In New York

Out Loud Reading series Mon March 13 at 7pm Pretty Theft By Adam Szymkowicz Directed by Evan Cabnet In the summer between high school and college, Allegra must fend for herself as she is faced with a summer job at a rest home, a new best friend who's hellbent on self-destruction, a boyfriend who is a terrible kisser, a disastrous roadtrip in a stolen car, a kidnapper, and provocative lipstick. A chorus of ballerinas punctuate this whimsical, humorous and bittersweet coming of age tale. With Naomi Aborn, Heidi Armbruster, Austin Lysy and Heidi Schreck Ars Nova 511 West 54th street

IN Los Angeles

LOVE BITES Genre Comedy Opens Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Closes Friday, March 17, 2006 Runs Tuesdays & Thursdays - Vol. III Wednesdays & Fridays - Vol. IV Special Show Info Running time: 90 minutes. There will be an intermission. Elephant Asylum Theatre 6322 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 Ample Street Parking Area Map Reservations (323) 960-7822 Tickets $15.00 Individual Show Special Note: If you purchase a ticket for BOTH SHOWS, use Promo Code 005, for 2nd show (Vol.IV) only - This is a $10.00 Savings! Combination tickets will be verified. LOVE BITES VOL. III & IV "An evening of not so romantic shorts and dysfunctional comedies" ---------------------------------- TUESDAY/THURSDAY (Vol. III) Writers: Gena Acosta, Zibby Allen, Kerry Carney, & Jacqueline Christy Directors: Kerry Carney, Don Cesario, Amy French, Christopher Game, & Tom Stanczyk. ---------------------------------- WEDNESDAY/FRIDAY (Vol. IV) Writers: Tony Foster, Gloria CalderÓn Kellett, Tom Stanczyk, & Adam Szymkowicz Directors: Lindsay Allbaugh, Zibby Allen, Dave Fofi, Christopher Game, Emily Hands, & Gina Soto. Cast includes: Kerry Carney, Brendan Connor, Nelson DelRosario, Kate Ascott-Evans, David Franco, Amy French, Alexander Hoover, Cheryl Huggins, Annie Morse, Jeff Perry

It's snowing. I love that. I'm having one of those days. I feel like I'm barely here. Someone please acknowledge my existence. I wish people would talk about me more.

Swabbed

This morning, I was about to enter the subway on my way to work when I was stopped by a cop and asked to step over to the side to be searched. This had happened to me before maybe a month ago—I had opened my bag and they had looked in it and then, seeing nothing particularly dangerous they had waved me on my way. This time was different. There were about 6 cops altogether over on the side. One had rubber gloves. They asked me to stand behind a white line next to the joking cop (his job was to joke and make everything jovial). Then the cop in the rubber gloves swabbed my bag with a strip of something and put it through some machine. And then because they didn’t find what they were looking for, and apparently my bag still contains nothing dangerous, the mood remained jovial, the joking cop made another joke and everyone was all smiles when the rubber gloved cop told me I could go.

stirrings in the world of Floyd Britchcraft. Floyd, I'll take that 20 bucks now.

Article in NY Times from interrogator: From January 2004 to January 2005, I served in various places in Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) as an Army interrogator. Following orders that I believed were legal, I used military working dogs during interrogations. I terrified my interrogation subjects, but I never got intelligence (mostly because 90 percent of them were probably innocent, but that's another story). Perhaps, I have thought for a long time, I also deserve to be prosecuted. But if that is the case, culpability goes much farther up the chain of command than the Army and the Bush administration have so far been willing to admit.

Alliance Theatre is now housing blogs for its artists to talk about their productions there. I'm curious to see how this will work. Will playwrights and dramaturgs be talking about production problems? Are there restrictions on what can be said about one's collaborators? Is this the wave of the future or a very bad idea?

This should be interesting. Comes out in April

The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office by David Lindroff

Mark it on your calendar or Tattoo it on your arm

A small notice in Playbill about my reading coming up. You have to scroll to the bottom but it's there. The Out Loud reading series will continue March 13 with Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft. Evan Cabnet directs. I hope you will be able to make that. If not please come to the likely but not definite production of Nerve (three weeks?) in May, in NYC. Or come to production of Food For Fish four weekends in July also in NYC. Or Pretty Theft in DC fringe 5 days in early July.

LA folks, let me know if you want to attend. I can get a limited number of comps. A

TRYING TO TRANSLATE WHAT MY GIRLFRIEND IS SAYING IN SWEDISH WHILE SHE'S ON THE PHONE TO HER MOTHER from McSweeneys. Thanks to Daisey for this.

the amazing ever-expanding universe and your place in it

This blew my mind more than a little bit. ----- Santa Roi or something similar This Santa play is finally taking a little bit of shape in my mind, which is good because I'm going nuts with not writing anything.

K and I just got a cat who is named Skeezer, at the moment. Skeezer is a one year old black and white cat who fell out of a window and broke both her legs. She is fully healed now but has metal plates in her. Having had her for a couple days now, I can see how she fell out of a window. She seems to fall off everything. I don't know why the window was open however. And I will never know. But anyway, she seems like a great cat and I am very excited.

i thought I wasn't going to write this play but it's back on my mind again which means (this time at least it means) I'm posting a bunch more pictures.

It's about time

A United Nations report today called on the United States to immediately close the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to either release its inmates or bring them before an impartial tribunal. But will this make a difference? Bush doesn't seem to care about the UN or about human rights or about people. When will we stop interning people while we are at war? It's atrocious and it takes the freedom away that we are supposedly fighting for. People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in the US. They should be charged with a crime or let go. Did Cheney shoot someone so this wouldn't be the top news story or am I being a little paranoid? "The UN story didn't come out yet, sir" "OK well don't tell anyone I shot him yet."

My 10 min play snow performed by Blue Box this fri at 9 and next thurs and fri also at 9 at the DR2 in NYC.

a short story told in the bent ear of a friend

She was a girl who liked to hold her breath. She liked to see her face turn blue before it all went black. He was a boy who liked ever more piercings on his face and on his body. He liked to say he could never feel a thing when the metal went in. Blueskin met Metal in a bar in DUMBO. Blueskin was lighting matches off her teeth. Metal was finding oblivion in marathon shots of Jack. Each of them was quiet and each of them was alone. Blueskin started a small but uncontrolled napkin fire. Metal helped her put it out it with a glass of water. They liked the way their eyes glinted in the moment before the fire was doused. What’s that old saying? “There’s nothing like a fire to break the ice.” They talked like words were dollar bills laid on the bar. In the spaces, in the silence they pondered their similarities. They both liked the taste of salt overload and the sound of Velcro coming apart. She liked to bury her head in her pillow each morning to avoid the sunrise. He always shaved the right side of his face before the left. She always painted her toenails the color of her mood. He never asked for anyone for anything. Except for that night when he asked her for her phone number. Except for that night, they never saw each other again.

On Fridays

I have a jumping class. At least that's what I call it. It's really some sort of dance aerobics with lots of jumping and some punching and crunches and pushups. It's ridiculous and I don't really still know the moves. The actors I am told are required to take it every morning and we would be allowed to take it too at 9 am if we wanted. But I have to work then. And the only time I can make it over there is Friday evening. So consequently all week long I get no exercise and drink beers and eat hamburgers and sit in various theatres and then once a week on Fridays I exercise strenuously for an hour.

crazy

I don't know what I'm writing next and I'm totally on edge because of it. Lots of ideas, none of which I know enough about. Gonna go crazy soon. crazy

Don't forget this weekend Among other short plays, Snow by Adam Szymkowicz, directed by Neil Hellegers, starring Robert Hancock,* Stacy Rock,* Ana Valle & Barry Roth (02/10, 02/17, 02/23, 02/24) If you're in LA, you'll have to wait until Feb 21 for Snow (the play what I wrote) but once it starts, it'll play for a month.

Laura Axelrod writes in a recent post "Suffice it to say, secrecy plays an integral role in my writing process. Maybe more so than it should. Keeping things hidden and keeping a blog is a strange dichotomy to maintain. I do notice that the times I've been more "public" are usually the times that my work has been lighter and less intense. " I've been thinking about this recently. Laura's post makes me think about it in a different way. I never used to talk about what I was writing until after it was written. It was always important to me that it exist in a bubble and I wouldn't talk about this bubble for fear that some offhand comment would pop it. Now I'm blogging about current projects, I talk to people about them and I'm still not sure if this is a good idea or not. Perhaps I'm playing with fire here and it could be very bad. Perhaps I've gotten better at not listening to people who I feel are wrong about what my work should be or don't understand what I'm doing. Perhaps I believe in what I'm doing much more than I ever have before. Or perhaps I'm still not really saying that much or sharing that much. This morning I found myself telling K about something I'm thinking of writing now even though it wasn't completely formulated. I don't know if she got what I was trying to say. I doubt I was very clear. I can't really ever explain what I'm doing or trying to do which was maybe why I had this secrecy thing. It was secret because I had no words for it. Or I could try but really there was no way to explain that what sounded crazy was actually something that on the page might work. I just keep messing with it until it's right. I don't really know what I'm doing. I mean I don't really know how I'm doing what I do when I write. I like to keep myself in the dark. And when it is working, really working, it's an automatic pilot sort of thing until it runs out of steam for the day. But that automatic writer will only happen if I do all the pre work of figuring out what happens when. Taking all the things that are supposed to go in and then putting them in the right order and figuring it out and figuring it out and a level of excitement plays into it too. Because it won't work unless I'm excited about it. And to be excited, I have to know enough. I'm dying to go home and try to figure this out right now. But I know it will be weeks and weeks or months and months before it's all there and in that time the excitement still has to be there. Otherwise I'll drop it and try to do something else. Maybe it's the constant discovery, the adding of this idea and that idea that keeps it exciting. The clearer it is and for me the brighter the colors are when I think of what I'm trying to do, the better it is. The colors are real bright right now. I could burn out from this, I think. I hope it lasts.

My play Snow here in NY

the culmination of the most exciting bar play season ever... Big Sticky @ D Lounge D Lounge 101 E 15th St. @ Union Square “Blue Box’s itty bitty plays are perfect short attention span theater”-- The New York Times last year we sold out early, so get your tickets while they last! 10 minute plays || 7 plays each night || + music and cabaret http://www.theatermania.com to buy tickets, $12 + 2 drink minimum www.dloungenyc.com || www.blueboxproductions.net night club robberies, awkward 30th birthday parties, two men who both believe they are Socrates, South Asian punk rock cutters in love, an electro-clash has-been and his new girlfriend, white trash lesbian awakening, failed private eyes, George and Osama in a bar in a cave, the set designer of the apocalypse, a delivery man in love with a recluse, and a gay politician recruiting a beard Friday February 10th @ 10:30 pm Sunday February 12th @ 9:30 pm Thursday February 16th @ 10:30 pm Friday February 17th @ 10:30 pm Sunday February 19th @ 9:30 pm Thursday February 23rd @ 10:30 pm Friday February 24th @ 10:30 pm Sunday February 26th @ 9:30 pm Musical performances by Jeffrey Marsh and Tom Wilson Weinberg: Thursdays and Fridays (02/16, 02/17, 02/23, 02/24) The Heather Christian Ensemble (02/12) The Sprinkle Genies (02/19) Taylor Mac (02/26) The Plays: ASL by Gary Winter, directed by Ali Ayala, starring Jarel Davidow* & Adeel Akthar (02/12, 02/16, 02/19, 02/26) bridesmaid written and directed by Clay McLeod Chapman, starring Hanna Cheek (02/16, 02/23) Candy by Elizabeth Emmons, directed by Matthew Korahais, starring Eve Udesky* & Sarah Gliko (02/12, 02/17, 02/23, 02/24) Epistemology by Ian Grody, directed by David Marcus, starring Jarel Davidow,* Henry Caplan* & Katya Schapiro (02/10, 02/16, 02/19, 02/26) Final Stage by Ali Ayala & Peter Sarafin, directed by Ali Ayala, starring David Marcus, Matthew Korahais & Neil Hellegers* (02/10, 02/12, 02/16, 02/17, 02/24) In Between by Jesse Wann, directed by Ali Ayala, starring Elaine O'Brien & Jeremiah Clancy (02/10, 02/12, 02/16, 02/19, 02/23) piece by piece by Dennis Moritz, directed by David Marcus, starring Eve Udesky* & Matthew Korahais (02/12, 02/17, 02/24, 02/26) Sensitive Eyes by Jeremy Basescu, directed by Ali Ayala, starring Veronica Newton* & Jim Boyle* (02/12, 02/17, 02/23, 02/24) She Was a Real Tomato by Lisa Ferber, directed by Jarel Davidow, starring Virginia Callaway* & David Marcus (02/10, 02/16, 02/19, 02/23, 02/26) Shooting the Breeze by Chuck Orsland, directed by Jeremy Basescu, starring Sarah Gliko, Neil Hellegers* & Matthew Korahais (02/10, 02/23, 02/24, 02/26) Showing Skin by Rehana Mirza, directed by Jeremiah Clancy, starring Taniya Sen & David Marcus (02/12, 02/17, 02/19, 02/24, 02/26) Snow by Adam Szymkowicz, directed by Neil Hellegers, starring Robert Hancock,* Stacy Rock,* Ana Valle & Barry Roth (02/10, 02/17, 02/23, 02/24) 30th Birthday Party by Elizabeth Emmons, directed by Matthew Korahais, starring Virginia Callaway,* Jenny Greeman,* David Marcus, Ali Ayala, Neil Hellegers* & Elizabeth Emmons (02/10, 02/16, 02/19, 02/23, 02/26) undertow written and performed by Clay McLeod Chapman (02/17, 02/19) *appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association Big Sticky originated at The Flea Theater, 2004

Le Bib-luh

I was reading the bible today. have you read it? Were you aware (according to King James version) that there were giants around during the time of early people. All the men lived to be 600-900 years old. Noah was 600 when he built the ark. But all the ages are really specific. I think Noah was 600 and two months and 14 days. Something like that. I'm serious. Take a look.

Wendy Wasserstein died today. We've lost August Wilson and Arthur Miller and now Wendy too. She'll be missed. ------ Children doing Equus. Really! No, not really.

diction

I admitted in class that I feel like I am addicted to playwriting. Then I became somewhat embarrassed. I felt like I was taking myself too seriously, making myself look ridiculously tragic as if it's something I can't stop doing, which of course I really can't. Not if I want to keep on an even keel. Don't get me wrong--It's not an addiction I'm trying to kick or anything but definitely something that needs to be fed. Because if I'm not writing, I'm kind of on edge, moody, angry at myself. Although I'm not ever too long not writing. And I'm not trying to say I'm at a computer all the time actually typing. The planning stages is 2/3 of the process for me generally but it's a time when I'm jonesing to get into the world and start the typing. Mostly it's just that I never really am not writing something. I'm always rewriting something or trying to figure out something new. And it wasn't like this when I started. It was college and it was a play on summer break. Then a play winter break and summer break and then school ended and work descended and it was all the time like it is now. I've written two full lengths in the past 7 or so months which is fast for me but I'm also not seeing a new one directly in front of me. It'll be a little bit for this next one--whichever one it turns out to be. And I have to say that's getting under my skin a little. I know if I start just writing something long without figuring most of it out it will be bad but I'm so jonesin to do it. But I bide my time with this discovery of this and that discovery of that until one of the ideas comes close enough that I can make it out. And then I can look at it a bit but soon I'm getting up early and putting in my time--loving every second when it's going well and pissed off when it's not, but all the time wanting to get back to that escape of a place and sort it out and live it out. Until it's over and I'm depressed and maybe at the same time elated but then needing it again not too much long after. When I first discovered playwriting I was looking for others like me, but most people are not like this. They don't have this problem. I don't know what problems other people have. But not this one. Other people have real problems. This isn't even a problem, really. I don't know that I want to continue to write like this in a public forum. But how many people actually read this anyway? Until fame and fortune comes, (tomorrow probably) I'm safe.

Ok, here is the explanation to my bizarre emails

The junk mail senders are sending me these poems to try and trick the spam getter ridder machines: Often appended at the end, in an attempt to flummox the filters, is a scrap of Dadaist poetry - "feverish squirt feat transconductance terrify broken trite fascist axis stultify floc bookshelves. " Sometimes this "word salad," as it has come to be called, is rendered in invisible ink - white letters on a white background - or hidden inside an embedded formatting command. I still find it fascinating. How does one get the job of writing the poem at the end of the spam? Can I be hired for this?

someone explain this to me. what the hell kind of a list am I on? and what is going on with my junk mail. does everyone get this or just me and what sort of theatre can be made with it?

The next bulk message was this from "Salter Nellie"

must ask take yes hurt work false run spend him run forget not take listen He wakeup make right finish swim place work leave It fill study for hurt talk morning teach count