CAFE UNDEAD at WQED

A short tele-play that I wrote called CAFE UNDEAD will be shot tomorrow at the Pittsburgh Public TV affiliate WQED. This piece follows two survivors who find themselves trapped in a dead end situation. Things go from bad to worse when company arrives.

UPDATE: Here are some great photos on Flickr from the shoot.

Reading of JOY OF COOKING

My 10-minute play, JOY OF COOKING, had a staged reading this week as part of the Actors Theatre of Santa Cruz "Best of the Rest" short play competition. JOY OF COOKING is the story of a woman who must learn to cook in one night, or risk losing her marriage and maybe her sanity.

Word of the Day - Holotype

holotype: (n) the original specimen which is used to describe a new species

I was visiting my dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum last week, and I ran across this great word. The museum has the original skeletons that defined the species Diplodocus carnageii, as well as the infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Their particular T-Rex was discovered in 1902 by Barnum Brown in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, and it toured the country, ending up at the Carnegie in the 1950's. Fossil hunting was a messy, wild-west business back in the day, full of shady dealers, each spinning out their own argument for why this skeleton was better than another. By chance (and perhaps more human intervention than we care to admit), a new species was created on those dry Montana plans.

We forget that man names the animals. That "species" is just one more concept slapped on to the world in order to make sense of it. We love to label and taxonomize; and sometimes we come up with descriptions like "Tyrant Lizard King" that seem to stick. Also, it's amazing to think that there is one T-Rex (who lives in Pittsburgh), just like there still is one Dodo (who lives in London).

The Need to Write

“

We always write the play we need to write, right now. There is always a reason for this play, and it's always because of something we are dealing with in our lives. Once you figure out what the play is dealing with, then make everything about that one thing.

”

- Milan Stitt (1941 - 2009)