Congrats again to Matt Pelfrey!

Although we've posted news about his win before, its worth another mention now. Tonight, Furious Resident Playwright Matt Pelfrey picked up his Garland Award for Playwriting at an event held by Backstage West at the lovely facilities of our neighbors @Boston Court.
His play, An Impending Rupture of the Belly got its world premiere with Furious last Spring and now has several productions in the works at various theatres across the country.

Humana Festival 2008 Report: Day #2

I have to make this quick for now...I'm back at the hotel and fading fast.
The day was jam-packed with 4 plays and lots of discussion about funding for new-play development in this country. There was a party at a bar called PROOF after the last show so we had time to mingle with other representatives from theatres across the US.

We saw 4 plays today including Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo which had an amazing script, my favorite of the festival...Great Falls by Lee Blessing was another standout. Another one of today's four was Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley, which dealt with teenagers and their addiction to an online horror video game at the expense of their relationships with their parents and friends...as you can see the the subject matter of this festival is very diverse.

One more show and a great discussion on deck for tomorrow, Adam Rapp is one of the panelists.

I may have to wrap up when we get back...we go straight to the airport after the last show.
Thanks for joining us at Humana!

Humana Festival 2008 Report: Night #1

It's 2am here and we have to be at breakfast at 8am before we see the first of 4 (yes 4!) plays tomorrow at 10. Tonight we saw This Beautiful City...it was a fascinating look at the effects of religion, namely evangelical Christianity on the city of Colorado Springs...the story centers on the rise of the mega-church founded by Ted Haggert and his fall after his controversial encounter with a meth-dealing gay prostitute. It was done in the style of a documentary based on real interviews done by The Civilians company members, who co-produced this with Actor's Theatre. Did I mention this was a musical as well? It is...good stuff.

More to come...I have to sleep.

PS-Actor's Theatre of Louisville has a pretty awesome setup here...you should all see it one day.

Humana Festival 2008 Report: First Impressions

Hello everyone, I'm coming to you live from Louisville, KY on the first day of Theatre Professionals Weekend at the Humana Festival of New Plays. This world-reknowned festival takes place at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville.
I'm here with Furious Theatre co-founders and co-artistic directors Sara Hennessy and Damaso Rodriguez, as well as former Actor's Theatre apprentice Megan Goodchild. We're about 90 minutes away from seeing our first of 2 plays this evening, but I wanted to hop online and give everyone a few first impressions.
So far the hospitality of the Actor's Theatre staff has been great, their Director of Development was waiting for us at the airport at 8:30am to give us a ride to the lovely Galt House, our home for the weekend. After recovering from our red-eye flight, we have tickets in hand for the 7 (yes 7!) new plays we'll be seeing.
Allright, I'm about to head out to a pre-show dinner and drink...first play on the docket at 8pm:
This Beautiful City by Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis.
Signing out for now...much more to come.