THE MAGIC OF PLAY READING CLUB - BY BRIDGETT MARTINEZ
Honoring my inner child has always come easy to me. I rewatch High School Musical often, I still enjoy a cosmic brownie, and I have plans to complete a full miniature dollhouse. But underneath the silly things, I recognize a longstanding love for two things: stories and gathering. I was an avid reader and writer, always reading above my grade level and writing chapters on chapters of my action-sci-fi-fantasy series about a group of best friends that are fairy pop stars that defeat evil (unrelated, I loved K-Pop Demon Hunters.) I was also the kid starting clubs on the playground that always seemed to have a clear agenda, goals, and action items that I would organize my friends to carry out. So when last year I started a mobile drama bookshop with an accompanying play reading club… Let’s just say my parents were not surprised.
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WRITING THE DUALITY OF A CON - BY LISA LANGFORD
Jen Silverman’s play, Witch, had a lot to do with why I wrote Con. Witch is an elegant, 14-scene play about selling your soul to the devil and, more broadly, whether or not the world is worth saving. It’s the kind of left-leaning, liberal play that feels good during a Trump administration, though Silverman says little that’s overtly political. I played the titular character in Dobama’s production, and my castmates were all so incredibly talented, they were each rehearsing other shows when Witch closed. I felt like a slacker. So, I started writing a play inspired by Witch’s structure and style.
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DIRECTING AS GARDENING - BY LISA L. WILEY
Auditions. I’ve been on both sides of the table. I’ve auditioned, and I’ve watched others audition. Neither role is easy. Directors have countless questions to answer and an overwhelming number of possibilities to consider. How do you know which actor belongs in which role? So far, I’d say it’s a lot like gardening.
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NEW PLAY READINGS: A MANIFESTO - BY KATHERINE NASH
New play readings are a standard part of new script development; they’re a proof of concept, a proposal, or an experiment. They aim to bridge the gap between a completed script draft and a fully-staged production. I’m a big fan of new plays, and I love a reading: the potential, the discussion, the explicit invitation to interrogate what works and doesn’t work. What about the characters stuck with you? What images will you still be thinking about next week? Because it’s presenting an openly unfinished work, a reading explicitly asks the audience to engage critically with the piece’s strengths and weaknesses. And there’s something special about being consciously in the process, engaging with the growth and evolution right in front of us. It’s a sneak peek, an exclusive event. We’re being trusted with this new, vulnerable thing, and we get to witness it!
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DEMENTED AND SAD, BUT SOCIAL - BY DAVID HANSEN
The origin of the script “Forget About Me (The Breakfast Club Play)” was an imagined conversation between a Gen X parent and their Gen Z child, about “The Breakfast Club.” In the wake of #MeToo, the actor Molly Ringwald wrote a wonderful essay for The New Yorker about watching it with her adolescent daughter. She knew it was problematic, but didn’t realize how much, and decided it was better for her child to see it first with her rather than, say, at a sleepover with all of her daughter’s friends.
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SUGARMAN'S SEAT OF THE PANTS HIGHLIGHTS - BY LANA SUGARMAN
After 3 years as an ensemble member with Seat of the Pants, I have decided to take a year away from the company to pause, take stock, and continue to build roots in my new-ish home of Buffalo, NY. I am so grateful for these years of growth, play, and community. Here are some highlights from my time with Seat of the Pants:
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GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE COSTUME - BY CRISTINE PATRICK
“You work in costumes?! That must be so much fun!!” I never tire of hearing this from the people I meet. It keeps the job refreshing to see my job from others’ perspective. It is not all frolicking through the woods with yardages of fabric billowing behind you in pursuit of costume inspiration destined for Project Runway. (I wish though. But there definitely is a lot of, “Make it work, people!!”)
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A NEW CHALLENGE: BECOMING A TRULY CULTURED PERSON - BY JOSY JONES
Needless to say, I hadn’t expected to be so challenged by this piece. On the surface, it is a lighthearted, comical piece about a book club. Underneath, it challenged me as a designer and as a person. Leave it to the theatre to always force me to grow. Time to get curious.
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AN ORIGIN STORY - BY NATALIE GREEN
Cast member of THE BOOK CLUB PLAY, Natalie Green, takes us on a fictional conjecture ride in today’s Seat of the Pants blog, providing a bit of backstory on how Ana Smith’s Book Club came to participate in a documentary film being made by legendary filmmaker, Lars Knudsen. Enjoy!
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