Featured Post

1100 Playwright Interviews

1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...

Stageplays.com

Jan 3, 2011

300 Playwright Interviews

Lauren Gunderson
Jennifer Fawcett
Andrea Kuchlewska

Sean Christopher Lewis
Rachel Bonds
Lynn Rosen
Jennifer Barclay
Peggy Stafford
James McManus
Philip Dawkins
Jen Silverman
Lally Katz
Anne Garcia-Romero
Tony Adams
christopher oscar peña
Lynne Kaufman

Julie Hebert
Aditi Brennan Kapil
Elaine Romero
Alexis Clements
Lila Rose Kaplan
Barry Levey
Michael I. Walker
Maya Macdonald
Mando Alvarado
Adam Rapp
Eliza Clark
Margot Bordelon
Ben Snyder
Emily Bohannon
Cheri Magid
Jason Chimonides 

Rich Orloff
David Simpatico
Deborah Zoe Laufer
Brian Polak
Kate Fodor
Sibyl Kempson
Gary Garrison
Saviana Stanescu
Brian Bauman
Mark Harvey Levine
Lisa Soland
Sigrid Gilmer
Anthony Weigh 
Maria Alexandria Beech
Catherine Filloux 
Jordan Harrison
Alexandra Collier
Jessica Goldberg
Nick Starr
Young Jean Lee
Christina Gorman
Ruth McKee
Johnny Klein
Leslie Bramm
Jennifer Maisel
Jon Steinhagen
Leslye Headland
Kate Tarker
David Holstein
Trav S.D.

Ruben Carbajal
Martyna Majok
Sam Marks
Stacy Davidowitz 
Molly Rice
Julia Pascal
Yussef El Guindi
Meg Gibson
Daniel McCoy
Amber Reed
Joshua Fardon
Dan O'Brien
Jonathan Blitstein
Dominique Morisseau
Fielding Edlow
Joshua Allen
Peter Gil-Sheridan
Tira Palmquist
Sarah Hammond
Charlotte Miller
Deborah Yarchun
Anna Kerrigan
Luis Alfaro
Jonathan Caren
Jennifer Haley
Sofia Alvarez
Kevin R. Free
Ken Weitzman
Michael Golamco
J. C. Lee
Ruth Margraff
Kirk Lynn
Tanya Saracho
Daria Polatin 
Delaney Britt Brewer
Alice Tuan
Alice Austen
Jeffrey Sweet
Dan LeFranc
Andrew Hinderaker
Brett Neveu
Christine Evans
Jon Tuttle
Nikole Beckwith
Andrea Lepcio
Gregory Moss
Hannah Bos
Steven Levenson
Molly Smith Metzler
Matthew Lopez
Lee Blessing
Joshua James
Chisa Hutchinson
Rob Ackerman
Janine Nabers
Cory Hinkle
Stefanie Zadravec
Michael Mitnick
Jordan Seavey
Andrew Rosendorf
Don Nigro
Barton Bishop
Peter Parnell
Gary Sunshine
Emily DeVoti
Kenny Finkle
Kate Moira Ryan
Sam Hunter
Johnna Adams
Katharine Clark Gray
Laura Eason
David Caudle
Jacqueline Goldfinger
Christopher Chen
Craig Pospisil
Jessica Provenz
Deron Bos
Sarah Sander
Zakiyyah Alexander
Kate E. Ryan
Susan Bernfield
Karla Jennings
Jami Brandli
Kenneth Lin
Heidi Darchuk
Kathleen Warnock
Beau Willimon
Greg Keller
Les Hunter
Anton Dudley
Aaron Carter
Jerrod Bogard
Emily Schwend
Courtney Baron
Craig "muMs" Grant
Amy Herzog
Stacey Luftig
Vincent Delaney
Kathryn Walat
Paul Mullin
Kirsten Greenidge
Derek Ahonen
Francine Volpe
Julie Marie Myatt
Lauren Yee
Richard Martin Hirsch
Ed Cardona, Jr.
Terence Anthony
Alena Smith
Gabriel Jason Dean
Sharr White
Michael Lew
Craig Wright
Laura Jacqmin
Stanton Wood
Jamie Pachino
Boo Killebrew
Daniel Reitz
Alan Berks
Erik Ehn
Krista Knight
Steve Yockey
Desi Moreno-Penson
Andrea Stolowitz
Clay McLeod Chapman
Kelly Younger
Lisa Dillman
Ellen Margolis
Claire Willett
Lucy Alibar
Nick Jones
Dylan Dawson
Pia Wilson
Theresa Rebeck
Me
Arlene Hutton
Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Lucas Hnath
Enrique Urueta
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Anne Washburn
Julia Jarcho
Lisa D'Amour
Rajiv Joseph
Carly Mensch
Marielle Heller
Larry Kunofsky
Edith Freni
Tommy Smith
Jeremy Kareken
Rob Handel
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Kara Manning
Libby Emmons
Adam Bock
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Liz Duffy Adams
Winter Miller
Jenny Schwartz
Kristen Palmer
Patrick Gabridge
Mike Batistick
Mariah MacCarthy
Jay Bernzweig
Gina Gionfriddo
Darren Canady
Alejandro Morales
Ann Marie Healy
Christopher Shinn
Sam Forman
Erin Courtney
Gary Winter
J. Holtham
Caridad Svich
Samuel Brett Williams
Trista Baldwin
Mat Smart
Bathsheba Doran
August Schulenburg
Jeff Lewonczyk
Rehana Mirza
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
David Johnston
Dan Dietz
Mark Schultz
Lucy Thurber
George Brant
Brooke Berman
Julia Jordan
Joshua Conkel
Kyle Jarrow
Christina Ham
Rachel Axler
Laura Lynn MacDonald
Steve Patterson
Erin Browne
Annie Baker
Crystal Skillman
Blair Singer
Daniel Goldfarb
Heidi Schreck
Itamar Moses
EM Lewis
Bekah Brunstetter
Mac Rogers
Cusi Cram
Michael Puzzo
Megan Mostyn-Brown
Andrea Ciannavei
Sarah Gubbins
Kim Rosenstock
Tim Braun
Rachel Shukert
Kristoffer Diaz
Jason Grote
Dan Trujillo
Marisa Wegrzyn
Ken Urban
Callie Kimball
Deborah Stein
Qui Nguyen
Victoria Stewart
Malachy Walsh
Jessica Dickey
Kara Lee Corthron
Zayd Dohrn
Madeleine George
Sheila Callaghan
Daniel Talbott
David Adjmi
Dominic Orlando
Matthew Freeman
Anna Ziegler
James Comtois

I Interview Playwrights Part 300: Lauren Gunderson


Lauren Gunderson

Hometown: Decatur, GA (just outside Atlanta)

Current Town: San Francisco, CA

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I enjoy a little too much going on. I also love lists. So:

1) A new "revenge comedy" called EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR starting its rolling premiere with Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta March 4, rolling to San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theatre in August, then to Seattle's ArtsWest in October.

2) My second commission for South Coast Rep (a true story period science lady play with a math-music obsession) called SILENT SKY directed by Anne D'Zmura - running April 1-May 1

3) My first commission from the Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences (a mystery science musical with a talking dog - yeyah) called THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF DR WONDERFUL AND HER DOG directed by the awesome Sean Daniels with music by Brian Lowdermilk

4) My first commission from SF Playhouse currently called BRIGHT WHITE LIFE - a true story of non-objective artist Rudolf Bauer.

5) FIRE WORK is finalist for the Global Age Project at Aurora this winter.

6) EMILIE is opening at ArtsWest Jan 24th in Seattle

7) A super cute family Christmas musical with music/lyrics by Harry Connick Jr.

8) Other plays in their annoying infancy (one with Just Theatre that's kind of about Macbeth)

9) And the requisite TV pilot ideas, HuffPo essays, plays I should not let myself write until I finish the aforementioned ones, etc...

Q: Tell me about writing for the Huffington Post.

A: I got involved because I knew the new Arts Editor (who is an incredible painter) and she suggested I write about theatre as a member of the emergent creative community in the performing arts. So we found a complementarity - I get to write about theatre from a playwrights perspective and they get a more diverse readership.

I'm treating this blog as a markedly optimistic assignment - I want to inject more of the good news into our field, but not shy away from the tougher realities either. I'm not interested in reviewing but I am interested in connecting with the reasons we make new plays - the goals of various productions, the individual standards of the artists.

I start with more positivity, more delight, more of the reason we all started in this ridiculous field. I want to share some of that with new-to-theatre folks.

I mean I get anxious like everybody. But I fundamentally believe that there is joy and urgency in this work. So I write from that. Plus, if we don't have some cheering, it all looks completely bipolar. We go from raves to blasts; from "theatre changes the world!" to "lovely but irrelevant" to "it all sucks and we suck and everyone sucks". Theatre is better than that.

Q:  Tell me about SILENT SKY.

A:  It's a true story of this amazing (but dusted over by history) woman living at the turn of the last century when women couldn't vote, couldn't attend the best institutions, couldn't do much professionally besides teach high school. Henrietta Leavitt took a rather boring job at Harvard Observatory calculating star magnitudes and ended up culling out incredible patterns in Cepheid stars. Her work led major later astronomers (namely Edwin Hubble) to understand and unlock the universe on the grandest scale yet known.

I have a science fixation, always have. I found about about Henrietta when I was living in NYC and killing time in the basement of The Strand bookstore (where the Science sections are tucked away). I picked up George Johnsons's lovely little book called Miss Leavitt's Stars. I thought, as I often do, "A female astronomer about whom I don't know? Investigate and dramatize".

I was looking for a subject for my next South Coast Rep commission and this fit perfectly for them and for me. This is a play that combines so much of what I love and find magnetic on stage: women risking it all, the gorgeous kinds of science, catalytic moments in history, discovery, complex family, love stories.

In fact I told Mr. Johnson just a week ago that I wrote a play based in part on his book. But I added the suffragette movement and some kissing. Luckily he said that he loved the idea of Henrietta in love. So we're cool. It's going to be a beautiful production.

Q:  What about EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR?

A:  This is a very new kind of play for me (and VERY different from SILENT SKY) - a wild comedy that combines my Southern roots, my deep heart for women's empowerment and preventing domestic abuse, my great debt to Shakespeare, and my love of obsessive people, Jimmy Carter, best friends, and nature documentaries. And karaoke. It's a funny play about serious things. The characters in it would say its a very serious drama - but to the audiences its funny. Because its true. And ridiculous.

BEAR came about because of a lot of support and trust from some key folks - namely Amy Mueller at The Playwrights Foundation and Rachel May at Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. When I moved to SF Amy kick started the play - encouraging me to finish writing it, and giving me a reading. Then Rachel picked it right up and was bold enough to say "hell, let's just produce this thing". From there we got the idea to do a rolling premiere which now has 3 cities.

Q:  How did you become first Playwright in Residence at the Kavli
Institute of Theoretical Physics?

A:  I mentioned my science thing. It's been there for a while. So I worked with the folks at Kavli some years ago as most of my plays are about science, science-history, women in science, etc. I have a bunch of friends in the physics community who have done their Journalist-In-Residence program. So I thought - "heck, we need some dramatists there!". So I approached them about adding a playwriting residency. Then my life got way complicated with a ton of projects that meant that I couldn't be in Santa Barbara right away. But I knew this wonderful playwright Lila Rose Kaplan was there so I hooked them up. I'm so excited that Lila is there and that Kavli is committing to the arts. Great for theatre and science.

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

A:  The story my dad would tell you is the time I played Baby Bear in my Kindergarten production of Goldilocks... which they made us do in Spanish... before any of us knew Spanish... so we clenched our scripts like a Metro map having no clue what we were doing or saying. My mom made my little bear costume, of which I was torridly proud, and it got to my big scene with the porridge... and with one wisp of a spotlight I promptly overacted with a grand theatrical gesture and sent my script flying off the stage. Parents gasped, cast mates snorted, and I (without ever having actually attempted to do the part well or memorized) spat out the perfectly accented grammatically correct Spanish line "Someone's been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!" That's when my dad says he knew that words and theatre were my natural habitat. And that my priorities were definitely akimbo to modern America.

I also remember the moment that i realized that people still wrote plays - like new plays - like that was a thing people did with their time and - gasp - careers.

And in high school I remember when I was trying to finish my first play - PARTS THEY CALL DEEP (which I realize sounds like a porn video now, but back then... y'know...). I was at the dinner table and I was pondering how the hell do you END a PLAY? It doesn't really end unless I kill everybody, right? I don't want to kill people. Maybe one person. No wait... maybe I could... oohh! And I ran upstairs and wrote a scene that was emotionally true but realistically not - people changed and grew but not in real time or real space. It freed me to use theatre for what it was - made up. It's fiction, its magic, we're all playing along. I can do ANYTHING. And that's opened up my taste for theatre that really surprises my senses but maintains humanity.

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

A:  I will admit that I'm anxious about critics. I think a lot of us are. And not in a healthy way. In a very sad way that more often cripples new ideas than carbonates them. So I would change the relationship of playwrights/theatre artists to critics. Paula Vogel reminds us of a time when Eugene O'Neill and the major critic of the day (can't remember his name) were friends, they had dinners together, they discussed and argued and activated their ideas. The critic gave O'Neill a trunk. I saw it. It's in his house in CT. A trunk.

I would take time but I would have the kind of community wherein critics and creators can actually communicate - to talk about taste and "Theatre" and art and audience and the point of all this. It wouldn't feel so much like a gladiatorial thumbs up/down arrangement. It could help the creatives understand reviewing and reviews; and help reviewers more intimately understand the choices, competencies, and process of the particular artists. I know reviewing is NOT an easy job. But I'll go ahead and wager that writing a play, navigating the theatrical landscape to get a production, collaborating constantly on that production, and working to the very last second before opening, then releasing your idea into the world is the harder, riskier, and more time-consuming activity.

I've learned a lot from reading reviews and theatre essays - these are smart folks talking about what I love the most. One of my great friends is the theatre and culture critic Mark Blankenship - who I think re-imagines and energizes criticism. And I agree with the critics as often as I don't. So I don't want criticism to go away. I just wish it didn't feel so charged, but felt more symbiotic - we all want theatre to be its best, right?

Or maybe I'd just make all theatre shows $10, and all theatre become heavily endowed, and all theaters have playwrights in residence that are also heavily endowed (with so much health insurance that its fun to get sick), and have everyone see each others work, and everyone will be happy and supported and singing in the streets. That'd be nice.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Tennessee Williams - southern, poetic, dreamy, brilliant, broken and edgy. Bless his mess.

Paula Vogel - Her inventive and ambitious play structures, her wicked humor, her bravery in emotionally tough subjects

Tom Stoppard - his wacked out science/philosophical/historical/literary masterpieces are like Guinness - thick, rich, and filling (which I realize also sounds like a porn... oy...)

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Big ideas, true stories, true meanings, complete fiction, beautiful theatre, muscly acting, cheap magic, expensive magic, characters risking for truth, funny funny stuff, characters that are supremely human, love stories, LOVE stories, active theatricality, activist theatre, issue plays about big issues, Holy Sh*t Theatre. You can't fake making your audience feel. That excites me.

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

A:  See a lot. Read a lot. Write a lot. I think its so silly when people who want to be in theatre DON'T go see theatre. You have to go. That's the whole point. Find your family in theatre - some crazy aesthetic relatives you never knew you had, and see their work, talk about it, reach out to the writer, actors, director. Also don't only do theatre. Certainly find and grow to love the people that tell you the truth about your work - that know most of your work (your tendencies, your quirks), that tell you to stop doing what you always do, that tell you "goddamn this is your best yet," that gently say "um... this is... not great...", that are there for you.  Shout out to Steve Yockey who is this incredible writer/dramaturg/friend/teacher/genius for me. And Lucy Alibar who is my cheerleader and co-dreamer. And Suehyla El-Attar who is my curious realist, connective thinker, and constant conversationalist.

But my actual motto is: Be Nice. Do great work. Find your family. Surprise yourself.

Dec 30, 2010

my 2010 in review

In 2010, I had a bunch of readings at places like Working Theater, Studio 42, Flux Theater Ensemble, The Off Theater, LAByrinth, The New Group, MCC Theater, Primary Stages, Southern Rep, Chicago Dramatists, and The William Inge Center For The Arts.

I took trips to Philly, San Francisco, London, Kansas, New Orleans, rural Pennsylvania, Upstate NY, Chicago, St. Louis, and Orange County, CA.

When I wasn’t traveling, I spent the year living in CT about 3 hours outside NYC in a cottage on a lake.

I did a silent retreat with Erik Ehn, a non-silent retreat with Flux, taught playwriting in Kansas and helped re-side a house.

I wrote 4 plays, 1 screenplay and a web series and started working on a musical with a composer and a lyricist.

I had 4 productions of full lengths in 2010, one of which was professional. I know of 12 planned productions for 2011 so far. And the web series will be filmed next year too.

I did mini-interviews of 199 playwrights bringing the total up to 299.

So yeah, it looks like this year was a busy one for me.  Looks like I did more than I thought.

Happy New Year!

Dec 28, 2010

I Interview Playwrights Part 299: Jennifer Fawcett


Jennifer Fawcett

Hometown: Toronto… well technically a farm near a village you’ve never heard of in Eastern Ontario but let’s just say Toronto because I lived there for a decade and still miss it.

Current Town: Iowa City… cool town. Cooler than you’d think.

Q:  Tell me about Atlas of Mud.

A:  ATLAS OF MUD is the biggest play I’ve ever written - - cast size (six, plus an optional ensemble – we did it with two additional cast members) and subject-wise. It needs kick ass designers - I like to think it gives a platform for designers to kick ass. I worry that lit managers read it and can’t get past the stage directions, but we just did a production of it here in Iowa with our company. It was gorgeous. And we did it for almost no money.

I was originally commissioned by a Canadian theatre company (Union Eight Theatre) to write a play about flood mythology. Then I moved to the US and Hurricane Katrina hit. Then I graduated from grad school and Iowa was covered in floods so I got to experience the damage water can do first hand. All of this influenced the play. I developed it with this Canadian company and also at the Lark in Playwrights’ Week and with our company. It won the 2008 National Science Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center. It’s about faith and hope in the midst of a global disaster. The second act takes place on a boat with the Bird Keepers and a stowaway child called Mud who is looking for her mother. For our production, we had a 23 foot long boat on stage that looked like it was coming out of the floor. All made out of recycled materials in stock at Riverside Theatre, where we’re Company-in-Residence this year.

Q:  What else are you working on?

A:  I’m writing a new solo show called 3 MAPS that Working Group will be producing this spring as part of a festival of international solo shows. And I’m writing another show for Halcyon Theatre in Chicago for their Alcyone Festival this summer.

I’m part of a team of three writers working on a play called RUST about the closing of a GM plant in Michigan. We got a Creative Fund Award from the National Performance Network and are getting ready to start touring this piece in Fall 2011.

Q:  What is it like to be Playwright in Residence at Curious Theater?

A:  It was great. The best thing about it was that it gave me a way to get to know the people at the National New Play Network theatres. I also worked in the Literary Department at Curious, so I got to see the other side of the submission pile. I loved reading all these new plays. I hated writing rejection letters.

But aside from that, the residency was great. I developed my girl scout sex farce, BONNY GIRLS there and got to work with some of the very talented Company members.

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

A:  I grew up on a goat farm. My parents were city kids, it was the early 70’s and the back to the land thing was big. They had this crazy idea and they followed through on it. It didn’t work, in the end, and it almost destroyed their marriage but they made it through (still married, 40+ years). Years later when I looked at this goat thing I’d taken for granted as a kid, I saw it for what it was: a major risk. They’ve always been really supportive of me, even though there’s nothing glamorous or even remotely stable about playwriting, and I think it is because they understand from their own experience that you have to take risks to follow your dreams. I realize that may sound corny but it isn't. That day to day push towards a goal isn't corny at all.

Side note: the first show I ever wrote was all about this. Called it GOAT SHOW. I’m still touring it. I am in negotiations with a Canadian theatre to bring the show in for a run next year. So those goats have both indirectly and directly affected me as a writer and a person.

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

A:  More new work. Not the one new play that played Off Broadway and is now being produced in eleven theatres across the country - - that's fine - theatres can do that play. It's probably a really good play. But it SHOULDN'T fill the one new work slot that they supposedly have. I go to readings of exciting, messy, new plays - I have my own readings of my exciting messy new plays - and the audiences are engaged. They have conversations after. They ask questions. And then these new plays are rarely produced because supposedly the audience won't accept new work. Even though they just did. That doesn't make any sense. Theatre is risky. No matter what theatre you do, it will always be risky. It will always be easier for the audience to stay at home and watch TV so why not go farther and really take risks? Theatre is only dying if we stop feeding it.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Robert LePage, Bertolt Brecht, Naomi Wallace, Caryl Churchill

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre that surprises me with sudden moments of beauty, silliness or cruelty. Theatre that appears out of nowhere - sneaks up on me and suddenly I'm watching something magical. Theatre that has a minimal set and inventive design and great language and is made by people who understand that the play happens inside the audiences' imaginations.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Available Light Theatre (www.avltheatre.com) their work needs to be seen by more than just the folks in Columbus because it is fantastic and they are a company who take true risks instead of just talking about it in their mission statement.

Working Group Theatre – the company I’ve co-founded with some other fantastic artists. We’re shaking things up in Iowa. www.workinggrouptheatre.org.

ITLP: the International Theatre and Literacy Project - - we went to Tanzania with them last year as part of a small team of artists who helped rural Tanzanian school kids create a play and then perform it for their village. My husband and I are currently talking to them about another project for this summer – same idea, different country. www.itlp.org.

Halcyon Theatre – check out their Alcyone Festival, June 9 – July 10. As I mentioned, I’ve got a play in it along with some kickass female playwrights who I’m awed to be in the same festival with… and because Tony and Jenn are true advocates of new work and fantastic people. http://www.halcyontheatre.org/alcyone11

Dec 24, 2010

A holiday film

Here is a short film I wrote a while back that we are just now putting online. Have a great holiday! Merry everything!



The Moment
A short film directed by Scott Ebersold
Written by Adam Szymkowicz

Featuring Susan Louise O'Connor & Jeff Biehl

"When Jane goes in to talk to her boss, in an instant of clarity, she notices something different in him that she never saw before. He sees it too in her. A new world opens up for them. Anything could be possible if they could just hold onto that moment."

Produced by Lauren Fritz, Scott Ebersold, Marc Solomon
Director of Photography Greg Emetaz
Edited by Andrew McNown
Sound and Music Design by Ryan Maeker
Art Direction by Nicholas Vaughan and Kate Rusek
Costume, Hair and Make-up Design by Kate Rusek
Script Supervisor Barry Paul Hitchcock
Craft Services and Production Assistance Jennie Crotero

Dec 20, 2010

Just in time for the holidays, or for the actors

I have a monologue in this.  The 6th S and K book I have participated in.  Lots of great plays in it as you can see.  Buy it here.



Monologues.

All aboard the marriage hearse / Matt Morillo --
The Amish project / Jessica Dickey --
And Sophie comes too / Meryl Cohn --
Barrio Hollywood / Elaine Romero --
Beauty on the vine / Zak Berkman --
Black Forest / Anthony Giardina --
Cartoon / Steve Yockey --
The Columbine project / Paul Storiale --
Dead man's cell phone / Sarah Ruhl --
Don't talk to the actors / Tom Dudzick --
Dusty and the big bad world / Cusi Cram --
Emilie's Voltaire / Arthur Giron --
Emotion memory / Don Nigro --
For our Mothers & fathers / Crystal Skillman --
The framer / Edward Allen Baker --
The gingerbread house / Mark Schultz --
In the daylight / Tony Glazer --
In the next room, or, the vibrator play / Sarah Ruhl --
A legacy for the mad / Don Nigro --
Lost generation / Don Nigro --
Love drunk / Romulus Linney --
Mahida's extra key to heaven / Russell Davis --
New Jerusalem / David Ives --
Next fall / Geoffrey Nauffts --
The optimist / Jason Chimonides --
Or / Liz Duffy Adams --
Pretty Theft / Adam Szymkowicz --
Pussy / Laura Jacqmin --
Rat wives / Don Nigro --
Reasons to be pretty / Neil LaBute --
Rough sketch / Shawn Nacol --
The Savannah disputation / Evan Smith --
Scab / Sheila Callaghan --
The secret life of seagulls / Henry Meyerson --
Self phone / Brendon Etter --
Slow falling bird / Christine Evans --
Soul samurai / Qui Nguyen --
Southern rapture / Eric Coble --
Taking flight / Adriana Sevann Nichols --
The third story / Charles Busch --
Trojan Barbie / Christine Evans --
The understudy / Theresa Rebeck --
Unusual acts of devotion / Terrence McNally --
What once we felt / Ann Marie Healy --
Worse things / Mona Manour --
Yoo-hoo and Hank Williams / Gregory Moss --

Scenes.
The Cherry sisters revisited / Dan O'Brien --
The good Negro / Tracey Scott Wilson --
Iphigenia / Don Nigro --
Oohrah / Bekah Brunstetter --
Or / Liz Duffy Adams --Our house /Theresa Rebeck --
Parasite drag / Mark Roberts --
Rosalie was here / Maura Campbell --
Scab / Sheila Callaghan --
The secret life of seagulls / Henry Meyerson --
Slasher / Allison Moore --
Soul Samuri / Qui Nguyen --
Southern rapture / Eric Coble --
What once we felt / Ann Marie Healy --
Why torture is wrong, and the people who love them / Christopher Durang.