I’ve really had a pretty amazing year by any measure.
I wanted to take one blog post to take a look at that year: in part, of course, to do a little bit of simple horn-tooting, but also to ask myself a question: did I do too much? Or try to do too much?
So here’s the list. Here’s what I did this year, divided into categories:
Writing
- My play REALS had a successful run at Theater Alliance.
- REALS was also read by Anthem Theatre in New York.
- I completed a commission, HOT & COLD, for Theater J; we workshopped the play for a week, then did a reading.
- I took my play THE BUTCHER to the Great Plains Theatre Conference.
- THE BUTCHER was also read by Theater J, with whom I’m continuing to develop the play.
- I joined Dog & Pony DC as a member of the KILLING GAME ensemble.
- I performed (for the first time on a DC stage) as a member of the KILLING GAME ensemble.
- I made a film, EVOLUTION, for Forum Theatre (with Gabriel Walsh).
- I wrote a monologue, ANTHEM, for Centerstage’s 50th annivesary My America project.
- I began a new collaboration (on a project tentatively called LIES) with banished? productions.
- I completed a commission — a short podcast play — for the National New Play Network.
- My plays ABSTRACT NUDE and CRACKED were published by Original Works Publishing.
- CRACKED was read in DC by The Disreputables.
Blogging and Talks
- I wrote 90+ blog posts here, some of which got significant national attention, a few of which spurred what I hope were productive conversations.
- I wrote a few blog posts for 2amtheatre, HowlRound, and TheatreFace.
- I wrote four columns for The Dramatist.
- I spoke at TEDxWDC: “The Arts as a Show of Strength.”
- I was invited to speak at American University and Montgomery College.
- I convened panel discussions at Theater J (on the state of the local playwright) and at the Capitol Fringe Festival.
- I joined panel discussions at Centerstage and George Washington University.
- I served as a respondent for the ATHE conference.
Related Theater Projects
- I joined the Board of Governors of the Helen Hayes Awards.
- I became the DC representative to the Dramatists Guild.
- As Guild-rep, I co-hosted (with Baltimore Guild rep Rich Espey) a playwrights rally at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival.
- I consulted for the National New Play Network on a significant (but not yet announced) project.
- I co-produced (with PD Michnewicz) an evening of newly-commissioned monologues by DC playwrights at the Intersections Festival.
- I co-produced a DC playwrights slam at the Kennedy Center, also as part of the Page-to-Stage Festival.
- I continued to co-moderate the DC-Area Playwrights group.
- I co-curated an artistic speed-dating event for playwrights at Theater J.
- I created @IFollowPWs, the most comprehensive aggregation of playwrights on Twitter.
- I completed an in-depth analysis of playwright demographics for the upcoming 2012-13 DC theater season.
- I traveled to Louisville to cover the Humana Festival for Stage Directions.
So… what do you think? Too much? (I should add that there’s probably more I’m not remembering…)Â I’m feeling as if it is. I’m feeling as if next year, I ought to cut this list in half. To focus on doing fewer, but bigger things.
I’d appreciate some advice here. Really. It’s been an exhausting year. I probably can’t keep up this pace again. Or shouldn’t. I don’t know.
That’s more than a full plate! Just curious, did you do all of that in addition to a full-time paying job or were you able to make a living from everything you mentioned in the post?
In addition to a (very demanding and sometimes high-profile) half-time job… and being a husband and father, which are really both at the top of what’s clearly a too-long list…
This got me thinking…not about whether or not you’re too busy–only you can answer that. : ) But in terms of full nights of producible theater, it looks like you wrote one new full-length play and revised a couple. I’d say I wrote three drafts of a new play and wrote the first act of another. That feels pretty similar, doesn’t it? (I’m not counting short plays, special projects, blog posts, etc…just full length plays.) So questions: are we satisfied w/ writing 1.5 plays a year? If we wrote more, wd. the work be any good? No one writes three fantastic plays a year. Most people don’t write one. How much can you put out, before the quality is strained?
I think I’m pretty happy w/ my rate of creating new plays but would like to work branching out into other arenas: essays, short stories, adaptations. I think I could do a better job of writing something else, while researching or ruminating on a new play.
I agree: it feels pretty similar.
To be honest, I’m highly skeptical of the notion that anyone could be more prolific than 1.5 plays a year and still maintain a decent level of quality. I have friends who insist they can and do write as many as three plays a year, and while i don’t want to be dismissive of any of them… I have a hard time seeing it.
Then again… maybe if I let some of those other things go, it would start to seem possible. I’m going to start next year by slowing this blog down a lot. Instead of 1-2 posts a week of modest length, I’m going to start aiming for one substantial post a month (or so), with occasional and irregular modest pieces when inspiration strikes.
Even with that, I can already feel my year filling up… and while it’s preferable to a vast empty nothingness, it’s starting to feel a bit close. So I’ve got to cut somewhere else, I think. I just need to figure out where!
You helped me get an A in my Independent Study last semester!
Win!