the (updated) further adventures of.... HOW WE GOT ON (and more)

So it's published now in the 2012 Humana Anthology of New Plays

If How We Got On is going up within a 75 mile radius of where you rest, I highly encourage you come check it.

Right now, it's gathering great reviews and sold-out houses in Sacramento Cali. Catch it before it closes June 23. 
 
May 12- June 23 -  B Street Theatre, Sacramento, CA

ALSO--for three nights only BLACKADEMICS is back!

Chicago's Theater on the lake has invited MPAACT to revive their fall 2013 production of Blackademics


June 19-23
DETAILS HERE

July 19 - August 17 - Company One Theatre, Boston, MA

Sept 21 - Oct 20 - Citadel Theatre, Lake Forest, IL (just outside Chicago)

My two "best" plays

2012 was a big year for me on the playwriting tip.
After throwing my dramatist hands in the air for a spell
I dusted myself off and got back on my stage bars.

Smartest decision I ever made. Both plays I wrote in 2010/2011 enjoyed
great runs this year. ( a list of reviews for both shows can be found within previous
posts on this here blog-site)

How We Got On, my 1988 midwest coming of age jump off premo-ed at Actors Theater of Lousiville's Humana Festival back in March.

NPR affiliate WPFL called it one of the top Arts events of the year

Idris Goodwin's homage to the Golden Age of hip hop was a stand-out in Actors Theatre's Humana Festival of New American Plays. This sweet and fresh coming of age story is a portrait of an artist as a young MC in the days when hip hop first came to the suburbs. 

Subsequent productions of HWGO will go down in 2013 in Charlotte, North Carolina and Boston, MA. Possibly more--stay tuned
 
Blackademics, my dark comedy of consumption, enjoyed a great run with Chicago's MPAACT in October.

A little paper called The Chicago Tribune called it one of the top plays of the year

A different kind of intellectual cage match unfolded in Idris Goodwin's sardonic social comedy in which two black female professors literally fight for a place at the table in an impossibly trendy boite, brandishing cultural references and personal recriminations.

As of this writing I currently have a full plate of commissions --scripts I am developing toward productions across the country between 2013-2015.

So folks, the moral of the story. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on your job!

Chicago is talkin bout Blackademics

The reviews are in for MPAACT's production of Blackademics running now in Chicago's Greenhouse Theater until Nov 25.  Check it out.

 "80 tight minutes of verbal and mental gymnastics that lead us into an increasingly grim portrait of "post-black America." 

-The Chicago Tribune

"A tight, provocative new play...Relevance and fresh ideas, served up in large, savory portions"

-The Chicago Reader

"A play about words, words, words. Endlessly morphing streams of words"

-Theatre Monstre

“Blackademics” provokes as well as entertains."

-Centerstage Chicago

"I recommend Blackademics for the clever and revealing writing. The timeliness of the subject matter is perfect."

-Chicago theater beat

"quick, engaging dialogue on truly vital questions"

Timeout Chicago

Blackademics Opens this friday

Once again it's on.

Blackademics, my latest play opens this coming friday the 12th. Runs through Nov. 25
BUT DONT WAIT!

Details can be found here

Rise of the fall

It's been a summer my friends. A summer it has been.

But now it's time for us to pull our heads out of the margaritas and get back to the grind, baby.

So here is what's on the various fronts

Colorado Springs Reading - Thursday Sept 20 Colorado College Visiting writers series

Albuquerque Play - Sunday Sept 23 'Instant Messages' (aka the twitter play) performed by Tricklock Company @ 2012 ISEA conference

Boulder Reading - Tuesday Sept 25 What Where Series @ Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied poetics / Naropa University

Colorado Springs Staged Reading - Monday Oct 1 Break Beat Theatre: Excerpts of 'How We Got On' @ Colorado College

Denver Workshop / Lecture - Thursday Oct 4 Break Beat Theatrics: a new hip hop approach to drama @Sankofa Lecture Series

Chicago Play - Oct 12-Nov 25 'Blackademics' produced by MPAACT @ The Greenhouse Theater

American Theater Magazine shows love for How We Got On

"Those who'll tell don't know. Those who know won't tell."

Colorado is unseasonably hot. It's hella hot. No bugs, no humidity (which is great) but a brotha is trying his best to keep cool. I feel like I am in the movie Do the right thing (which, if you havent seen, you need to see or else, you wont be considered a true grown up). BUT I am gettin mad writing done. Tightening the screws on the new and improved, Blackademics, which is gonna drop this fall in Chicago with the unapologetically black company MPAACT. Stay tuned for details.

And speaking of Chicago, American Theater Company produced one of my shorts in their annual Big Shoulders festival. Here is what my piece The Ghost Of Harold Washington looked like.

Also adapted my play How We Got On into a screenplay. Thats right, like what they make movies out of. "For what studio?" You may ask -- "nah, nah, nah" I am responding. I am in a if-you-build-it-they-will-come type mindstate. I did it cuz I could. (columbia college BA in film, class of 2000 fool!)

 I dont have any uncles or aunts in the business but if you do, ask if they'd be interested in a coming of age rap drama set in the 1988 suburbs of an unnamed midwestern city (it's probably detroit though)

Speaking of HWGO, there will be more stage productions next year in Boston, North Carolina, possibly the Bay, possibly Colorado -- if you want it in your city too, tell your local regional theater to stop sleepin on the kid.

Also creating this piece called Instant Messages for the 2012 ISEA Conference in Albuquerque. I'm taking a big bag full of tweets and other digital banter and transforming it into a one act performance text. I'll be cobbling out a script to be brought to life by my ole chums Tricklock. A criminally underrated company in New Mexico. It's probably gonna be weird and fun and a little too true. Either way it wont be like anything else you seen lately.

Hope you're well. And I'm out.