I’m in Omaha, Nebraska having a fine time serving as a lecturer and panelist at the Great Plains Theatre Conference ’til June 1.

Here’s what theatre conferences are good for:

• expanding your network of good actors and directors. This week I’ve been collecting a big pile of paper scraps with names and email addresses scribbled on them.
• reminding yourself what makes for a good play and makes for a not-good play. In most cases, the not-good play could use more conflict and more subtext. In all cases, the good play leaves you wishing there were more.
• getting spurred on to do more of your own writing. I’ve written two plays in the past three days — that feels great. I got to hear the one right away, and I’m hoping there’s going to be time for me to corral some actors to hear the other one as well.
• eating and drinking on the host’s tab.
• seeing lots of other theatre on the host’s tab.
• staying up most of the night talking theatre and drinking and smoking cigars.

So while I’m sorry the posts have been few and far between, now you know why. And now I have to go shower off the aftereffects of two cigars and half a bottle of wine so I can make it to the dinner reception and tonight’s performances.

At the moment I feel very indebted to the fine people running this conference.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Playwriting, Theatre, Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.