#playperday

Remember that time I didn't update my daily blog for a year... yeah...

Hey y’all. I can’t believe it’s been an entire year and I haven’t blogged about a single play. I mean, to be fair, I directed three shows, had my 54Below debut, stage managed an immersive event, and wrote a play, on top of y’know Hot Pepper Theater and a bunch of other stuff. But like man, I gotta be better about this. I can’t promise I’ll keep writing at this rate for months but I’m hoping to…

The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde Tennessee Williams 1F 3M

When I described this play to Ben he referred to it as unstageable. Sure there’s a guy with mysteriously paralyzed legs who gets around by swinging himself from hooks in the apartment. And a poncy git and lot of molestation. But what of that. Tennessee doesn’t mind.

We start with Mint, a young man, probably in his mid-twenties…

The Day on Which a Man Dies Tennessee Williams 2F 2M

As I said yesterday, a number of these feel underdone. Unfinished. Could’ve done with a workshop or two more (if there were any to begin with). Let’s go!

At rise, a man is painting with a spray gun in a hotel room. He wears a flesh-colored unitard that has anatomical details and a fig leaf painted on it. We’re in japan. A woman enters the…

125 - The Chalky White SubstanceSo I was at the performance museum just browsing and I was kinda looking for the Dragon Country collection of Tennessee Williams's plays (I super have no idea what is actually in that collection but, like, dragons amirite?). Anyway I found this collection The Traveling Companion & Other Plays and it's a bunch of his later work, like most of it didn't get produced until after he was dead and a lot of it feels... sketchy? At best? It's hard to judge. Anyway we're gonna be here for like, a week or two. Let's do it.

The Chalky White Substance Tennessee Williams 2M

So I was at the performance museum just browsing and I was kinda looking for the Dragon Country collection of Tennessee Williams’s plays (I super have no idea what is actually in that collection but, like, dragons amirite?). Anyway I found this collection The Traveling Companion & Other Playsand it’s a bunch of his later work, like most of it…

So, every Monday-Friday you'll see a post from me with a number and a title (eg 88 - Beautiful Child) And you might think to yourself, "What the Butt is this?' Well, playperday is a blog I started right after I left college to attempt to burn through this massive amount of Plays my aunt left me and to have a running record of plot synopses, character breakdowns, and personal directorial interest in a piece. I fell off the band wagon a number of times, but for the last three months or so I've been reviewing 5plays/week and it feels really good. I've even got a sponsorship from the Drama Bookshop because they're rad as hell.

So, if you're interested in contemporary plays and don't have the time to read a lot of plays all the time, check it out!

Check out the latest Playperday entry: The Night Alive by Conor McPherson!

The Night Alive Conor McPherson 1F 4M

The Night Alive was printed in the December 2013 issue of American Theatre. It’s probably the first modern Irish play I’ve read outside of Martin McDonagh’s work and it was interesting. Some spats of dark comedy/violence (is that a culturally Irish thing?) and a look at a few days in the life of relatively ordinary people thrust into some odd circumstances.

To…