Werner Trieschmann Plays

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

2012-01-13T08:43:00.004-06:00

This morning I want to direct your attention to the Playwrights' Perspective blog, an excellent blog dedicated to the plays and playwrights coming out of the Boston University MFA program (naturally, I am one of those).

The excellent blog is run by playwight Alexa Mavromatis and today she has posted a column about the idea of selling "tweet seats" for theatre shows. These are seats where patrons can let fly with Twitter posts while they are watching a show. She has rounded up several playwrights (including myself) to offer up opinion about this development.

I am very interested in the relationship between audiences and the performance on stage -- my interest has been fueled by the Intro to Theatre classes that I teach. I also adore -- and I mean adore -- Twitter. (@wernertplays if you didn't know already). Today we have a theatre where audiences are asked to be quiet and respectful upon pain of death. It wasn't always this way. Are we losing something in the mix of community that is theatre when the performers are to be treated like hothouse flowers? Or should we fight like crazy to preserve the victory of audience attention? I won't pretend that I have the answer. But the question is a fascinating one.

Hello New Year, So Long Guilt

2011-12-31T21:28:00.008-06:00

2011 is about to come to an end and everybody in my house is either asleep or reading a book. What that means is the wheels have stopped long enough where I can post something on this blog. It's sort of all or nothing with this blog for me. Lately, it's been nothing but then I check in and see that some people have visited this site -- and even left welcome comments -- despite my lack of activity.

Normally, this is where I would vow to change my ways and make this place all lively with regular postings. But I am not going to do that this time. I am just going to post an update on my little life. It certainly seems like an appropriate thing to do at the end of the year and it will aliveate a bit of my blogger guilt.

In last 12 months my plays -- which are published through Dramatic Publishing and Playscripts -- have been produced at a pretty regular clip. This year my play The Clawfoot Interviews was done in Romania. My comedy All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play was performed in Ireland.

I wrote a new short play called We're Your Friends for an anthology about bullying. Certainly one of the highlights of my year was having my play Disfarmer as part of the Arkansas New Play Fest at Fayetteville's terrific TheatreSquared.

I've also taken on new work that I haven't talked much about, in part because I haven't found an appropriate time. Starting in September, I've been the dramaturg at Arkansas' largest professional theatre, Arkansas Repertory Theatre . The most visible face of that work is in my postings on the Rep's blog. So I guess you could say that I've been doing some blogging this year.

Meanwhile, the main occupyer of my time is being an adjunct professor at Hendrix College, UALR and Pulaski Technical College. Somewhere in all of that I continue to write freelance pieces -- mostly about music -- for my old employer The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The end of this year also brought more good news on the writing front, a project I will talk in detail about later. I've said enough about me and it's less than an hour away from the new year. Maybe I'll turn off this computer and listen to the fireworks go off around this house.

New look

2011-09-02T18:29:00.001-05:00

So a guy -- OK, me -- goes out for pizza and my talented wife redesigns my blog.

Thoughts?

More shameless self-promotion -- Random Acts of Comedy

2011-08-07T10:54:00.003-05:00

The very smart people over at Playscripts have put together a collection of one-act comedies for high school students. I am quite happy to be included in the brand new Random Acts of Comedy with my comedy, The Absolute Most Cliched Elevator Play in the History of the Entire Universe.

The other playwrights in this volume have huge hits in the high school market. Jonathan Rand, one of the brothers who started Playscripts, has his Check Please comedy included. Check Please has had (and I am not kidding) over a 1,000 productions alone. If you are looking for a high school one-act to produce, this is the place to start.

The Bully Plays -- now published

2011-08-02T08:35:00.004-05:00

A while back I mentioned that I had been commissioned to write a short play about bullying for a new collection to be published by Dramatic Publishing Company. I was particularly excited because of the other writers included, a very well known and much-produced group.

The Bully Plays is now out. It's an impressive group of plays, taking on the subject of bullying from a lot of different angles. My play is called "We're Your Friends" and deals with three high school girls, two of which prey on the third out of misguided sense of friendship.

Any high school or middle school looking to perform work that deals with this timely subject would do well to check out this collection.

Now in French!

2011-06-15T20:17:00.004-05:00

This is a photo from a recent production of The Absolute Most Cliched Elevator Play in the History of the Entire Universe. The play was performed at Ecole Secondaire Catholique Trillium in Canada. The reason this production was special is because the play was translated into French, which is a first for me.

Disfarmer at the New Play Festival in Fayetteville and Little Rock

2011-04-21T09:28:00.008-05:00

I'm happy to announce that my play Disfarmer -- a newer and hopefully more improved version -- is going to be part of TheatreSquared's Arkansas New Play Festival in May.

The very, very cool thing about the New Play Festival this year is that TheatreSquared is sharing the festival with the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. So the reading of Disfarmer -- as well as three other exciting-looking new plays --will happen in Fayetteville and Little Rock.

Below is the release and the details of the shows. I'll have more about Disfarmer later.

***

Arkansas Repertory Theatre presents TheatreSquared’s 2011 Arkansas New Play Fest on Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22 at Argenta Community Theatre in North Little Rock. The Arkansas New Play Fest features professional staged readings of four original plays. Each script is rehearsed, staged and performed by professional artists , script in hand, for the public and playwright. Following each reading, there will be a talkback session with the playwright and the cast.

Saturday, May 21
4:00 p.m. They Want by Alan Berks
8:00 p.m. Disfarmer by Werner Trieschmann

Sunday, May 22
3:00 p.m. In The Book Of by John Walch
7:00 p.m. Look Away by Robert Ford

Argenta Community Theatre (ACT)
405 Main Street North Little Rock

Tickets are $7 per reading or $20 for all four readings.
Call The Rep Box Office (501) 378-0405.

Featured Plays

They Want by Alan M. Berks
Directed by Robert Ford
This modern retelling of The Oresteia by Aeschylus, dramatically explores the internal dynamics of a powerful family during a time of war. The play revolves around the debt of vengeance forged by fateful choices made by the powerful “Minister of War” and head of the household. When a journalist is invited into the family's inner sanctum, a delicate balance is disturbed, unleashing a dangerous chain of events. This play forces us to question what we think we know about family, war, patriotism and ultimately our relationship with truth.

Disfarmer by Werner Trieschmann
Directed by Kate Frank
In the small mountain town of Heber Springs, Arkansas, the portrait artist known as Disfarmer captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America between 1939and 1945. To the townspeople he was an eccentric recluse. But decades later, critics hailed his remarkable black and white portraits as works "of artistic genius" and "a classical episode in the history of American photography." Depicting the often comic clash of urban and rural cultures, this play captures the artist at work – and the feeding frenzy that occurred much later when New York gallery owners fought to acquire his photographs.

In The Book Of by John Walch
Directed by Amy Herzberg
This engaging new play re-imagines the biblical book of Ruth, in which Naomi and Anisah are reeling from the losses of their husbands in contemporary Afghanistan. Naomi, a U.S. Army Lieutenant stationed near Kabul, is discharged and prepares to return to the States when Anisah, her Afghan translator, unexpectedly asks to go with her. A simple leap of faith brings this unlikely pair to a small town in Mississippi, where love and tolerance struggle to overcome hatred and fear as the two try to rebuild their lives.

Look Away by Robert Ford
Directed by Robert Ford
In rural Arkansas in the 1930s, we meet Matty and Alonzo, African American teenagers who've narrowly escaped a lynch mob by slipping into the kitchen of the Wilson Company plantation house where Alonzo’s mother is head housekeeper. They plan to persuade Roy Wilson, head of this powerful, eccentric family, to defend them after they have been accused of raping two white girls. Prejudice battles family loyalty, childhood friendship and love in this provocative new drama based on true events.

Oh God not another Information Overload

2011-04-19T08:30:00.005-05:00

Here's this week's installment of Information Overload, the world's funniest non-illustrated comic.*

How to tell you have a lame surgeon

He walks into the operating room and says, "Hi everybody!"

He admits he likes to doodle on patients with a Sharpie while waiting for the anesthesia to kick in.

Before the operation, he asks if he can borrow some money.

When you ask if your surgery is complicated, he says, "Everybody tells me it is."

He wears Spider-Man pajamas in the operating room.

He asks if you are a bleeder and then mentions that he really doesn't like bleeders.

He says nothing is wrong with you but he wants to go back in because he can't find his glasses.

*Yes it is. Who says? Me. What do you know? I dunno

New -- OK, only slightly old -- Information Overload

2011-04-13T09:04:00.013-05:00

Here's an Information Overload -- which is, again, the world's funniest non-illustrated comic* -- that recently ran in Sync.

The latest in lame new restaurants

Bobby O'Hollihan's Tax and Cheese Stick Emporium -- Who doesn't like cheese sticks? Nobody! Who doesn't like watching CPA's working out tricky tax problems? Nobody! Now you can have the best of both worlds at Bobby O'Hollihan's Tax and Cheese Stick Emporium!

Yogurt Toppings -- Going to the yogurt bar is great especially when it comes time to add on the fixins. At Yogurt Toppings we know you love the M&Ms, shaved coconut and Gummi Worms but then all the darn yogurt gets in the way. Not here! We have just the toppings without the yogurt! You're welcome!

The Mystery Buffet -- Every restaurant is so fussy and anal about descriptions of what the food is like and all the ingredients in it and stuff. The Mystery Buffet isn't like that, yo. We blindfold our chefs and let them go at it. Then we put it on a big buffet. This is cutting-edge dining at its very best. Also, all our waiters dress up like Sherlock Holmes.

*I'm sure this is right I mean who is going to check because who keeps track of non-illustrated comics nobody right I mean c'mon it's a non-starter

Shameless Self-Promotion -- Commission edition!

2011-04-10T08:57:00.010-05:00

I've known about this for a while but I'm excited to announce a commission from Dramatic Publishing Company to write a 10-minute play about bullying for a new collection to be published this fall. I got the news a while back and wrote the play a couple of months ago. When the play is published, I'll post a note here with the details. Meanwhile, here is the list of other playwrights participating in the collection. It's great group and, naturally, I'm happy to be on this list.

Doug Cooney

Jose Casas Steven Gregg

D.W. Gregory

Brian Guehring

Gloria Bond Clunie

Elizabeth Wong

Linda Daugherty

Max Bush

Jose Cruz Gonzalez

Dwayne Hartford

Brett Neveu

Richard Dresser

R.N. Sandberg

Lisa Dillman

Eric Coble

Cherie Bennett

Geraldine Snyder

Ernie Nolan

The Aluminum Show review -- like a rave, uh, sorta

2011-03-31T16:23:00.005-05:00

The wonderful Arkansas Times has posted my lukewarm review of The Aluminum Show, which has one more night at Robinson Center Music Hall.

I honestly expected to like this show a lot more than I did. Everything about it looked cool and, while it had its moments, it didn't hold together for me. But you can read that for yourself if you click the link.

Information Overload -- What we are leaving behind

2011-03-29T09:04:00.010-05:00

The latest Information Overload. Well not quite latest. For that you need to pick up a copy of Sync. But this is the latest one on this site. Quit your grumbling, grumpy. Enjoy.

What we're leaving behind

A trail of breadcrumbs

Our God-given good sense after buying a ticket to Drive Angry

Various wigs, half-eaten cans of beef ravioli and a fully-functioning bounce house

The idea that we have the first clue on who is going to win the NCAA tournament

An artificial leg and a sleepy chicken named Freddy

Our half-eaten Food Insurance Backpack

The map, the tickets and the cell phone

Writers helping writers

2011-03-26T10:19:00.002-05:00

Like most writers, I am sometimes approached for advice from other writers. I am happy to help when I can -- I'm not approached so often that it is burdensome. More often than not, the advice goes out and that's it. My experience with new writers is that many have the impulse and few have the will to fashion the impulse into a real work. That's OK. All of us struggle in our way to finish what we start.

But in this instance I can report on an Arkansas writer who not only finished what he started but got it published. The writer goes by the name of Wiley Russell but I only know him as Joe and only have met him by email. Months ago, he sent me an email asking about playwrighting and publishing (I think he got my email through a contact at a writers conference). A couple of days ago, I received his one-act comedy, Triple Threat, in the mail. And it has a nice dedication to me in the front. I feel practically sheepish about it since I didn't do anything but talk to him about the high school/community theatre market and point him in the direction of publishers.

Triple Threat looks like an interesting play (who doesn't like homemade cloning machines?!) and I'd imagine it's going to have a number of productions. I am happy for Joe and happy to have made a contribution, however small.

Information Overload -- better late than really late

2011-03-23T09:39:00.003-05:00

The lovely Sync tabloid, which runs in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is running my non-illustrated comic called Information Overload. There is one in there every week. Because I am on spring break and I am not shaving and my children are rotting their brains out in front of the TV and the house is about as quiet and peaceful as it can be, I am going to post a couple of older Information Overloads here. I would say that Iam going to make this a habit. But then I have said that before. And, besides, after spring break, I'll have to start paying attention to the kids and shaving again.

***

The latest products for the severely paranoid
Birdpocalypse Insurance: You have earthquake insurance and insurance for your goldfish, of course. But do you have insurance in case you were hit by a dead bird or birds (!) falling from the sky? No you don't. And that is when disaster is going to strike -- in the form of birds hitting you on the head. So worry no more -- or worry a little bit less --with Birdpocalypse Insurance!
Food Insurance Lunchbox: The Food Insurance Backpack is great thing for the coming worldwide food crisis. And you of course have the backup Food Insurance Backpack stored in a secure location that nobody knows where it is including yourself. So you absolutely need the Food Insurance Lunchbox to take with you when going on your search for your backup Food Insurance Backpack! What are you waiting for? Act today before it's too late.
Zombie Shotgun: Your regular ol' shotgun won't take care of the nuclear-fueled zombies when it comes around to feeding time. The specially designed Zombie Shotgun will do the trick. We will throw in a free Food Insurance Lunchbox with the order of a dozen Zombie Shotguns!

E-mail:
wtrieschmann@sbcglobal.net

Shameless Self-Promotion -- Milestone Edition!

2011-03-10T09:06:00.002-06:00

It took me a little while to take note of a milestone I reached with the plays I have published at Playscripts, the wondermous online publisher. But this comic one-act, Nothing Says I Love You Like Bad Poetry, is going to have a production in Fairmont, West Virgina in April. That production will be the 100th production of one of my Playscript plays. I love Playscripts and 100 productions just sort of blows my mind. And so I didn't want the occasion to pass without notice.

Dadgum bloggin' -- a new theatre in Hot Springs

2011-02-09T09:44:00.004-06:00

I intended to post this information to a news site where I occasionally post Little Rock theatre stuff. But that site kept crashing and I have this darn blog and, by god, I ought to do some dadgum bloggin' on it.

In any case, what follows is the news release for what sounds like a promising new theatre in Hot Springs, my hometown. If you read all the way to the end, you will see the directors of this theatre have substantial credits at the Goodman Theatre and at Yale. Also, the first season The Central Theatre has selected looks quite intriguing.

Lord knows, running a theatre is hard and starting a new one is a daunting task. We wish The Central Theatre all the best.

***

Following several months of planning, a 2011 season of professional theatre productions at The Central Theatre has been announced by Sheldon Kleinman, Managing Director of Arkansas TheatreWorks. The season will consist of five productions, each running for 10 performances over a two week period beginning in May, 2011 and continuing through November.

A special offer is currently available for charter subscribers to the 2011 season. By subscription, all five productions can be purchased for the price of three, a savings of 40%. Through this offer, the entire season can be purchased for as little as $13.50 per ticket, depending on the series selected. All seats are reserved, and subscribers can choose their seats which they will retain not only for the entire season, but for years to come. When the remaining single tickets go on sale in April, they will range in price from $22.50 - $32.50 for each show.

Detailed information about the upcoming season can be found on the TheatreWorks website at http://www.arktwks.org. Subscriptions may be purchased online through the website, or by calling 501-922-6899. Resumes can be submitted by Email to info@arktwks.org, or my mail to Arkansas TheatreWorks, PO Box 1964, Hot Springs, AR 71902.
The 2011 season includes:

Mack The Knife; the Life and Music of Bobby Darin (two photos attached) will open on May 4 and run through May 15 as part of a nationwide tour. Written by and starring Chaz Esposito as Darin and backed by a nine-piece orchestra, this interactive Las Vegas-style production has garnered rave reviews and played to sold out houses across the country. Esposito’s impression of Darin is so uncanny the show has the endorsement of the Bobby Darin estate, the first time it has given such permission.

Moonlight and Magnolias, by Ron Hutchinson is the 2nd production, playing from June 22 through July 3. A wonderful comedy based on historical events, legendary producer David O. Selznick has shut down production of his new epic, Gone with the Wind, feeling that the screenplay doesn’t work. Summoning famed screenwriter Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming to his office, he locks the doors, closes the shades, and on a diet of bananas and peanuts, the three men labor over five days to fashion a screenplay that will become the blueprint for one of the most successful and beloved films of all time.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in production from August 3 – 14, established Edward Albee as a major American playwright. Provocative and hilarious, this remains one of the theatre’s most honest, affecting trips down the corpse-strewn path of marital dysfunction. George is an alcoholic college professor; Martha is his virago of a wife and they know just how to push each other’s buttons. On this particular night, a good-looking young biology professor and his wife arrive for a nightcap and soon become blood sport during a booze-drenched evening. The NY Times acclaimed this work as the Best American Play of the Decade.

Stage Struck by Simon Gray will run from September 21 – October 2. The play is a fascinating psychological thriller written for Alan Bates and first presented in London’s West End. Stage Struck will have audiences on the edges of their seats as they try to unravel the twists and turns of this amusing thriller which is less a “who-dunnit” and more a “who’s-going-to-do-what-to-whom”.

The musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ will cap off this charter season, running from November 5 - 20. Based on the music of the inimitable Thomas “Fats” Waller, Ain’t Misbehavin’ is generally considered to be one of the best musical reviews ever produced for Broadway. The show brings to life the outrageously comic and musical soul of 1930’s Harlem and the Golden age of the Cotton Club, honky-tonk dives and that jumpin’ new beat, Swing.

The historic Central Theatre, unoccupied for over a decade, is under new ownership and has been extensively remodeled in preparation for these productions, including installation of state-of-the-art theatrical lighting and sound systems. The auditorium is spacious but intimate, with 282 comfortable, upholstered seats, all with a perfect view of a large, practical stage. Principal auditions for both Equity and non-Equity actors will be held later this year, and resumes are being solicited from interested individuals in all aspects of production.

Directors Sheldon Kleinman and Jerry Davis have put together an eclectic season, chosen for its broad appeal to a wide range of audiences. Kleinman has more than 20 years of administrative and audience development background in professional theatre companies, having served as Managing Director of the prestigious Goodman Theatre in Chicago, as well as the Yale Repertory Theatre and the California Actors Theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area. Davis has directed and acted in theatre productions for more than thirty years throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and was also the Charter President of the Arkansas Community Theater Association.

A Good Year Gets Better

2010-12-02T10:08:00.003-06:00

This has been a good year for my plays being done right here in Arkansas where I can eyeball them myself. There was the Disfarmer reading at Hendrix. And the really wonderful production of You Have to Serve Somebody at Ouachita Baptist University (the cast at OBU was one of the best I have ever seen for a work of mine -- and, man, did they know the play!).

Now there's going to be a production of All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play at the Rialto Theatre in Morrilton in late January. Auditions are coming up and so you could be cast in the play.

I probably shouldn't get use to a run like this but it is so nice when it happens.

News for my two news-starved fans

2010-10-27T08:51:00.005-05:00

A couple of quick announcements for those two rabid fans starved for news.

-- My full-length comedy, You Have to Serve Somebody, is being staged at Ouachita Baptist University starting November 4. Many moons ago I was an intern/adjunct at OBU and worked with the wonderful Scott Holsclaw and Hendrix-grad and friend Eric Phillips. It's been a long while since I've seen a production of You Have to Serve Somebody, but the last time it was staged, interestingly enough, by an OBU-grad and friend Darren Van Michaels. I will be attending the Saturday, Nov. 6 performance at OBU. If anybody in the Arkadelphia area is coming, be sure to laugh like crazy during the show and then stop by and say hey.

-- I am speaking at the Maumelle Writers Conference on that same Saturday, Nov. 6. I am going to talk about playwriting but also talk about the writer's impulse vs. the writer's will. At least that's the plan.

It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to

2010-09-09T10:24:00.003-05:00

Today is my birthday and it’s already gone well. In the mornings I drive my oldest, John, to school and this morning -- after dropping the kid off -- I was determined to get to my coffee shop and read the paper and have a bagel and pretty much stop time. That was to be my present to me. Somewhere after wolfing down his breakfast of oatmeal, John started to complain about a stomach ache. Oh no. But after five minutes on the couch with a heating pad (where he asked me about my scar on my stomach -- spleen surgery I had when I was close to his age. He’s asking a lot of these questions now and I really like it) he claimed to be fine and off to school we went.

So now I’ve finished my bagel. I’m giving myself another present this morning (have you figured out I'm good at giving myself gifts?) by posting this birthday blog. The schedule I have hardly allows for time to go to the bathroom, much less time to reflect on things. Being a writer, I crave time for reflection.

Looking back over my 45th year, there’s no hiding that it’s been a difficult 12 months. This stems from having a freelance existence, scrambling to put together a living now a year and half out of being laid off from the newspaper. Right now, I’m mostly working as an adjunct, teaching five classes (Intro to Theatre and Playwriting) at three schools (Hendrix, Pulaski Tech and UALR) in four different classrooms. When I tell this to fellow professors, their eyes get wide.

Along with the crazy class schedule, I am still writing freelance for almost anybody who will have me. Lindsey Millar over at the Arkansas Times is an all-around good guy and I’m still publishing things at the Times (an advance on the Rep‘s “Evita” is the latest).

My little non-illustrated comic, Information Overload, is now running weekly in Sync, the tabloid put out by the Democrat-Gazette. I haven’t promoted this near enough, which is bad because I love writing Information Overload -- it’s just me trying to be funny. I’ve been writing the comic for two months now and it’s bliss.

The person I have to thank for the resurrection of Information Overload is Kane Webb, a wonderful writer and editor and my friend. He’s also the reason I’ve had work appear in Arkansas Life, the monthly magazine put out by the Democrat-Gazette. And yes I also have record reviews in the Sunday Style section of the Democrat-Gazette and I write the occasional High Profile for another friend, Rachel Chaney.

As some screeching pitchman might put it, that’s not all! I post local theater announcements through the Examiner site (I wouldn’t call it writing but I don’t mind doing it as it keeps me connected in a small way to all the theater of central Arkansas). This last year I also wrote for old (yes, I did say old) college pal Roby Brock for his Talk Business quarterly and I had a nice gig with a AAA magazine on a trip the Crater of Diamonds mine.

Then there’s my playwriting. Maybe I needed to list all I did above to make peace with the fact that my playwriting didn’t go very far this year. Oh yes, you should note that right below this post is my announcement of the reading of my Disfarmer play at Hendrix. I am so looking forward to it. But I’ve tried and failed to carve out time to really look at Disfarmer, which I wrote last year. I also haven’t finished a short one-act I’ve worked on in fits and starts throughout the year.

I don’t mean this as a complaint. Or perhaps I do but I want to turn the complaint into a spur to action. That’s part of the reason for writing this. I am a blessed man. I have two sons who are just wild and filled with life. I have a wife who I love and don’t deserve. This year has been anything but easy. I shouldn’t expect easy I guess but I wouldn’t mind a real vacation. Or maybe what I really want is more of what I had this morning. Time to reflect. I could aim for that and hope for the best.

-- Sept. 9, 2010

Disfarmer reading. Thank you Hendrix-Murphy Foundation

2010-08-29T09:57:00.003-05:00

My play Disfarmer, about the late, great, way eccentric Heber Springs portrait photographer Michael Disfarmer, is going to have another reading. This time it's at Hendrix College as part of the Playwrights Theatre, a Hendrix-Murphy Foundation-funded program that's been essential to my development as a playwright.

Yes, the Playwright's Theatre is a program I and my friend -- I should say, my Pulitizer-prize winning friend Doug Blackmon -- helped establish too many years ago to worry about. Dr. Rosemary Henenberg encouraged the idea (talk about an essential person in the development of my plays not to mention my entire growth as a person) and the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation supplied the support. The support has meant all the difference of the years of new plays by brand new playwrights (and, in the case this year, an old playwright) coming out of Hendrix.

The reading is on September 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Revenge is served! Come and get it.

2010-06-26T09:10:00.007-05:00

Below is my Family Chatter column that's now out in the fine Little Rock Family magazine.

This is a photo by Maggie Smith of a food that my two boys would run away screaming from if you put it on their plate.

It's revenge, that's all there is to it.

You see, when I was the around the age my two boys, 7 and 4, are now, I had an atrocious diet. It was world class bad -- peanut butter and jelly was almost all I would eat. I balked at everything -- even kid staples like spaghetti and bacon. I have no earthly idea what happened in my kid mind to turn me against bacon, but I wouldn't touch it. Here is where I tell my famous story about my devious work around my aversion to bacon. For a long stretch of time whenever my mother got up from the breakfast table, I ran upstairs and threw whatever bacon was on my plate behind my dresser. Not too much later, we had a serious rat problem -- seems as if they weren't finicky about bacon.

Well now the fork is on the other foot. My children have arrived on this earth with a menu so narrow as to boggle the imagination. My oldest only eats pasta with his ingredients -- salt, a little olive oil and some shredded cheese. My youngest will eat mac and cheese but not if it looks weird, which is, apparently how every restaurant makes it. Hot dogs will pass the test but only sometimes and not if they are in any way hot or even slightly burned. Hamburgers are gross. Baked potatoes are somewhere out in a galaxy beyond hamburgers in their ick factor.

Really it's been in the past year where my boys inner food critic has come out in full-on snob mode. Pizza will be eaten, of course but it has to be pepperoni or cheese and it can only come from approved distributors. You wander outside this tight circle of pizza slingers and you risk having an entire meal vetoed.

They will eat fruit, but this can shift on you drastically. There was a five day window in April where they ate orange slices and then that window closed -- for who knows what reason. Subsequent mornings I spent peeling oranges, trying to sell my boys on them like some kind of desperate, deranged fruit peddler. They will eat carrots, but usually only with ranch dressing and only if you are holding out ice cream as a reward.

Stringing together a week's worth of meals for our crew is a major challenge on the level of fixing an oil leak in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. They like to make it even harder by often changing their mind mid-meal stating they won't each cheese quesadilllas but will eat pasta instead. I'm sure my neighbors are tired of hearing me step outside and sob uncontrollably.

But, as I said, I am being paid back in spades. I don't know how my parents worked it out but they've done it. I don't blame them because my boys, when they grow up, are going to eat a cold dish called revenge. I'm sure their kids won't touch it.

Come back sharks, all is forgiven

2010-06-23T21:43:00.002-05:00

I wonder what the sharks are thinking.

You know, they must take a gander at this craziness and then party until the break of dawn there in sharkland. How the tables have turned. It wasn't that many summers ago when they were the featured villain on CNN. Wolf Blitzer (who is not a real wolf and this must have really thrown the sharks for a loop) coming on after a scary info graphic and intoning gravely about the menacing threat in the water off the pristine white beaches of Florida. Do you blame the sharks? They see a leg or two dangling in the water and it must be like when the Hot Donuts light comes on at Krispy Kreme. Nevertheless, the sharks scared us silly for a time and what wonderful days they were.

Come back, sharks, all is forgiven. Well, OK, all isn't forgiven because, you know, you bit some people and that was wrong but those summers look like a picnic compared to now.

Why does it feel like summers are defined by disasters? Summer 2010 is the officially certified summer of the Oil Spill. All right, maybe it's the summer of the Oil Spill and World Cup soccer. I'm sorry, World Cup soccer is not pulling its weight in this deal. It could at least try to give the Oil Spill a run for its money. I know the soccer apologists are screaming at the paper right now. I can hear them. Hush. Look, I like your game. I really do. I want to know more about it and get into it. But, c'mon, you need something -- anything -- to liven up these nil to nil matches that are a slow march to sleepytime. The vuvuzela horns are getting more attention than the games! I don't know what you need soccer but it should be something. Maybe make losing teams swim in a tank filed with sharks. Well, I'm sure that's what the poor North Korean team is going to have to do after they lost to Brazil so maybe something else.

Like most red-blooded Americans I am lazy and because I am lazy the gulf coast beaches are -- were? -- my default vacation. That was the case when I was young and dumb and had to go somewhere to do stupid and dangerous things for spring break. And it's the case now when I have two kids and the idea of tromping around Disneyworld (in Orlando where the humidity never dips below 150 percent!) makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry. But, instead, you take the path of least resistance. You drive down to the redneck Riviera, rent a condo for a week, buy some sunblock and you are good. Instant and easy vacation. It kills me to think that this option might be gone for a generation or two.

That is, of course, the least of the worries of this spill, that just morphs and grows bigger and more depressing each and every day. It's bad enough that every news outlet is finding a new worry to fixate on -- underwater oil plumes! suicidal fisherman! decline in the sales of Jimmy Buffet merchandise! (I just made that up)-- but even commercials -- you know, good ol' fashioned greedy advertising -- are reminding us of the disaster. "The Mississippi Gulf Coast is open for business" chirped one I just heard the other day. The commercial is probably right. Not every beach is soaked in petroleum and every beach won't be even if this thing continues on into the future. But the ad is a reminder that even after the well is caped, BP will be feeding its army of lawyers red meat and that the long and relentless PR campaign will have only started.

See, it was so much easier when it was just a couple of rouge sharks with a sweet tooth. Yeah, it was scary then but now it feels like we went crazy over a minor threat. It feels just the opposite with the oil spill. Even with the round-the-clock coverage and Anderson Cooper challenging BP executives to a steel cage death match, it doesn't feel as anybody is underplaying what is happening in the gulf. It's bad and it's going to be bad for a while. But at least the sharks should feel better. I mean, they would if they didn't have to figure out how to swim in a sea of oil.

Talk Business Butler Center story is out

2010-05-14T20:28:00.003-05:00

Roby Brock, Mr. Talk Business, is a friend of mine from way back. He kindly let me write a piece for his excellent quarterly publication on the wondermous Butler Center. Go read.

Paper or Plastic? in Searcy

2010-04-13T15:16:00.004-05:00

Hey, it sort of snuck up on me but my one-act play Paper or Plastic? will be presented at Center on the Square in Searcy this weekend, April 15 and 16.

Paper or Plastic? is published by Dramatic Publishing Company (you can find out more details and order one hundred thousand copies by clicking on the link found on your left) and is one of my most popular plays. I love that it's going to be done in nearby Searcy. Maybe I'll even find a way to go. So yay, yay, yay.

Here's a release about the show I found on the internets.

***

Productions showcasing the area’s most talented youngsters will be presented by Land O’Frost KidStage at Center on the Square during the month of April. “Paper or Plastic?” will play April 15 and 16. These productions are the culmination of Center on the Square’s afterschool children’s workshop, KidStage, which has been generously funded by Land O’Frost since 2004. This year’s workshop activities are also supported by associate sponsors Beth Patterson Pediatric Dentistry, Searcy Children’s Clinic, and Families, Inc. Now in its eleventh year, Land O’Frost Kidstage features training in performing arts and stage techniques, and has fifty students from 2nd to 12th grades currently enrolled.

First up on April 15 and 16, the 6-12 grade class (also known as ‘BigStage’) will present their show “Paper or Plastic”, written by local playwright Werner Trieschmann. The one-act comedy is about a teenager named Sarah who is working her first job and thinks she's easily qualified to check out customers at Puritan Foods, her local grocery store. But Sarah isn't prepared for Carl, the assistant manager, who refuses to deal with unruly customers or with the customer who can't put down her cell phone long enough to acknowledge that Sarah is there. Then there are her crazy co-workers who put on camouflage to hunt down stray grocery carts or live in closets and subsist on Twizzlers to avoid Carl. All Sarah wants is the answer to the simplest question in the world: Paper or Plastic?

Directed by instructor Kristen Stanford, the BigStage class will present its show on Thursday, April 15, and Friday, April 16, at 7:00 each night. Tickets are $6 in advance or $8 at the door and are available at the theater or by calling 501-368-0111.

Easy me, writing fool

2009-11-04T11:10:00.004-06:00

Ever since I've been back on the freelance beat, I have been writing for whoever will have me. I am just easy that way.

If you want to know about the Little Rock Theatre scene, go here. No, there isn't much creative writing involved, but I am trying to keep it going. So help a guy out and click on the stories one billion times. Thankee.

Take another bow, Letter to Little Rock

2009-11-04T10:58:00.004-06:00

This is my Letter to Little Rock that was published in Soiree a few months back. In case you missed it, we repeat for you because that's just how we are.

There are two things I distinctly remember about the summer of 1987, my first summer back in Arkansas after being away in graduate school in Boston. The first was playing Frisbee on Markham. We had a rent house that was steps away from the Razorback Laundry and the beloved Oyster Bar with a long porch that faced Markham. Being young, broke and generally fearless (you could substitute the word “fearless” with the word “stupid”), we held many parties where we consumed cheap beer that had the kick and flavor of water. There were three of us renting the house, but it felt like a lot more. Maybe we locked the door, but I don't remember doing so and it always seemed as if somebody new – a friend of a friend of a friend – was traipsing through the house.

And that was fine. We were cut loose from college and yet we weren't ready – not near ready -- to let it go. So our wood-paneled pad on Markham served as a ratty yet comfortable way station. We would stagger in from whatever temporary job we had, somebody would put on a record and the party was on. Then, when it was midnight or later, we'd play Frisbee on Markham. You could even get off three or four throws before somebody yelled “Car!”

Little Rock was new to me then. I had grown up in Hot Springs, spent four years in school in Conway and was still absorbing what it meant to live in Boston. I knew Little Rock like most kids my age did – mostly by what I saw looking out window driving to and from the malls. So I was lying when I told the man who hired me as a courier that I knew my way around the city. He operated his business out of the basement of his house in the Heights. He had a small fleet of young men like myself driving architectural plans and medical tests all over Little Rock. We communicated through a walkie-talkie system installed in our cars. It was still years away before that business and all the others like it were obsolete.

As I said, Little Rock was foreign to me, which made for many nervous courier trips with me sweating through the white button-down shirts that served as a uniform. There was a trip to the airport that seemed to last for hours with the owner offering increasingly terse directions as it became clear that I had no clue where I was. I think I somehow ended up in Jacksonville.

But the stress of that job, intense as it was at the time, was fleeting, passing almost as quickly as that summer. Soon I'd be back in Boston, where I would last only four more years. Now I live in Little Rock and I eat at the Oyster Bar quite a lot. I drive by that old house and I am quite tempted to get out and fling a Frisbee across the street for old time's sake. I would do that, but, you know, I'm not crazy.

It is AAALLIIIIVVVVEEEE!

2009-11-02T09:43:00.007-06:00

The blog, I mean. It's alive. I am going to maintain this little corner of the internets if it kills me -- and it probably will.

For my first act among the living, here is a recent piece I wrote about the 25th Anniversary of the Porter Fund Prize. I am a very, very, very lucky Porter Fund winner. The gala at the Governor's Mansion -- well, read below. It was a special evening.

Oh, and the picture to the right is of Dr. Ben Kimpel, the professor I didn't know but who lives on in the literary prize started in his honor.

****

During a recent reading at the Great Hall of the Governor's Mansion, poet Miller Williams paused to take note that his work does not require the constant use of a dictionary. He went on to state that his intent was to create poems with language that could be read and understood by “squirrel hunters and taxi drivers.”

Williams said this while addressing a sizable crowd that included the sitting governor of Arkansas, Mike Beebe, the attorney general of Arkansas, Dustin McDaniel (who also happens to be a cousin of Williams), former governor and senator David Pryor and several captains of industry including Don Tyson. There may not have been any taxi drivers in the bunch and the squirrel hunters didn't identify themselves.

The happy occasion – and any chance to hear Williams' heart-expanding, smile-inducing verse can be labeled as such -- was the 25th Anniversary of the Porter Fund Literary Prize. The poet from Hoxie received the Lifetime Achievement Award, the second such designation given by the literary prize started by Phil McMath and Jack Butler over drinks in a bar. The idea by the two former students' was to honor Dr. Ben Drew Kimpel, the distinguished chair of the Department of English at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Kimpel made a request that the prize be named in honor of his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter.

In his welcome speech, McMath couldn't help but notice how far the Porter Prize has come in the past 25 years. Taking note of the glittery appointments of the Great Hall and the wine and martini bars that were taken advantage of by many of the guests, McMath remembered the “early days” where he and his wife Carol would run out the day of to buy the cheese and the wine for the Porter Fund events.

Poet Leon Stokesbury has the honor of the first Porter Prize, which he won in 1985 and received a check of $500. The last Porter honoree, non-fiction writer Roy Reed, received his award and $2,000 in prize money, at the Main Library in downtown Little Rock. There have been 24 Arkansas writers – 9 poets, 12 fiction writers, 2 non-fiction writers and 1 playwright -- recognized between Stokesbury and Reed. Over the years, what has come clear is that the Porter Prize is something more than money and a nice pat on the back (which is not to say that most writers don't desperately need and appreciate both). The Porter Prize is helping to identify the significant talent that Arkansas has produced. Along those lines, McMath drew the attention of the crowd to a chance to donate to The Porter Literary Project, a documentary film that will begin production in 2010. When completed, the documentary will be distributed to schools as well as writing departments in Arkansas' colleges and universities.

The documentary will go a long way in capturing the past of the Porter Prize (and footage was taken of the 25th Anniversary event), but McMath struck a note of concern about the present, specifically the paradox of “how there is less communication in this age of communication.” This notion was echoed in the direct and moving remarks by McDaniel about his cousin. After taking a moment to recognize the members of his extended family in the audience including state representative Kathy Webb and Williams' daughter, Grammy winner Lucinda Williams, he mentioned a brief e-mail he received from Williams after being elected to the office of Attorney General. The e-mail, which McDaniel said he printed and has kept in his office, was a plea for the new head of Arkansas' legal realm to be mindful of how his decisions affect those without power or money.

In between his poems during his reading Williams mentioned how he started his collegiate life with a major in biology. The work he selected and read reflected that keen appreciation of the natural world – the way a caterpillar doggedly crawls along the edge of a dog bowl, the way husband and wife can talk around one another and even the questions raised by the very atoms and particles of our being. Williams direct verse -- those well-carved out words aimed at squirrel hunters and taxi drivers – delighted the crowd. It was a night of honors and recognition, but, above all, a night of peerless communication.

A new play collection

2009-07-08T20:18:00.002-05:00

I am very happy to announce that I have a new 10-minute play collection, The Cell Phone Rings for Thee.

It's published by Dramatic Publishing Company, the publisher that has three other plays of mine. There still seems to be a market and audiences for 10-minute plays, though my guess is the mania for the short plays has cooled off somewhat. But I love 10-minute plays, still love reading collections when I can.

My collection is tied together by loose theme of modern gadgets. My comedy, Close Shave, which is about a very aggressive razor and which has had a couple of productions, is one of the seven plays included.

Life has been such that I haven't had near the time I'd like to work on new plays. So I am glad this collection is out now and hopefully it will spur me to action. Naturally, I will be curious to see how it does. My last play with Dramatic, All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play, has really taken off. Productions are scheduled all over (even one I noticed in Fayetteville in 2010).

Here's hoping this one joins it.

Information Overload

2009-06-02T16:37:00.003-05:00

Of all the fun and odd things I used to do at the newspaper, my little non-illustrated comic strip, Information Overload, was the oddest and funest.

It was a tiny square box that ran in the Arkansas Weekend section along with some other home grown comics. When it first appeared, I had people outside the newsroom tell me they thought it was an ad. Laura Brown, bless her heart, was a big fan. She was on the copy desk and would always cheer when I brought one around to be edited -- usually right at deadline.

Anyway, I would, every once in a while, hear compliments about Info Overload. The biggest compliment ever was when I was buying something at a liquor store -- sadly, I don't even remember which one -- and saw one of my strips taped up next to the cash register.

I am going to start reprinting my old Information Overloads. This one is not even one of my favorites -- and it's dated. I have to start somewhere and it was right here by the computer. So.

Information Overload

What is love?

Love is an ice cream headache and the queasiness of watching too many Jerry Springer shows all combined into a big, nauseating wad of emotional freakiness.
Love is a big fortune cookie with the single word “Sucker!” as the fortune and the cookie is all stale but you eat it anyway.
Love is a large-print Book for Dummies that you try to read night after night but you don't understand it.
Love is that Star Trek episode that you keep seeing on TV that you know is really stupid but the only other thing on is that annoying Nanny show so you order a pizza and watch it anyway.
Love is a big billboard that makes you angry and is an affront to everything you stand for but you have to pass it by it each and every day and they never change it.
Love is a strange humor column that some guy wrote at the last minute.
Love is weird, baby, it's weird.

We interrupt these dog photos for Tracy Jordan

2009-05-19T13:38:00.004-05:00

Here is everything Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) said in season 3 of 30 Rock.

This is some kind of crazy funny list.

This is what we do to loaner dogs

2009-05-18T09:03:00.004-05:00

I stepped out for coffee on Saturday morning and when I came back...well, you see the results. The second one is Buzz Lightyear, by the way. Please feel free to provide captions in the comments. I will publish every one, but I won't show the dog because, you know, that would be humiliating.

Some more flavors of awesome

2009-05-15T08:54:00.004-05:00

1. Yesterday there was some down time before dinner was ready and we had somehow found the will to turn the TV off. The boys, still maniacs from the general lack of sun, pulled out new markers and poster paper. John, the 6 year-old, found his Star Wars Wii game and started to draw battleships and droids and whatnot. Kit, the 3 year-old, wanted me to draw his droid. I did and he marked on it, you know, just to contribute. Then Kit said something about wanting to give it to Kris Allen. American Idol Kris Allen. So I wrote on it "For Kris Allen from Kit" and then Kit took his Star Wars droid poster and left it outside on the front porch. I think he thinks that Kris Allen is going to pick up it. Sort of like Kris is the new tooth fairy or something.

2. We're going to stay on this Bobby Scales story. Scales is a 31 year-old rookie for the Chicago Cubs that was called up to the show about a week and a half ago. He spent 10 years (I thought it was 11) in the minors. Never got one at bat in the major leagues. Wasn't on anybody's hot prospect list. Was a substitute teacher. Since being called up to the Cubs, he's been hitting. Yesterday he had a very good day, 2 hits and 4 RBIs. How long will this story last? I don't imagine it will be forever, but still...one can hope.

3. I am going to review Saturday's Kenny Chesney/Miranda Lambert/Lady Antebellum concert...wait for it...for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Sigh.

4. We're getting a loaner dog, Buddy, while the in-laws are out of town for a week. Buddy is a great dog, a docile mutt/pug/something. Very easy to take care of. This, perhaps, will stall my puppy longing for the moment.

Return of the Son of Shameless Self-Quoting

2009-05-14T15:29:00.004-05:00

NEW AGE WOMAN
The path to enlightenment has many winding paths and you could say that I am traveling on a holistic detour filled with daily meditation, trail mix and many other wonderful, life-affirming rituals.

BIKER
(To NEW AGE WOMAN)
Man I don’t know you, but I want to hurt you.

-- from The Absolute Most Cliched Elevator Play in the History of the Entire Universe

36 Flavors of Awesome

2009-05-13T09:08:00.005-05:00

1. My essay in Babble.

2. A guy by the name of Bobby Scales spent 11 years in the minor leagues. 11 years! He got called up to the Show, to play for my favorite team the Chicago Cubs last week. Last night, he hit his first major league home run in the Cubs 6-2 win over the Padres. If that's not awesome, then nothing is.

3. Puppies. My three-year told me on the way to school that he had a dream about a puppy. I am afraid I won't be able to resist the urge to go out and get one for long. I have to keep reminding myself about vet bills. And that my three-year didn't have a dream about cleaning up puppy poop. No, he'd never have that dream.

4. Kris Allen's "Heartless" on American Idol. Yes, I watch that show. And yes, I'd rather have the Arkansas kid in the final than the guy who wears guyliner and screams and shows his tounge or the goofball with glasses. But you have to admit that doing Kayne West's "Heartless" solo acoustic was a brilliant stroke.

5. through 36. I'll get back to you.

A note from your fearful, bewildered leader

2009-05-11T19:37:00.004-05:00

Follow me. I have virtual people "following me" on Twitter. I am sure if you are on Twitter, you have a ghostly hoard tracking your every move.

Of course the assumption is that I know where I am going and I am going somewhere. And that I know the best way there.

I haven't gone in a straight line my whole life. Or, maybe I have, but it's taken me forever to get there.

My wife and I are catching up on old episodes of Lost, which is just a heartbreaking and beautiful show. But you know one of the main things that happens in practically every episode that Jack or Sawyer or Hurley is out trekking somewhere in the jungle and they get turned around or shot or the smoke monster eats them. If I was a character on Lost, I am sure I would be worm food somewhere in the start of the first season.

All of this is to say that I am happy -- ecstatic, really -- for followers. But I hope you packed a lunch.

Man arrested for singing "Polyester Bride" at Panera Bread

2009-05-08T10:03:00.005-05:00

I am sitting in Panera Bread writing this to Liz Phair's album you see there. Well, of course it isn't an album. It's been reduced to tiny Xs and Os or some such incomprehensible material. It's on my iTunes now and it's going in my headphones. It's much awesomeness.

I am selling my CD collection on eBay. It's a long process because I am impossible. I could sell them all in one big lump I guess, but I like pulling my CDs out one by one and posting them when I have time -- which means it is taking forever.

I haven't put this album up yet though I figure I might. But good gravy, it is wonderful. I have always loved whitechocolatespacegg (released way back there in 1998) anytime I have come back to it after a long layoff. I have been a big defender of Phair even when she was deemed a sellout because she worked with the same producers who tarted up the shrimpy Avril Lavigne for radio play.

Anyway, it's Friday and I have ginormous stack of stuff to do. But I wonder if Panera Bread would mind if I started dancing on the table? Or just shouted at the top of my lungs to "Uncle Alvarez."

What I am learning

2009-05-05T09:10:00.004-05:00

No surprise, but now 2 months plus from being cut loose from the newspaper, I am still wandering through the wilderness of the internets. But I Twitter and I am writing theatre news for this place. I am still writing freelance for the old media newspaper that laid me off. What have I learned? I love Twitter. I could spend my life there -- and quickly go broke. I learned that I am not fast enough for the new media sprint -- yet. I've also learned I need a new, more powerful laptop.

There were more layoffs at the Democrat-Gazette yesterday. At the end of this article you will see the publisher says that after they scale back that they will hopefully build back up. I guess anything is possible. But it sure seems from my vantage point that new media has won the war.

Shamless Cross-Promotional Hoo-Ha

2009-04-29T11:18:00.003-05:00

Oh yeah, I am all over this internets.
Like French Fries under car seats.
Like my 3 year-old on popsicles.
Like dog hair on a sofa.

Like this.

Dude! Nice ad

2009-04-27T09:25:00.001-05:00

Rousing arts optimism in tough times

2009-04-23T09:58:00.011-05:00

Bob Hupp is the producing artistic director for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and a smart, funny guy who also happens to be a good friend of mine. In the recent Repartee, the Rep's newsletter, Hupp's Notes column really struck a chord. I asked Bob if I could reprint it for the internets and the good of mankind. He said yes and so here it is.

"During World War II, at the height of the Battle of Britain, someone proposed to Winston Churchill that the government should close all the theaters in London to which the Prime Minister reportedly replied, 'My God! What are we fighting for?'

No one would make the case that life is as hard for us now as it was for Englanders then, but there's no denying times are tough. And non-profit theatres around our country are closing. About one every month.

Comparatively, The Rep is in pretty good shape. Attendance is at an all-time high. We just completed a statewide educational tour that was generously underwritten by institutions at home and across the country. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we recently enjoyed our most successful Saints & Sinners fundraiser ever. Our board of directors is strong and engaged. Our staff is smart and creative. We're well poised to ride out the storm.

But the truth is no amount of ticket sales in our intimate theatre, no amount of hard work, or no measure of cost-cutting will assure our survival through these difficult times. No nonprofit professional theatre is designed to survive on ticket sales alone. The art we create isn't cost effective and there's only so much you can streamline. Hamlet is just as long now, and has just as many actors, as it did in Shakespeare's day. It's not smart, from a business point of view, to give a product away to school children for $8 when it costs $100 to make that product for each of those children.

We do it anyway because we're here to make Little Rock a better place to live, a better place to work and a better place to raise children. We know the arts are a defining characteristic of our city and they enrich our lives in innumerable ways. And without your support, whether it be in volunteerism, cash donations, in-kind gifts, corporate sponsorships or enlighted civic leadership, we are lost.

Someday, and that day may come sooner rather than later, Little Rock might have decide if it wants to keep its theatres open. We're in uncharted waters.

But I believe we'll get through this and that our best days lie ahead. I pray that between now and then we don't become so frightened or so overwhelmed by immediate circumstances that we sacrifice the best of who we are for the worst of what we might become.

I think we'll be more like Winston Churchill. I think the inherently brave and generous spirit of our community will carry the day.

Thank you most sincerely for your past and future support. See you at the Rep."

The Arkansas Repertory is currently staging The Elephant Man at the Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts. Go see it and support this vital theater. (501) 378-0405.

Sheep? Why yes, thank you. Baaaa!

2009-04-22T09:53:00.004-05:00

I like to think I am as original as the next guy.

Wait. That doesn't work.

Uh. I like to think I am cleverer than you. That I get to things before the herd.

Which I never do. I am a sheep. Like the rest. Nothing wrong with that. Sheep are furry and docile. My kids love 'em.

All that to say I have a Twitter deal.

I am Twittering.

Which is another way of saying, "Baaaa!"

Son of Shameless Self-Quoting

2009-04-08T09:14:00.004-05:00

I cannot believe in this day and age that this store doesn’t have one of those automated check out thingies! To never deal with a person, that would be so much more efficient!

-- SOCIAL WOMAN on her cell phone from Paper or Plastic?

Sing in a Busytown

2009-04-03T08:47:00.003-05:00

My son's kidergarten class took a field trip to see Busytown, the latest musical production at the Arkansas Arts Center Children's Theatre.

The Children's Theatre is truly an undersung resource in Little Rock. The productions are high quality, especially the sets, which are always elaborate and fun (and Busytown, which consisted of a bright cardboard city, was no exception). Music was provided by the great Lori Isner, who might be the best kept secret in theater in Arkansas.

My son seemed to love the little musical, which is by Kevin Kling. I wanted to like it, but it seemed not clever enough or constructed well enough. There were nice moments to be sure. You can't go wrong with a song about a pickle car.

Busytown runs through April 5.

Post Disfarmer

2009-03-30T11:21:00.003-05:00

Somewhere in one of the two talkbacks after the reading of my Disfarmer at Fayetteville's Theatresquared, somebody asked why write a play? I'm really paraphrasing the question, but that was the heart of it. Why a play and not a poem or a novel?

I don't remember what I said (or if the question was even directed at me). Beside, I had heard the question before.

My answer is and will always be: I love actors. I love being around them (even the neurotic ones and no there aren't any other kind) and I love watching them read and perform what I write. The four actors (playing a total of 10 roles) who tackled Disfarmer were wonderful. They had two days of rehearsal and you would have thought they had spent a month.

One of the actors happened to be Mark Landon Smith. You might ask who is Mark Landon Smith? He only happens to be one of the most popular playwrights in the United States. Google his name and "Faith County" and you'll see. He's also a terrific actor. We had a great time talking playwriting after Tuesday night's rehearsal.

I'll talk about the experience more later. But this was something I felt I had to share.

Cut the static

2009-03-19T20:08:00.006-05:00

Maybe you've guessed -- this is making the grand assumption that there is a "you" guessing at all -- that I am brand new to this blogging game. Of course "you" are right. Give yourself a cookie.

And I am only now getting around to deciding what I want this sandbox to be. My business card for my plays? A big ol' web empire? Something else entirely?

I was thinking about With the Angels, the popular (and now award-nominated) web series I'm involved in and I mention below. I would guess that 95 percent of the people I know have never seen or do not know what a web series is. But even with my shallow involvement, I can tell you it sure feels like the future. As somebody who was just ejected from a 15 year post at a newspaper, a medium experiencing something like last rites, it feels especially sweet.

But in the last post I mentioned the hard work of Mary Feuer in creating With the Angels out of whole cloth. It wasn't, as one (and this "one" certainly includes me) might easily assume, you make a 36 episode web series and slap it on the web and watch the world flock to your site. The many-splintered web won't have it that way. Really, an audience, a community, is tougher to build than ever. Go on Tubefilter and start counting up the web series mentioned. It's a whole universe all by itself.

Anyway, the way to cut through the static is to have something to say and to say it in the clearest and most entertaining way. Which is what With the Angels does. Which is what I will try to do with this blog.

But I would love to know -- and I throw this out to anybody who has found this little outpost -- what cuts through the static for you. And why.

A Streamy Nomination!

2009-03-17T13:15:00.005-05:00

A long, long time ago I wrote a play called The Church of God's Glorious Light. The play had a reading in Boston and, after it was over, a woman named Mary Feuer came up to me to tell me how much she liked it and identified with the characters.

Many years and one valiant but failed attempt to turn that play into a screenplay (well, Mary and I wrote a screenplay, but we couldn't get anybody to pay us money to film it -- though we certainly tried, which was a wild enough ride all on its own), Mary turned the play into a Web series called With the Angels. That series has just been nominated for two Streamy Awards (yes, I know, it reminds me of an incontinence trophy, too). One for Mary's direction and another for writing (I'm included in that nomination along with Mary and Jonathan Kaplan). There are a lot of cool and well-known Hollywood types who are nominated for Streamy Awards.

Like everybody else, I was plumb ignorant of Web series before Mary called me out of the blue and told me this idea. And really it's been through her sheer determination that this show came together as it did (and it came together so well). But it's a cool medium and Mary understands how to navigate and make it something other than just a TV show on the internets. I am really fortunate to be along for this ride.

More Shameless Self-Quoting

2009-03-13T14:17:00.003-05:00

"Directors, as a rule, prefer to suffer for their art. Which is a good thing because that’s exactly what they do -- suffer. They also wear a beret."

--Narrator from All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play published by Dramatic Publishing Company

Titles matter!

2009-03-13T08:50:00.006-05:00

One of the things I have figured out about myself is that I am a late bloomer. Well, "bloomer" makes it sound like I'm some kind of spectacular hothouse flower. I'm really more like a pernicious weed that takes a long time to grow.

Enough with the gardening metaphors.

Anyway, it's taken me way longer than it should to figure out that I have an affinity for writing high school one-act comedies. These are 30-40 minute plays that are popular among high schools and middle schools. The market generally expect the plays to have large casts (12 to infinity) with more female than male roles. Easy sets. Comedy over drama. That sort of thing.

The first play of this type that I wrote was Paper or Plastic? It's set in a grocery store. It has a cast of 12 or so. It was published a year and half ago and I think it will easily have totaled 75 productions by this summer. You can go on the Dramatic Publishing Company site and see that it has productions scheduled in Canada, Baltimore, Yuba City, California and even Mena, Arkansas. It's been done by high schools, lots of middle schools, some colleges and even some community theaters.

Needless to say after Paper or Plastic?, I was hooked. I wrote a bunch of high school one-acts in a row. One is titled The Absolute Most Cliched Elevator Play in the History of the Entire Universe. It is published by Playscripts, Inc. (a really, really cool play publishing company I will write more about in detail at a later time). The Absolute Most ... The Elevator play was published in September. It's had 25 productions so far, making it my second most popular play. The play is set in an elevator and, yes, it's a silly play. But I really like it and I think it's proof of another thing I discovered late in life. Titles matter. And that long title, which didn't come to me right away, is working for me and my absurd little play.

Shameless Self-Quoting

2009-03-12T09:53:00.006-05:00

"You don't know what cooking is until you make mashed potatoes for four thousand."

-- Marvin from You Have To Serve Somebody

available at Dramatic Publishing Company

News! Disfarmer in Fayetteville

2009-03-10T09:02:00.003-05:00

This picture was taken by the late Heber Springs portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer. I am writing a play (as in writing right now) about Disfarmer for the Arkansas New Play Festival held by the lovely folks at Theatresquared (www.theatresquared.org). The readings for the Festival take place March 27 and 28. There is going to be some interesting and exciting work besides my please-let-me-finish-it-soon piece. I've long wanted to work with Bob Ford and the rest of the gang at Theatresquared. And this comes at a time when I need an outlet like this. So yay.

Me in a paragraph

2009-03-09T11:18:00.003-05:00

When I first started writing plays -- back in 1847 -- I, of course, wanted to write a great play. Like Durang. Or Tennessee Williams. If I couldn't write a great play, I wanted the next best thing. A great bio.

Of course you had to write a great play -- you had to write several, really -- before you could hammer together a great bio. Early on I remember trying to stretch a few productions into a bio that looked impressive. I put down every reading. There was a reading in Boston put on by my friends. One person showed up. I am sure that went on my bio.

Now I have credits that look decent. Productions in New York (not enough!) and Los Angeles (the immortal Moving Arts). I have published plays, which is always nice. And you can find my playwriting bio at Playscripts, Inc. and at Dramatic Publishing Company and elsewhere.

But my favorite bio that I've ever had is one I wrote for the sorely missed Arkansas Literary Forum run by the great Marck Beggs. Here it is.

WERNER TRIESCHMANN has lived on the margins of the playwriting world so long he's forgotten how the whole sorry mess got started. Mind you, he's been fortunate and happy to see his plays performed in a lot different stages in a lot of different cities from Los Angeles to New York and (his favorite) Albuquerque. Usually, though, the places have been smaller rather than larger (ask him about the broom closet in Denver that tried to pass for a theatre). Anyway, Werner is just stupid enough to keep on going despite all the evidence to the contrary. For some reason, he seems to really dig it. If you would like to read more of his work, you can e-mail him at wtrieschmann@sbcglobal.net and he'll be more than willing to share scripts, stories, recipes, etc.

Is this thing on?

2009-03-06T21:33:00.000-06:00

This is my new blog about my playwriting. I really honestly have lost count of the number of plays I have written. I haven't lost count about the number of ones I have started but haven't finished -- that number is, specifically, one hundred gagillion. Maybe more.

But I have plays that are published and, to my great surprise and delight, popular. Such as Paper or Plastic, a one-act comedy. It's published by Dramatic Publishing Company. You can order copies at http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/.

OK. This is a start. Blogwise. But not an end. Not at all.