Valentino on MySpace

I've created a new profile on MySpace to promote my work.

The current focus is Valentino: a play in verse.

This week I posted a series of short excerpts from the play, including two of Valentino's monologues which were cut from the New Works Festival version.

Check 'em out here.

My Next Verse Play

Seeing Valentino on stage at the New Works Festival last month convinced me that my verse style can work for an audience. They loved it. I'm eager to try it again, this time with a simpler story and a smaller cast.

I've just started writing a new verse play, and last night I finished a rough draft of the first scene. This one is a romantic tragedy in the vein of Romeo and Juliet.

I plan to finish by June 15, which is the deadline for a new verse drama contest sponsored by The Poetry Foundation.

(Sadly, Valentino is ineligible because it's already published.)

It took me three years to write Valentino.

I've got two months to write my new verse play.

Will I finish before the deadline? When will I sleep? Am I insane?

Stay tuned.

Emily Charouhas on Opening Night

New Works Festival playwright Emily Charouhas was interviewed again by our local newspaper, this time on opening night:

"It was really a lot of fun," said Emily about the experience, only a few minutes before scenes from her play - about an over-the-top and eccentric theater producer named Mr. Furnettle - were to be performed in the COC Performing Arts Center Black Box Theater.

"For a while it was a little intimidating," said Emily about her college classroom experiences, "but we're all sort of friends now, so that certainly made it a lot easier."

Mr. Furnettle and the Christmas Debacle was directed by David Stears and featured the comic stylings of Andrew Fish Booth, Nick Huff, Sarah Oh, Desiree M. Doyle, and Andrea Plaud.

I attended most of the rehearsals, and it was great fun watching Emily's reaction to seeing her own play come to life.

But perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of her experience came near the middle of the production process - which culminated for Emily when she first witnessed actors performing during rehearsals.

"I guess my favorite part was when we started doing the run-through of all the plays, that was really cool," said Emily with a wide smile. "It was so cool, I couldn't stop smiling. It was just so cool."

The play was truly hilarious.

Great job, Emily!

Read the rest of the article here.