Governor Dan McKee released his $11.2 billion budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year today in a budget briefing with the press. He inherits a big task from predecessor Gina Raimondo — balancing a deficit of $336 million dollars with some new budget priorities. Federal dollars will provide a big boost to state and local […]
Providence’s Head Trick Theatre is all about live performance and sharing space with an audience; however, COVID forced them to shift. Their latest production is a web series, Dangerous Liaisons, adapted and directed by Head Trick founder Rebecca Maxfield from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. “I think it works as an episodic structure. […]
Every writer has a flaw specific to whatever it is that prevents them from writing. For me, it’s productivity. I spent years demanding that I write a lot, every day, that I finish entire plays in a week, and if I wasn’t able to work at that speed, I’d become despondent and not write anything […]
On President’s Day, I did a live digital reading of a play I’d written called Mayor Pete. It’s a one-man show about Pete Buttigieg, small-town mayor, former Presidential candidate, and current Secretary of Transportation, who recently made history as America’s first openly gay cabinet member. Because I’ve been a little wary of doing any long-form […]
There are certain plays I reread every year, because in some ways, it’s the best way to remind yourself how to write. David Hare has, sadly, become a rarely produced playwright. It’s partly because he’s not scared of being topical, leaning into the moment and creating something that’s so specific it feels out of place […]
The Wilbury Theatre Group has teamed up with The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities’ Culture is Key Initiative, and will soon be presenting the fruits of their labor with Capture the Block: Stories from Ward 15. Culture is Key is an initiative to understand, test and evaluate the role of cultural participation on our state’s civic […]
“I’m a professional storyteller by trade, and I pretty much stopped working because of COVID,” says Mark Binder, the writer and playwright behind The Wilbury Group’s newest online offering, The Race. “Watching somebody tell a story in this [Zoom] setting is like bad TV a lot of the time.” Binder says it was the Boston-based […]
This was my first week teaching classes as an adjunct professor in playwriting. One of my students asked a question I’ve heard from a lot of other writers lately. “Should we write about the moment we’re in?” It can seem like one of those lose-lose situations when we talk so much about needing to remember […]
Now that we’re careening toward the one-year anniversary of all us having to learn that our faces look best when a ring of light is aimed at them, I thought it might be a good time to take stock and figure out what exactly I’ve learned and which mistakes I’ve made when it comes to […]
I should start by mentioning that even writing this would normally be considered a conflict of interest. That’s because for the past nine years, I’ve run a theater company. A small one. As in, “you could fit in the back of a pick-up” small. Part of running a small theater company, in addition to producing, […]