Coming out of a theatre on the west coast this summer, I told a well-established fellow writer that my heart hurt because I hadn’t written the phenomenal play we’d just seen. She responded that seeing successful work always made her feel like a failure. That’s not quite what I meant, but her sentiment isn’t that unusual, nor is it particularly gender-specific. Back in Atlanta I attended playwright/director Paris Crayton’s newest play (a sold out) Chainz/Broken at his young company Rising Sage Theatre Company. In light of the “failure comment,” I was reminded of meeting Crayton before he co-founded Rising Sage when he told me that (in paraphrase) his strategy was to use other people’s successes as his school for learning. Sharing dinner after the show, a cast member who had taken several of my playwriting workshops confessed she’d set aside that project but added it was because for her, success was getting better at acting so she could also develop skills for her writing. At the same table DG member playwright/jewelry artist Jacqueline Clay Chester was handing around her newly published memoir Black Girl in Moscow. She said “I finally did it” because it was time. Learning from others, setting a personal strategy, deciding when it’s time – those are also what some other folks did last summer to make things happen.

DG members Amy Cuomo and Nathaniel Lachenmeyer joined forces to create Play West: A New Play Lab. Sponsored by the University of West Georgia Theatre Department, it provides an opportunity for Georgia playwrights to develop scripts with UWG Theatre majors. Plays by Cuomo, Lachenmeyer, and Lee Nowell were presented each on one of three days and followed by feedback sessions moderated by Atlanta director Mira Hirsch designed to “…help shape the final script.” The lab is by invitation only. Inquiries to Amy Cuomo at acuomo@westga.edu.

In July, DG member Gene Griessman saw 200+ seats filled for both performances of his newest play Lincoln’s Last Debate. Directed by Bob English and featuring Griessman as Abraham Lincoln in a feisty verbal face-off with President Obama (played by Julius Pryor III), the piece is in keeping with Griessman’s five published books about Lincoln and his other performances in that persona including on stage at Ford’s Theatre. Greissman says of this self production that “aside from refining the play, I was happy to introduce theater to several individuals who had never been to a play before.” From a review by Sondra Ilgenfritz, “You will leave Lincoln’s Last Debate thinking…and smiling.” www.presidentlincoln.com.

In a slightly different vein, DG member Sherry C. Paulsen’s piece Ladies in Waiting (selected to kick off Fabrefaction Theatre Conservatory’s summer new works program) started out as a screen play. [But] “When my first play, Our Lady of Perrysburg, was produced in 1996, I was hooked on live theatre. I saw Ladies in an entirely different light and rewrote it for the stage.” With the development process this summer at Fabrefaction, Paulsen was able to re-visit her 1960s-era play about “unwed” mothers, Catholic maternity homes, and forced adoption through the eyes of a very different generation of teens. Fabrefaction founding Artistic Director Christina Hoff selected Ladies after she met Paulsen at an Atlanta regional DG Director/Dramatist Exchange last year and decided it was perfect for this unique conservatory program dedicated to training young theatre artists. Asked if anything changed in terms of what she wanted to say in the play, Paulsen responded that “what I have to say hasn’t changed as much as much as how I say it…” but a new realization helped along by director Nicole Palmietto is that the play is about “What makes a mother.”

To keep “learning from others”, plan to join our Atlanta-Region Facebook group by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1450042818590620/. Open to DG membership in the SE, you can toot your horn, start/join conversations, and officially say hi to Amina McIntyre, Atlanta Region’s new Young Ambassador.

pturner@dramatistsguild.com

Photo: (above) Sherry C. Paulsen. Photographer: Larry Paulsen

Photos: (above) Production photos for Lincoln’s Last Debate by Gene Griessman