Matt Freeman interviews me at nytheatre.com

about Pretty Theft and about stealing.

http://www.nytheatrecast.com/episode.php?t=282

what is up.

So I'm in New York, rehearsing Pretty Theft. I'm very excited about this one. There are a lot of elements that have to come together but from what I'm seeing at rehearsal, it's going to be a production I'm very proud of. Which is good because it seems like a lot of people are coming to see it. I myself will be there the 23, 24, 25 so if you're coming then we should have a drink after. I've been catsitting on Staten Island and this weekend my parents are having their 40th anniversary up in CT. Kristen flies in tomorrow. A reading with Packawallop Monday. And I have interviews and meetings next week I'm trying to figure out how to fit in to my days. All good things. What are you up to?

Listening to Susan Louise O'Connor talking here

http://www.broadwaybullet.com/?p=659

where I will be tomorrow night

http://fluxtheatreensemble.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetic-larceny-april-13th.html

I'm in New York

rehearsing.

That is all.

reading of a new play of mine

Packawallop Productions is proud to kick off The Lounge Series. Monday, April 20, 2009 7:30pm - 9:30pm The 14th Street Theatre 344 East 14th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY The Lounge Series is a program of new works of film and theater presented throughout the year in the style you've come to expect from Packawallop - stylish, sassy ... and, naturally, with some cocktails. Please join us at our first Lounge on Monday April 20th where we will present Adam Szymkowicz's new play "Elsewhere" which was specially written for Packawallop Community Artists Susan Louise O'Connor, Polly Lee and Travis York. It will be directed by Scott Ebersold. "When Teddy comes to Celia’s house to deliver a package, he doesn’t expect to be invited for dinner. When he comes to dinner, he doesn’t expect to be invited to live there. When he starts to live there, he doesn’t expect to be drugged or buried. And he certainly doesn’t expect Amanda, nor she him. A play about the unexpected, unearthed and elsewhere." Reservations are essential, please email info (at) packawallop.org to secure a seat. We look forward to seeing you there! Cheers!

Don't be so boring

Found Via Matt J

Don't make Boring Theatre--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/mar/21/features11.g2

What is commercial?

From Daniel Kuney: "At the end of the day, I think producers, like Mr. Rudin, and artists, like Duncan Sheik and Lin-Manuel Miranda, achieve success by pursuing their own visions, and not by trying to conform to someone else’s idea of what makes a good movie or musical. For those of you who are sitting down at the piano for the first time or who are contemplating a career as a producer, I would encourage you to do the same."

New York Theatre Review

Event May 6.  I have a short play in the book and in the event, I think.

NYTR events are always a lot of fun.

Mark your calendar.

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/#Event/71093

Flux event

Poetic Larceny ...because inspiration is the sincerest form of larceny... A play reading series where playwrights steal three things from the playwright before them, only to have three things stolen from them by the next shifty scribe. A staged reading series inspired by the themes of our Spring production of Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft. $10 Tickets for Pretty Theft available at the door of the April 6th Poetic Larceny! Or use the code Larceny1 for tickets online here. This limited time offer is good for the 1st week of performances, opening excluded. Poetic Larceny The dates: Mondays, April 6th and 13th at 7PM At Primary Stages Studio A, 307 West 38th Street, Suite 1510 And Mondays, May 4th and 11th at 7PM At Access Theater's Gallery, 380 Broadway, 4th Floor $5 suggested donation The playwrights: Rob Ackerman, Johnna Adams, Bianca Bagatourian, Jeremy Basescu, Erin Browne, Chad Beckim, Bekah Brunstetter, Katherine Burger, James Comtois, Corey Ann Haydu, David Ian Lee, Jeff Lewonczyk, August Schulenburg, Crystal Skillman, Isaiah Tanenbaum The directors: Michael Davis, Jessi D. Hill, Kate Marks, Kelly O'Donnell The actors: Ryan Andes, Havilah Brewster, Tiffany Clementi, Nick Gallegos, Mariam Habib, Ian Heitzman, Kitty Lindsay, Elise Link, Nick Monroy, Matthew Murumba, Gretchen Poulos, Carolyn Ratteray, Isaiah Tanebaum, Daren Taylor, Gregory Waller, Shannon Michael Wamser, Anthony Willis Jr., DeWanda Wise, Cotton Wright, Travis York More information here on the Flux Blog.

Rebeck on plot

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-theresa-rebeck29-2009mar29,0,2065069.story

coming soon

Matt Freeman and I do a podcast at nytheatre.com

http://www.nytheatre-i.com/2009/03/some-nyte-good-news-updates.html

new monologue books for actors and those who like monolgues

I have one monologue in each of these books. They are both from Food For Fish. So if you wanted, you could just read Food For Fish, but then you would miss out on the other cool monologues contained within. There are some heavy hitters in these books, including many people that you or I may know personally. See below: Women: And Her Hair Went With Her (2), Zina Camblin And We All Wore Leather Pants, Robert Attenweiler Beauty of the Father, Nilo Cruz The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (2), Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman Boats on a River, Julie Marie Myatt A Body of Water, Lee Blessing Boom (3), Peter Sinn Nachtrieb The Butcher of Baraboo, Marisa Wegrzyn Christmas Belles, Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten Chronicles Simpkins Will Cut Your Ass Off, Rolin Jones The Conscientious Objector, Michael Murphy Custody of the Eyes (2), Anthony Giardina The Drunken City (3), Adam Bock Earthquake Chica, Anne Garcia-Romero Eat the Runt, Avery Crozier Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue, Quiara Alegria Hudes Fall Forward, Daniel Reitz Food for Fish, Adam Szymkowicz Fuck Tori Amos, Caitlyn Montanye Parrish Giftbox (2), Francine Volpe God's Ear (2), Jenny Schwartz Great Falls, Lee Blessing Guardians (2), Peter Morris The Hopper Collection, Mat Smart Hunting and Gathering (2), Brooke Berman In Our Name, Elena Hartwell In the Shadow of My Son, Nadine Bernard Joy, John Fisher Love-Lies-Bleeding, Don DeLillo Marvelous Shrine, Leslie Bramm Mauritius, Theresa Rebeck Men of Steel, Qui Nguyen Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Jennifer Haley None of the Above, Jenny Lyn Bader 100 Saints You Should Know (2), Kate Fodor Property, Rosary O'Neill Regrets Only (2), Paul Rudnick School of the Americas, Jose Rivera A Small, Melodramatic Story, Stephen Belber Smoke and Mirrors (2), Joseph Goodrich Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Young Jean Lee Spain, Jim Knabel Tea, Valina Hasu Houston tempOdyssey, Dan Dietz This Beautiful City, Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis Unconditional, Brett C. Leonard Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, Julie Marie Myatt What Shall I Do For Pretty Girls?, Don Nigro When The Messenger Is Hot, Marisa Wegrzyn White People, JT Rogers Men: The Actor, Horton Foote Adopt a Sailor (3), Charles Evered Boats on a River, Julie Marie Myatt Cagelove, Christopher Denham The Conscientious Objector (2), Michael Murphy Darwin in Malibu, Crispin Whittell Digging Eleven, Kia Corthron Down and Dirty, Lee Blessing Eagle Hills, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Landing, Brett Neveu Echoes of Another Man, Mia McCullough The Emperor of Ice Cream; or, Thirteen Ways of Looking at Donald Rumsfeld, Matt Moses Fall Forward, Daniel Reitz Food for Fish, Adam Szymkowicz The Four of Us (3), Itamar Moses Gary, Melinda Lopez November (2), David Mamet Good, Clean Fun (2), Lee Blessing Great Falls, Lee Blessing Hunting and Gathering, Brooke Berman The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker, Russell Davis Massacre (Sing to Your Children) , Jose Rivera Mauritius, Theresa Rebeck Men of Steel (2), Qui Nguyen 100 Saints You Should Know, Kate Fodor On the Line (2), Joe Roland Property (2), Rosary O'Neill Rats, Ron Fitzgerald The Rules of Charity (2), John Belluso School of the Americas, Jose Rivera Screw Machine/Eye Candy, CJ Hopkins Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven, Young Jean Lee Spain (2), Jim Knabel The Sunset LTD, Cormac McCarthy The Thirteenth of Paris, Mat Smart This Beautiful City, Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis Unconditional, Brett C. Leonard Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, Julie Marie Myatt White People, JT Rogers Willy's Cut and Shine, Michael Bradford Wittenberg (2), David Davalos Yemaya's Belly, Quiara Alegria Hudes

PT

Last Chance for 1/2 Price Tix to Pretty Theft Offer expires this Sunday March 29th at midnight, so buy now! Use the code PICKPOCKET for $9 tickets the 1st week of performances (opening excluded) Preview: Thurs, April 23rd, 8PM Opening: Friday, April 24th, 8PM Pretty Theft runs Thurs-Sat at 8PM And Sun at 7PM From April 23rd - May 17th Patron's Night with Pre-show Reception Sat, May 2nd! Access Theater's Gallery 380 Broadway, 4th Floor New York, New York 10013 2 blocks south of Canal St N,R,Q,W or 6 trains to Canal St Flux's 2009/10 season begins with Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft, a play about ballerinas, boxes and the dangers of beauty. After losing her father, Allegra falls under the wing of bad girl Suzy, only to find an unexpected friendship with Joe, an autistic savant. When things between them take a violent turn, Allegra and Suzy escape cross country and befriend Marco, a mysterious thief who claims he cannot be caught.

Ken of the Producer's Perspective publishes his 1st year of blogging as a book

http://www.theproducersperspective.com/my_weblog/2009/03/kindle-or-not-books-will-never-go-out-of-style-so-i-published-one.html

evolution of a one-man show

I wrote this one person (one dog actually) show called Bee Eater while I was at Juilliard. I thought it was 40 minutes long and I kept trying to write short 20 min or so one person shows to go before or after it. I wrote two of these and attempted another before scrapping it. We put up Bee Eater for a couple of nights in Minneapolis and I can tell you it's actually 50 minutes long. (I had two 10 min pieces go on before it) While rehearsing Bee Eater I came up with another idea-- a short one person piece to go after it played by the same actor and I think it's the right one this time. I finished writing it today. It'll still have to be tested but I think it brings out the things that people are glossing over in Bee Eater and hopefully does so in a cool way. I'll have to see. I wrote Pretty Theft in '04 sometime and it's finally being done in nyc this April. Who know how long this play will take to go up. Could be next year, could be five years from now or ten. In any case I can add it to my list of my plays I want to see produced. That list is getting longer. And as I sit here, having just finished a new play all I can think of is that I better start another one soon.

notes about the play

I was asked to write playwright notes for Pretty Theft. Here they are-- In 2004, I took a class with Chuck Mee at the Flea. He was writing what would become Hotel Cassiopeia about the life of artist Joseph Cornell. Cornell is probably most famous for his boxes—dioramas created from collages of found objects. He lived his whole life in the house he grew up in and probably died a virgin. He also had many friendships with ballerinas and sometimes gave his art to them as gifts. In Chuck Mee’s class we were supposed to all write our own play about Joseph Cornell and in the spirit of Mee, we were all supposed to steal from one another. Every scene everyone brought in was on the table to potentially become part of our own pieces. I did not end up writing a play about Joseph Cornell but instead wrote a play about an autistic guy named Joe who is obsessed with ballerinas and likes to collect things in a box. Likewise, I took my character of the Waitress from a café scene someone brought in where a character said “If you live in New York long enough you will eventually fall in love with a waitress” and I took my main character Allegra from an interview someone brought in of the dancer Allegra Kent. Although I didn’t end up stealing scenes or dialogue, I instead wrote a play about stealing. I wanted to figure out why I was so opposed to taking lines from people’s scenes when that was what we were supposed to do. Ingrained in me still was the idea of theft as an unallowable taboo. So I wrote about it. I was interested in showing different versions of theft—the serious and less serious, emotional theft and physical theft and what theft means in America and to us as individuals. Why do some people compulsively steal? When something vital is taken from us, how does it affect us? That was the initial impulse to write this play. I also looked at Chuck Mee’s theatricality and tried to make my version of a Chuck Mee play. In Pretty Theft, ballerinas dance between scenes and wrenches fall from the ceiling. And above all, I wanted to make something beautiful, maybe terrible, hopefully funny but also emotionally resonant.

Half Price Tickets to Pretty Theft

Pretty Theft in New York at the Access Theatre 1/2 price tickets Use the code PICKPOCKET for $9 tickets for the 1st week of performances (opening excluded) - this is a limited time offer - so click here now to save! Preview: Thurs, April 23rd, 8PM Opening: Friday, April 24th, 8PM Pretty Theft runs Thurs-Sat at 8PM And Sun at 7PM From April 23rd - May 17th Patron's Night with Pre-show Reception Sat, May 2nd! Cast Allegra: Marnie Schulenburg Suzy: Maria Portman Kelly* Joe: Brian Pracht Bobby: Zack Robidas Marco: Todd D'Amour* The Ballerinas: Waitress, etc: Candice Holdorf* Supervisor, etc: Cotton Wright* Psychiatrist, etc: Lynn Kenny *Appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association Director: Angela Astle Choreographer: Ashley Martinez Scenic Design: Heather Cohn Costume Design: Becky Kelly Light Design: Andrew Fritsch Sound Design: Kevin Fuller Prop Design: Kelly O'Donnell Stage Manager: Kate August Flux's 2009/10 season begins with Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft, a play about ballerinas, boxes and the dangers of beauty. After losing her father, Allegra falls under the wing of bad girl Suzy, only to find an unexpected friendship with Joe, an autistic savant. When things between them take a violent turn, Allegra and Suzy escape cross country and befriend Marco, a mysterious thief who claims he cannot be caught.

in Minneapolis

This Thursday, come see my show.

Lark has a blog

http://larktheatre.blogspot.com/

playwriting

I started writing plays about twelve years ago. I think I’m pretty good at it now. At the same time, I look at where my career is and I’m disappointed I haven’t yet had an off Broadway or regional show. My plays are being done by various small theaters throughout the country, mostly because I work really hard to get my work out there. I’m happy that people are seeing my plays but I really want them out in the world in a much larger way, a way I have no control over. It’s frustrating but I haven’t found an alternative. Theatre is what I love. And I stick with it because of the way I feel when I see something onstage that clicks and I feel myself change emotionally, intellectually, physically. I want to write things that touch people softly or rip out their guts and this is the way I’ve found to do it. Theatre is the closest I’ve come to a religious experience on this planet. Which is why I keep doing it even though it’s a hard life that no one sane should choose.

this week and next in Minneapolis

http://culturemob.com/events/5747397-the-captivity-plays-snow-all-access-and-bee-eater-mn-minneapolis-lowry-hill-east-55408-bryant-lake-bowl

Dentyne and Theatre

This is my response to the Dentyne people who want me to promote their 10 min play contest: If you want to actually help playwrights and theatre, why not commission new full length works for the stage or give cash awards to playwrights? Why do we need another 10 min contest? It's pretend help, not real help. There are people who are serious about theatre who don't have enough money to make theatre and don't have enough money to live. Why aren't you helping them instead of asking people across the country to write plays for free to promote your gum? Why not promote your gum by actually supporting the arts instead of having actors read 10 minutes of work one night at an event? Put some actual money into the arts to show that Dentyne does care about the power of live theatre to show the complexities of relationships?

Ars Nova

Please consider donating to insure continual fantastic programming

https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/store/27165/donate

Flux press and Pretty Theft Pre-Press (say it ten times fast)

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Flux_Theater_Ensemble_To_Produce_3_Plays_In_200910_Season_20090305

Where I'm at

Back in Minneapolis rehearsing for a show. My agent is sending off my two newest plays, both of which I'm hopeful about. I'm writing a spec of Sunny in Philly for my other agent and she's passing around my pilot. In April, I'll head to nyc for a couple of weeks for Pretty Theft. Then what? Not sure. Food For Fish is being done in Atlanta. Herbie is being done in DC, I think. And then Kristen and I either stick around here, head to LA or come back to NYC. Or something else entirely. Who knows?

Coming up next

In Minneapolis The Captivity Plays: Snow, All Access, and Bee Eater Award-winning New York-based playwright, Adam Szymkowicz teams up with local directors, Genevieve Bennett (Twin Cities Chekhov Festival creator) and Hayley Finn (Ruth Easton Resident Directing Fellow) to produce an evening of three very funny, sometimes heartbreaking plays about missed connections: Four friends searching for love in a snowstorm. Reporters following a bad-girl celebrity. A dog looking for a way out of his pen and into a meaningful career. Performed by a cast of local favorites including, Leif Jurgensen, Leigha Horton, Kimberly Richardson, Tim Uren and Matt Erkel. March 12 and 19 at 7pm Bryant Lake Bowl, 810 West Lake Street Minneapolis, MN $10-$15 sliding scale Reservations: 612.825.8949 or www.bryantlakebowl.com

okay, I'm on Twitter

https://twitter.com/AdamSzymkowicz

Women in Theatre, Julia Jordan

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=25937072860&topic=5810

h/t Mark at Isaac http://parabasis.typepad.com/

yesterday

My play went really well yesterday. Like really really well. I'm very excited. It's this week only. Hope you can come. I saw Sheila Callaghan's play last night. Amazing. You have to see it. Damn. Just go see it.