knots
Festival production of “Knots” by Robert Moulthrop. Directed by Brian Spencer, featuring Rebecca Massek, Austin Bruce, and Marc DeSellem. 8 Tens @ 8; Short Play Festival, Actors Theatre, Santa Cruz, January 10 - February 9, 2020
One of the reasons I like the small canvas of a 10-Minute Play is the challenge of getting as much plot and character as possible into 10 or so pages. I’ve always loved dialogue. There’s something really thrilling to me about etching those double quote marks—when, old school writing by hand, you can really dig in with that ball point pen—then writing the words that will stream out of the mouth of a person who, at that particular moment, exists only inside my head. They speak, and, like that person sitting in the next booth in the coffee shop, or that impatient foot-tapper waiting for the light to change while either whispering or screaming into their cell phone, something about their character is revealed.
I’m happy to report that two of my 10-minute plays have recently found homes, here and abroad: The Santa Cruz County Actors Theatre 8 x 10 Festival (January 2020) will present my play Knots, in which Joseph and Michael are about to be married, but nerves and the past raise some serious (and funny) questions. This play was accepted and planned for production in Australia, in both the Sydney and Canberra Short+Sweet Fesitvals, but fate (or something) intervened, so Santa Cruz will be its first production. And Never Say Always— in which Josh and Sarah have been divorced for four years, so why does he want to meet now, in a restaurant— has been shortlisted for the Manilla Short+Sweet Festival.
