It's always nice to be in the papers...twice

As a freelance writer, it's nice enough to see your name in the paper* in a byline; when it's in the story itself, that's a special treat. And when it happens twice in one day... Well, please forgive my, ahem, momentary lack of modesty (what, you thought this blog was about you?): today, I got to see myself featured—and by "featured," I mean "referenced" and/or "indirectly alluded to"—in the print editions of both the New York Times and the Kansas City Star. The NYT piece actually went online last Thursday and the KC Star story was on the web last night, but both appeared on paper today.

*Note to not-so-future generations: paper is what they used to print some of the newsy parts of the internet on.

Corinne Jacker (Credit: Ken Collins, from In Their Company)Unfortuantely, the occasion for my name appearing in the Times was the death of a wonderful playwright named Corinne Jacker, who I had been grateful to interview for our book, In Their Company, and about whom I was honored to be contacted when the time came to write her obituary.

Alice Pollack, Jeff Shehan, and Josh Brady, in "To The Dogs" (Credit: Keith Myers, KC Star)The Star piece, meanwhile, didn't technically mention my name. But that's okay, because in a larger feature about The Barn Players, it mentioned my play, To The Dogs, and all the actors in it, along with a picture of them in action. In other words, three perfectly normal and very talented people are dressed up in silly clothes, pretending to be racing greyhounds, just because I wrote something that required/allowed them to... I'll take it.

The play's the thing...

One of my proudest accomplishments was the publication of In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights, a "long-awaited compendium of the foremost writers of the American stage, captured through photographs and in their own words," that I completed a few years ago with my friend, the fantastically talented photographer Ken Collins. (And it wouldn't be a properly shameless plug without this link to where you can buy the book, which is here. The link, I mean. The link where you can buy it.)

Having the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with playwrights like Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, August Wilson, and dozens of others, some of the creative people I have admired most in this world, and ask them why and how they do what they do was an honor and an incredible education. It was also a great compensation: if I wasn't going to be them, I would join as many of them as I could.

So I am particularly proud now to be able to announce that I soon will be a produced playwright myself. I found out this weekend that a short play I wrote was selected to be part of the 5th Annual Six-by-Ten Festival at the Barn Players Theatre. The dates are December 7-9, and I'll pass on more information when I know it.

In the meantime, for anyone out there who's ever actually said, "...but what I really want to do is direct," here's your chance. It would be an honor to work with you...