Wow... four months since my last post... guess i suck at this blog thing. sorry everyone...

good news is that Praxis Theatre Project - a terrific NYC company that had a hit this Spring with How His Bride Came to Abraham - has designated me their Genesis playwright in residence for 2003-2004... they've got a real cool process for developing plays that's sort of up the alley of any active hands-on type of playwright.

Their process in a nutshell... their Artistic Director, Matt Bray, meets with the playwright over the course of the summer to coalesce some thematic material. it's a suggestion-built-on-suggestion process that's very interactive and leaves a lot of the gathering to the playwright... and Matt's a fascinating and charismatic personality and a great talker on his own.

You enter the Fall development period with a two things decided (1) the skeletal themes of the play to be (2) a basic rundown of the actors who will participate.

That's it. The rest is up to the process.

Actors meet weekly with the playwright as moderator to read script in the works, discuss themes and ideas, argue, whatever works. The playwright is unleashed with the actors, without a further need for artistic moderation on the part of the company... the degree of trust implied by the process is very impressive.

And since I have this blog thing... perhaps I will record a portion of the experience and insights that come with the process here for all of you... perhaps it will even capture some of it for you.