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Our next to last reading of the 2011 FORUM series is TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY by Frank Deford. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Frank Deford is author of seventeen books, ten of them novels, two filmed screenplays, hundreds of magazine articles. NPR commentator, Wednesdays on Morning Edition; senior correspondent on HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. Winner: Peabody Award, National Magazine Award, Emmy; member of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Former chairman, now chairman emeritus: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. As they say in sports: out of Westport, Connecticut. Lovely wife: Carol. Two children: Christian and Scarlet. One grandchild: Annabel. Writes: right-handed. 6'4", 180. Huguenot-American.
1. What inspired you to write Till Death Do Us Partly?
I suspect "inspired" is too high-falutin' a word for what prompted me to write Till Death Do Us Partly. Without giving the ending away, let me just say that I read how somebody did something for posterity like what my hero pulls off in secret. Besides, I'm a romantic, and I love love stories and good old-fashioned drawing-room comedies (although I guess, with concessions to the modern: a "family-room" comedy).
2. You say you write right-handed. Do you also only type with your right?
No, I use both hands to type, but I probably use my right index finger for about three-quarters of the board (over to the "r" on the top row) and the left index finger the rest (including a;; those e's and s's). Unfortunately, I have terrible hand-eye coordination and almost no left-hand dexterity (or I would've been a much better basketball player as a kid).
3. In addition to being a playwright, you are also a book author, a screenwriter and a magazine article writer. Do you have the same process for each? If not, how does your process differ?
Process: pretty much the same for whatever I'm working on. Fiction, be it novel, movie, play, requires a more dedicated time. Because you need to get so immersed in the characters and the story you're creating, you can't just lay down fiction and pick it up again a few days later the way you can non-fiction. You have to stay in the story. When I'm writing a commentary for NPR or a script for HBO that I'll be speaking myself, then I'm more conscious of writing for the ear than the eye. Then I write as I talk –– which is very much how I write fictional dialogue, but, of course, then it will be someone else saying my words. Still, I don't just write out dialogue, but read it out loud to myself to hear how it sounds.
4. Who is your favorite sports team?
I grew up in Baltimore, so, hard as it is, I still stick with my Orioles. In Till Death To Us Partly, the two brothers want to own a small racing stable together. I wish I had the money for that. I did have a thoroughbred named after he once, but Frank Deford, the horse, was a loser.
5. What would people be surprised to know about you?
I don't play golf.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 20th reading in our FORUM series is EGYPTIAN SONG by James Christy. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
James’ full length plays include Never Tell (published by Playscripts in 2007), Love and Communication (Playpenn Conference, produced by Passage Theatre in 2010), A Great War (reading at Luna Stage in 2010). His short play Creep won the Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Award for best short play in 2001. A reading of Egyptian Song was part of the Premiere Stages festival in June 2011.
1. What inspired you to write Egyptian Song?
I can’t point my finger at one thing that inspired Egyptian Song. My best friend growing up was from Lebanon, so I grew up around this house that had a middle eastern influence. Eventually I read about the singer Omm Kulthum, and I was fascinated with the idea of a female figure that loomed so large in a culture in which men hold most of the external power. I read more about her childhood and this story emerged, not about her life at all, but about a young girl with a similar gift whose life goes in another direction. 2. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Well, you’re sort of playing God when you write plays. You can create these little alternative worlds based on whatever you have kicking around in your head. But the fun part is when you get into a story and it takes on a life of its own, the characters start to surprise you and take you in different directions then where you expected.
3. What is your favorite play and why?
I’m a big fan of Stoppard and recently re-read Arcadia. I just really appreciate how deeply he gets into a subject, he’s unafraid of big ideas, but always theatrical. The way he uses spaces is pretty brilliant too.
4. What movie could you watch over and over?
Raising Arizona. Know that movie way too well.
5. What is the best new gadget you recently tried?
Playwrights can’t afford new gadgets. We buy other peoples 2nd hand gadgets on craigslist.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see EGYPTIAN SONG at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 19th reading in our FORUM series is Suzanne Bradbeer's SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Suzanne’s work has been developed and produced at theatres around the country, including Barrington Stage Company, the New Harmony Project, Stamford Center for the Arts, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Lark, and City Theatre of Miami. Current projects include Devil In The Details, God In The Game: an election year drama about the intersection of faith and politics; and Naked Influence, recently workshopped at the Dorset Theatre Festival. Her play Okoboji will shortly be published in a new Smith & Kraus anthology. Suzanne is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Actors Studio P/D Unit, the BMI Workshop, and the Dramatists Guild.
1. What inspired you to write Shakespeare in Vegas?
I was commissioned to write a short play with the theme of ‘theft’ for The Drilling Company in New York City. In thinking about theft, I decided to write about one actor stealing a scene from another and I felt that it should be an actor with a small role stealing a scene from the lead. Cleopatra and her handmaiden seemed like good candidates for this. That short play (FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE NILE) is now the second scene in SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS, and I so loved the characters in that original play that I decided to expand it to a full length.
2. What is your favorite Shakespeare play and why?
I think my favorite Shakespeare play is MACBETH – at least that’s the one that I go back and reread the most often. It’s a great play to learn from – a fast moving story with great stakes; it’s theatrical, exciting, there’s even a little humor, and it has some of the most gorgeous, gorgeous language. That said, I have seen about five different productions of MACBETH and none of them have quite lived up to what I imagine it could be. Someday.
My favorite Shakespeare that I’ve actually seen is probably Fiasco Theater’s CYMBELINE, currently being produced by Theatre for a New Audience. Go see it! It’s magical and surprising, and full of playful energy. Also, there was a fantastic production of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA at the Royal Shakespeare Company that I saw about 20 years ago: it was both desperately sad and side-splittingly funny. I still think about it sometimes.
3. What do you enjoy most about being a playwright?
A good day of writing is satisfying like almost nothing else I’ve ever known.
4. Have you been to Vegas? Did you win big?
I have been to Vegas and I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even gamble. Okay, my friend Cat and I put one penny in a slot machine just as we were leaving. I meant to gamble, I really did! But we were so busy just exploring downtown and the Strip and finding places for cocktails…that we forgot to gamble. One of my favorite parts of Vegas is the Old Sign Graveyard – which is exactly what it sounds like.
Incidentally, Cat and I were in Vegas Easter weekend, which, that year, also happened to be the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. So Easter morning, April 4, we sat in our room at the Trump Hotel (thank you, Priceline) and played and replayed U2’s Pride (In The Name Of Love) and talked about MLK, and God, and loss and hope. It turned out to be an unusual but very moving and memorable way to spend Easter.
5. Do you prefer coffee or tea? Is it part of your creative process?
I PREFER COFFEE!!!! It is definitely part of my creative process. It’s the first thing I do in the morning and that first sip of the day never fails to make me happy. I love coffee so much, I’m going to go have some more right now.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 18th reading in our FORUM series is SAFE by Dominique Cieri which will be presented on Tuesday, December 13, beginning at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Domnique Cieri is the recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Playwriting Fellowship 2003, and 2009. A graduate of Rose Bruford College, England, and recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence for Scholarship and Creative Activities. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College, Vermont. Ms. Cieri’s plays have been produced and developed in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. Her newest play, Safe will have its first reading at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey where she is also developing a new play in New Jersey Women’s Playwrights Project.
1. What inspired you to write Safe?
The question of Nature verses Nurture and working with boys who struggle against all odds- are they going to make it?
2. You are also a teaching artist. What do you think is the most valuable lesson you can teach your students?
To fully realize their potential.
3. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. What plans are underway for developing this?
The script has been penned and Josh Brolin will be directing and starring.
4. What is your favorite book and why?
This is the most difficult question because there are far too many. I love Julia Alvarez, Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart. I just finished reading Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks - (The Sweet Hereafter - a great book and screenplay) his sentences move like a freight train and when reading his work you're on that train and you're not getting off- he portrays parts of America and its outcasts that nobody else will touch.
5. What is the oldest thing in your refrigerator?
Definitely the ices cubes.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see SAFE at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 17th reading is our FORUM series is CONNECTED by Lia Romeo. The reading will be held tonight, December 12, 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ.
Lia Romeo is a playwright, novelist, and humor book author. She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A in playwriting from Rutgers, ending up with staggering quantities of student loans and no marketable skills whatsoever. She managed to secure a part-time job writing standardized test questions, and spends the rest of her time writing plays and novels and daydreaming about pretty shoes.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see CONNECTED at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
Our night of one-act plays on December 11, 2011, includes a new play from Nicky Glossman. His play DEVIL, the 16th in our FORUM reading series, will be held 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Nicky Glossman’s first full-length play, What About Waldorf?, was performed in workshop at Luna Stage, as was his play The Professional, with casts including Edward Asner & Jay O. Sanders; Legion, about a high-school student organization in crisis, will be performed at Luna in March 2012. He recently co-wrote his first film, and appeared as Tim in Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia. He appeared at Playwrights in a reading of Orwell in Utica opposite Tony-award-winner Len Cariou. Devil won First Place in Samuel French Inc’s national young playwriting competition, and will be published this fall by Baker’s Plays, a division of Samuel French.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see DEVIL at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 13th reading in the FORUM series is THE GRASSHOPPER WAY by Judah Skoff. The reading will take place on Saturday, December 10, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Judah Skoff graduated from Brown University where he studied English and playwriting. He won the National Playwriting Competition, two New Jersey Governor's Awards in the Arts, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, and has been a finalist in numerous competitions. His plays have been performed at theatres and festivals around the country, including Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, the Abingdon Theatre, the State Theatre of New Jersey, the Salon, the Theatre-Studio, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, New York University, and Pace University. Judah's writing has been published in Red Ochre Lit and Red River Review.
1. What inspired you to write The Grasshopper Way?
The Grasshopper Way is about the abyss which opens up when loved ones leave. It begins after a mother, Lily, has inexplicably abandoned her young adult daughters. They must decide whether to look for her and try to repair their family, or move off on their own. But it’s also about the occult and the forbidden allure of ancient ritual. It features a rabbi who has lost his faith and a young woman who has psychic visions. Ultimately it’s about spiritual anxiety and the choices we must make in a cold and indifferent world.
In this respect I wanted to write a horror play, which is very hard to do. But it is not horror in the exploitative sense. Rather, I hope it has more in common with classic writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James, where the overwhelming feeling a reader walks away with is unspecifiable dread, along with fear and awe towards the vast, sometimes cruel unknown.
2. You are a former New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest winner, what was your play about that you entered into the contest?
Having won the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, sponsored by Playwrights Theatre, and now all these years later coming full circle by having my third play performed at FORUM, is tremendously gratifying. I have to thank my great friend and mentor, Playwrights Theatre’s artistic director John Pietrowski, for that unique opportunity.
My winning play, a one-act called Two Boxes, was an absurdist piece about a man guarding an undefined space (for reasons he can’t remember), from another man who seeks to cross that space (for reasons he does not know). It was heavily influenced by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, two writers I read compulsively during high school. They were a kind of religion for me, and I studied their work as a rabbi studies the Talmud.
The play I am currently working on is called The Man From Box. It is an expansion and development of the themes and story of Two Boxes. It is set in the suburban house of a young couple. One day a stranger knocks on the door, claiming to have lived in their home and seeking to stay with them. I hope to bring The Man From Box to Playwrights Theatre when it is complete. I think that would really bring us full circle!
3. How many full length plays have you written? How many one-acts?
I have written four full-length plays and am about halfway through a fifth (the above noted The Man From Box). I’m pleased to say that three of the four have had (or will have) readings at Playwrights Theatre. Without anyone looking, Playwrights Theatre has become my artistic home. This is something that every playwright hopes to find. It’s a testament to how encouraging Playwrights Theatre is to new writers.
I can’t remember how many one-acts I’ve written, since I began writing them at age fifteen. But it was my success with one-act plays---their winning contests and getting produced at various theatres---that gave me the encouragement and confidence to continue playwriting.
4. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Enjoy is not a word I generally use to describe playwriting, but seeing a play up on stage in front of an audience is most satisfying.
5. What is the last book that you read?
I can’t name only one when so many recent books are still buzzing in my head. I’m a longtime student of theology, and so I recently read Rabbi Arthur Green’s marvelously heterodoxical Radical Judaism. Although I disagree with many of Green’s conclusions, his learned and insightful book is a powerful argument for religion in the scientific, modern world. It also has the best description of “religious experience” I’ve ever read. I also just finished Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Count me among those who believe this book to be, perhaps, the finest English-language novel of the last twenty-five years. I am currently reading British playwright Mark Ravenill’s Collected Plays: Volume 2. Ravenhill came to prominence in the middle nineties amidst an explosion and revitalization of British theatre. This second collection of plays cements his reputation and supports the argument that he is filling the theatrical void left by Pinter. What can I say? He is, quite simply, one of the best.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see THE GRASSHOPPER WAY at at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
Our next to last reading of the 2011 FORUM series is TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY by Frank Deford. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
