb41e91ec77cf/

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Drama Book Shop Event and Book Release, Tues Oct 1 at 7:30

Come if you can!  Jackie Goldfinger and I will talk playwriting and about our books!

Reserve here!

and buy my book there or wherever else books are sold.

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