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Directory News from '99 to '03
Current News
- Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round To Be Staged In Salt Lake City
- TBA Theatre and Three Wise Moose seeking one-page plays for Don’t Blink One-Page Play Marathon
- Return Of The News Page
- The Final Update
- Major Site Changes
- Oh Nancy! At New York's Teaspoon Festival
- Harold Shivvers In New York
- New Overnighters Content
- Site Update - Overnighters and More!
- Updated Conference Page
- First Full Conference Completed (It's Hard To Be Homesick When You're Not Sure Where You Live)
- Alaska Overnighters 9
- A Blessed, Blessed Life
- Another Good Review (Sort Of)
- The Year That Was...
- Do You Know Who I Am???
- A Leo Poem For You
- Archived News Items
- "New" Articles
- The Crucible
- Major Site Update
- Play Samples Re-formatted
- Two Publications And A Couple Of Productions
- My "West Coast Tour"
- New Conference Section
8/3/10: Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round To Be Staged In Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City! Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round, in its first time on stage. It's the show I co-wroe with Lindsay Marianna Walker, and it goes up August 6-8 at 7:30 pm at the Down Town Library Ampitheatre, SLC UT. It's directed by Alex Gunn, with the cast being David Bruner and James Morris. Okay, never met any of them, but I'm sure they are great. Show's free and funny.
8/2/10: TBA Theatre and Three Wise Moose seeking one-page plays for Don’t Blink One-Page Play Marathon
Anchorage’s TBA Theatre and Three Wise Moose are seeking one-page plays for consideration in their third Don’t Blink One-Page Play Marathon.
Submission Guidelines:
- Plays must be received by September 1, 2010.
- Plays must fit on one side of an 8½ x 11 piece of paper, 10-point font minimum.
- Up to three submissions per writer.
- Send plays to as either PDF or Word documents to onepageplays@tbatheatre.org. Please put “DON’T BLINK submission” in the subject line.
Semi-finalist selections will be announced by September 15. Final selections for production will be made by October 1. The Marathon runs October 9 & 10 at APU’s Grant Hall. There are no royalties paid for this performance.
8/1/10: Return of The News Page!
You didn't think I was serious about that "Final Update" thing, did you? Nah...
Don't get too excited, though. Most of the news updates on the site from here on out are still going to be on the Home page in the lower-left-hand corner. This page is still going to show up from time to time, though, when I have too much info to fit in that little black box.
If you really want to keep up with what's going with me on a day-to-day basis, the best thing to do is follow me on Facebook. That being said... gaze on the new updates above!
9/04/08: The Final Update
Okay, so looking at this page it's clear to me that this form of self-aggrandizement isn't my favorite. I'm going to abandon it in favor of trying to do a better job keeping the information side of things updated, and then shouting out on the home page when something particularly cool has happened or is going to happen.
If you want to keep up with what's going on, check the new "Now Playing" link on the home page; you can also visit my MySpace and Facebook sites.
10/11/07: Major Site Changes
I've been making some changes to the site... first off, I've removed the Awards page and replaced it with a resume page. All the awards I've won for my writing are there, as are the production and publication history of my plays.
I've also added two new plays to the Complete Works page - Self-Inflicted and This Really is the End. Let me know what you think of the changes!
3/13/07: Oh Nancy! At New York's Teaspoon Festival
I've got a show going up in New York that should be fun. The only once produced Oh, Nancy! is going on as a part of the Teaspoon Festival in NYC. The folks producing it have been super nice, and the play makes me and my mother giggle. Plus, you if it's boring, you can order a latte to get you through it. And it's fun to watch actors project over the steam from the espresso machine!! Here's the poster with the info.
11/27/06: Harold Shivvers In New York
So I've got a play of mine going up in New York in February. It's The Fears of Harold Shivvers, one of my favorites. I've seen it done twice, and think it really shows good growth in my own writing. But until now, no theatre company has agreed with me! Piles of rejection letters! Thank goodness the people at Impact Theatre in New York theatre have such good taste.
As further proof, they've picked dear friend Schatzie's play Snow in Galveston as well. Really good play, promise, I've seen it. Of course, they've scheduled us on different weekends, so you should of course go see mine! Impact Theatre's in Brooklyn at 190 Underhill Avenue. Their often somewhat behind website (and I have nothing but sympathy for that, s'tough to keep these things current!) is http://geocities.com/impacttheaternyc.
The full list of shows:
Week 1: Feb. 1 - 4
Snow In Galveston
Suicide Gal ...
Edging the Cliff
Playgroup
Caution: The True Imagined Story ...
A Diner, A Shiner
Week 2: Feb. 8 - 11
Ignorance
Fin & Euba
The Story of Izanagi and Izanami
Sea Change
The Fears of Harold Shivvers
In the Beginning Again
9/18/06: Site Update - Overnighters and More
I didn't want the new Alaska Overnighters section looking too barren, so I added a bunch of new photos to the page. Go check it out!
While you're there, download the Adobe Acrobat file I posted with a guide to putting together your own Overnighters production in your community. It's fun, entertaining and educational... you won't be sorry!
9/18/06: Site Update - Overnighters and More
I've added a new section to the web site for the Alaska Overnighters, the entire-play-in-24-hour spectacle that I've helped produce for the past five years. There's a full list of all the plays that have been done since 2002, and even some photos. Click here to take a look.
Also, if you take a look at my Complete Works page, you'll note that productions of Bile In The Afterlife and Living With The Savage were both staged at Prince William Sound Community College in March, 2005. The link to PWSCC goes someplace new... to this nifty page from the PWSCC site. Check it out!
9/1/06: Updated Conference Page
I updated my Last Frontier Theatre Conference Page with some new photos from this year's event... Check it out!
You can jump straight to the photos by clicking on the "2006" link at the top of the page
8/10/06: First Full Conference Completed (It's Hard To Be Homesick When You're Not Sure Where You Live)
Wrapped up the 14th Last Frontier Theatre Conference. If the reviews are to be believed, the Conference was even better than last year. It’s very weird for me to have something I care that much about as my job… There are a lot of things I don’t feel worthy of that I have, but this is the biggest one.
I met a lot of neat people this year, like always… my life is rich mostly for the amazing people in it, and each June, I acquire another collection of people who I think are brilliant, stimulating, and fun.
Had the Overnighters kick it off this year, which was excellent… felt like it got things off in the right spirit. And my friend Shane starred in a production of my fifteen-minute play In a Red Sea. Hot pictures of the cast will soon be on the Conference page. A little embarrassing to have my sexual fascination with redheads in front of the Conference audience, but what the hell, it’s a play, that’s not REALLY ME… tee hee.
It’s also got a production lined up for August 25 & 26 with Barestage Theatre in Red Bluff, California. The A.D., Bryon Burruss, read it last year, and though it didn’t get in, he told me he was going to hang on to it to consider it for this year. This usually adds up to a production, in my history. I’m in the evening with Andrew Black, who’s a nice fellow I loosely know from the Playwrights Center of San Francisco. On the off-chance you want to read more about this cool seeming theatre company, their website is at http://homepage.mac.com/barestage/index.html.
This year I hope to get around to the big US cities a little more… I love sending out a mass e-mail for a party to people I’ve met over the years and introducing them. Kim Estes hosted down in Southern California last year, which was very keen. Met up at a bar in New York last time I was there. And then there’s my beloved San Francisco, where I left my heart (& my father)… the fun never stops there!
Been thinking a lot about that recently. The Anchorage Daily News article reviewing the Conference was very positive, as was the commentary from participants they published as well. There’s was also an interview with me, where I come across as (frankly) a little nuts. I come across very vehemently about how I live in Valdez and will be here till the push me out… that sort of thing. And I mean it, but not as passionately as all that. Places for me have been defined by the people I know in those places, and I’ve managed to find great people wherever I’ve been.
My friends and boss in Valdez kick ass, I love lots of things here. But in my whole life, I’ve only made one plan about what to do with my life. Moving to LA to pursue a career as a story analyst. It only lasted a year because life changed what I had to be doing. When I see myself, in print, making a second plan… it makes me feel like life’ll take it away from me.But, you know, I’m totally an optimist and stuff…
8/3/06: Alaska Overnighters 9
Hey Folks!
So I owe you a million updates and such, but I wanted to get the word out about Overnighters 9, coming up soon, with the most me-centric poster EVER.
The show will be August 19 & 20 at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium in Anchorage. 8:00 p.m, $10. I'm writing for Saturday night's show.
Soon, writing you like a real human, promise!
Dawson
4/10/06: A Blessed, Blessed Life
After what has felt like quite a drought, I've actually managed to get a few acceptance letters of late. My faithful web designer's dad Sandy is staging Domestic Companion in Bellingham... that play won't die! Third real play I wrote, and it just gets done. Guess it's more accessible than my later work or something... Then the Fairbanks Drama Association selected To Dine or Not To Dine as one of eight plays by Alaskans in their 8X10 Festival. Also included is one of my Valdez students, Mollie Ramos, which I'm of course very proud of. And then there's your friends who do your plays... a new one-page play, The Note Left By the Man, is on the short list for our 2nd Don't Blink Festival, and is likely to get produced.
And the big strange one: In a Red Sea is one of five one-acts being presented by TBA Theatre at this year's Theatre Conference. Scary to have my work on display there... I'm already super front and center, and to have a play about my sexual hang ups going on in the evening... odd is an understatement. Still, Shane felt like people should know my work as a writer there, and since I didn't coerce him, I guess it'll be all right.
And two LONG delayed publications are coming out as well. One is my friend Scott McMorrow's publication, a collection of one-acts that I'll be in with a bunch of friends like Aoise Stratford, Gary Garrison, and Kristyn Benedyk. Cool to be in a collection of work I like. And Smith & Kraus is finally releasing 60 Seconds to Shine: 221 One-Minute Monologues for Men, which has a piece of mine from the never-performed Love's Lumberings Remembered. S'funny... they pay $20 for the rights, and no copies of the book... which is $19.95, plus shipping and handling. Sigh. Didn't go into playwriting to get rich, I suppose!
Love's Lumberings is a funny play, coz I'm fairly certain that it works great if presented as intended. But no one ever wants to do it, which probably means I'm not getting my vision across clearly in the writing. Same with The Fears of Harold Shivvers, which I know kicks ass from seeing it done. Anchorage critic Catherine Stadem named it, along with Schatzie's Green Legs and Spam, as the best new play in Anchorage last year. Seen it twice, always goes over great. And yet no nibbles...
There it was. The extent of the bitching. I live a blessed life. I live in an amazingly beautiful place coordinating a theatre conference that changes people's lives. There're a lot worse lives I'm not living. Love to everyone.
2/22/06: Another Good Review (Sort Of)
So thanks to Leif Sawyer to bringing the following link to my attention: WomanSavers.com Review. I didn't know that such things existed! As if I wasn't worried enough about taking my clothes off around another human being, now I have to get up early in the morning to read the reviews in the morning website. It's a brave new world, or really, more specifically, it's a fucked up brave new fucked up world. I'm posting this site, and not taking down the link, coz it's a good review (Thanks, girl who I know who you are!), and all publicity is good publicity, right?
But yeah, read it if you dare, ladies. You'll never be able to get the image out of your heads. Or so I hope...
Dudes, you can read it, too, but anyone who beats me up in a fit of jealousy will be in big trouble!
Dawson
1/25/06: The Year That Was...
Posted that other article, then realized that I hadn't posted my essay looking back on 2005 and looking ahead to 2006 (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader). It was printed on January 1 in the Anchorage Daily News along with a lot of similarly styled New Year's musings by artists from around the state. Fun to write, flattering to be asked... some question who'll read it, but at least a few friends of mine said they liked it, so hey, that's a victory.
It got me to thinking about this website, and what it's for... and about who might actually be looking at it... and then my ever faithful web master Harold sent me a report on the site. Some predictable stuff, like the main page that got hit was the home page (followed by the conference, monologues, and, shockingly, this page). But ho ho ho, a couple of great things. It had a list of things that people had googled to end up at my site, and I have to think that the poor bastards who wanted "gallery massage therapist," "red headed vixens," and "eye contact" were disappointed. Or I hope they were.
And I had no idea I was so big in India, Finland, and Nepal. I'm gonna start adding preposterous phrases like "internationally renowned" to my bios in the programs for my college productions in Valdez. "Do you live in Nepal," I'll say. "No? Then how exactly do you know I'm NOT huge there. F*ck off."
Anyway, here's to the new year, and hoping that the 00s will be known for something other than natural disasters and the rise of the machines!
1/23/06: Do You Know Who I Am???
Here's a link to an interview I had recently in the UAA school paper (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader). Part of my recent being in the Alaska newspapers thing. I find it a weird experience. My assistant Adam and I joke about my inflated ego all the time. I leave copies of the latest articles quoting below "Do you know who I am???," and he points out that I fall over for no apparent reason, still rent an apartment at age 35, am whatever is one step more single than 'bachelor,' and now live in Valdez, Alaska, without a car. It's about even, right?
I find I fight myself a lot these last couple of months. Nothing earth-shaking, just a lot of light getting-in-my-own-way nonsense. Like I was making myself Hamburger Helper. Not complicated, but I like to keep the box with the instructions (which I'm marginally embarrassed to admit I know by heart). Then I can't find it. I look for a couple of panicked minutes, eventually finding it on the phone stand. Three minute later, I can't find it again. Two more panicked minutes later I find it. Evidently when I found it after my previous frantic quest for information I prompty threw it out. To quote a mediocre fantasy film from the eighties that I've seen thirty to forty times, "What does 'baffled' mean?"
Too young for old-timer's disease (and really, isn't "old timers" both more descriptive AND catchy than Alzheimer's?), though it seems to run in my clan, so I've got that to look forward to... and I don't really drink... just a slight case of the lonelies, I suspect. And a longing for the return of the sun. I hear we get to keep the sun until 2012, if the Mayans were right. Lucky us!
12/13/05: A Leo Poem For You
So i want to post this poem my friend Arlitia Jones wrote... s'about me and her, and you KNOW how lions love people talking about them (unless they're saying really mean things).
dawson
The Reason for Lions
One summer two lions
were striding, two yellows
gliding shoulder to shoulder
through the dun field
of August, happy.Two lions walked miles
talking and laughing,
swearing like jackals
as their stories requiredand when they tired
rolled on their backs,
that’s what lions do,
big golden bellies
shining in grass,
to be alive, to be a lion
and let the buzzards bask.
12/5/05: Archived News Items
This page was getting pretty huge an unwieldy, so I archived some of the older news items. You can still find them if you click the link at the top of the page that says "News from '99 to '03."
dawson
11/30/05: "New" Articles
Found something interesting that I wrote about the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in the fall of 2001 for Callboard magazine. I've posted it in the Articles section of the site.
I don't agree with everything in it, but it's cutely enthusiastic... because it was written in SF, it's very gung ho and rah-rah-rah about Bay Area writers, when what I really mean is rah-rah-rah for playwrights whereever I live (& by extension, by whoever lives near you).
Here's a PDF of a slightly longer version than actually got published. You'll need You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it. I also posted this article (also in PDF) written about same time.
11/20/05: The Crucible
Just wrapped up the school production of The Crucible. The usual theatrical mix of relief and mourning. Certainly feel less overwhelmed now. I was of course producing the show, and directing it, but it wasn't a given that I would end up playing John Proctor. Which I did. The overextended trifecta! The community theatre cliché! "Me, me, me, it's all about me."
I'll never be certain I made the right decision. I don't think I had anyone else who was right for the role, and certainly I think I'm the best person in Valdez for the part. And I think it's good to periodically act with my students to give them a veteran to play opposite.
But… they lose the outside eye of a dedicated director. Their props and set pieces and sound effects should have been in rehearsal earlier. The publicity should've been out sooner.
But we set records for both box office and attendance, and got a lot of great response. Three different people came up to me and said it was their first time seeing a play, and that they thought it 'kicked ass.' I'm actually fairly certain those are the words of all three of those young people.
And I got to see some of my students continue to grow… Tawny Linn, in particular, gave a pretty powerful performance as Mary Warren. My prize pupil, Adam, for whom acting is not really his focus, has grown a great deal over the last year. In the final scene of the play, I looked over at his villainous Reverend Parris and found him in tears. He'd connected with the scene in a way he'd not found before. Was really cool.
Funniest part of the process: how ridiculously popular John Proctor is with the ladies. Doing this play, I had my hot (married) yoga instructor and a high school (i.e. off limits young person) athlete both desperately in love with me. I admit, my life feels emptier without all the attention.
So anyway, that's The Crucible experience in a nutshell. There're other interesting stories… Things I'm proud of, embarrassed about, guilty of… but now it's on to the next show, the next experience. I'll write again in nine or ten months.
Dawson
PS Anytime my website blames the web designer for the length of time it took to write one of these, it's because he's gotten tired of waiting and wrote it for me.
11/11/05: Major Site Update
Yeah, yeah, I know... I've been a lazy bastard and haven't updated my site in a while. I plead innocence, though... my web guy was really busy this summer and he was slow in getting the stuff I sent to him up on the site.
So, what's new? Well, you've already seen the updated home page. Here's some more new stuff:
- The Last Frontier Theatre Conference section has been updated with new photos. Check 'em out!
- Three articles have been posted in the Press Room about the Conference.
- Some new photos (including shots of my cats) have been posted in the Gallery section.
- And the links section has been revised with old links taken off and new links added.
Check 'em out!
11/30/04: Play Samples Re-formatted
Hey everyone! I've reformatted my Complete Works section - now all the play samples are in PDF format (you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them... click here to download it for free.
You might have also noticed a new link at the top of the page... I've posted a page of monologues here on the web site. Feel free to print them off and use them for auditions!
10/20/04: Two Publications And A Couple Of Productions
Lots of good affirming things happening with the writing this past month. Two publications, which is super cool. Domestic Companion, my venerable old cat play, is getting published by Pretty Things Press out of northern California. It'll be in an anthology, along with a play by Miss Aoise Stratford. They've already got me paid and contracted, all very swift.
Then Smith & Kraus has contacted me and is going to use a monologue from Love's Lumberings Remembered in their upcoming anthology. It's a really nice monologue that my friend Colin Hussey has used a couple of times in San Francisco. No one ever seems interested in the overall play, but the monologue is getting some notice. S'a funny contract. I get paid 20 bucks and no copies of the book, which cost $19.95... a nickel in profit, baby!
And Abydos Theatre in San Francisco is going to be doing one of my one-page plays on the weekend of the 28th. It's either The Peach or The Bus, but they haven't told me which one yet. Again, I'll be going up with Aoise... we're tied at the literary hip! My friend Alan Fitch will also be in that evening, hopefully with his amazing short play Jon Genet Ramsey: Portrait of the Serial Killer as a Pre-Teen Beauty Queen. As the title implies, SICK! I played little Jean Genet for Three Wise Monkeys a couple of years ago.
Hope all's well with you...
~dawson~
9/24/04: My "West Coast Tour"
Hey everybody... been a long time since I posted anything up here. To make up for it I've just stuck a big bunch of new images in my Photo Gallery section. Check it out!
I've just returned to Valdez from a nearly six-week vacation... I've been calling it my West Coast Tour, but affectionately also refer to it as "My Summer on Futons," for all the fabulously attractive women who I've been hanging out at their house, drinking wine, and then suddenly found myself staring at the ceiling from their futon, wondering why I'm in the living room and not their room. Okay, it was only twice this happened, but both times I thought it was funny and poignant and such. Okay, maybe "sad" and "poignant" don't mean the same thing, but let me have my delusions...
The first story that comes to mind is how much I kept injuring myself. Not doing anything exciting or daring like bungee jumping... usually it involved drinking and walking. Rolled my ankle on the dance floor at Eleanor Mason's post-wedding party, and because of the aforementioned drinking, wandered around on it all night long. In the morning I had to crawl to the toilet for my morning constitutional. Then later in Anchorage I was SOBER and walking to rehearsal with Schatzie and damned if the ankle didn't give out and throw me to the concrete. Smashed my knee, ripped up my palm, and screamed a lot. And there was nothing to blame for the fall... no badly placed rock, no uneven sidewalk... just my own feebleness.
I spent almost three weeks in Anchorage total, which is always great. Played poker (lost about 80 bucks); staged the Overnighters for the fifth time (it was our best one yet on many levels); and got to know my parents new kittens. Kittens kick ass.
The rest of the vacation was spent in California. I directed an evening of short plays for Three Wise Monkeys, which was great fun... met some new people, worked with some strong professionals. 3WM also sponsored my birthday (July 26), which ended with me vomiting so hard that I threw myself into a television. Nice.
Only four days down in Los Angeles, which was too brief. Spent a lot of time with Amy Seastone, which was super-fun. Went and saw my 91 year-old grandma who just broke her hip... old age sure has a lot of crap in it... and hung out with dear friends like Perry Smith and the unbelievably hot Teresa Ann Volgenau. Was very nice.
So that was the nutshell version of my summer, rated PG. If you want the full PG-13 version, don't worry, Miramax is bringing it out next summer. Ben Affleck's set to star, though I'm really trying to push to get Matt Damon (closer to me in height).
Best wishes,
~dawson~
5/22/04: New Conference Section
Hey everyone... I know it's been over a year since I posted an update on the site... now you can see why! I've put up a Last Frontier Theatre Conference section with photos from past conferences... check it out!
Best wishes,
~dawson~