@dramatistsguild @gabcody 

           For seven years, the Dark Nights Playwrights of Pittsburgh have met, as their name suggests, on Monday nights. The meeting provides a weekly opportunity for local playwrights to have actors read aloud their latest pages. Many of the writers are members of the Dramatists Guild, including novelist Sharon Dilworth, and award-winning playwrights Bill Cameron, Dennis Schebetta (former DG Regional Rep in Seattle), T. Scott Frank and Ginny Cunningham (who is having a star-studded season – Martin Sheen performed a reading of Ms. Cunningham’s play about the Kennedy assassination, Noah’s Ark, in Dallas last year).

           The rules for Dark Nights are pretty relaxed. Each week every writer is encouraged to bring in new pages. Toward the end of the week the group starts emailing: “Who has pages?” “Who is coming this week?” What sets Dark Nights apart from other writing groups is the instant gratification of having actors read their developing work. Ms. Dilworth compares the process to novel writing: “Different than a fiction group – you bring something the actors will be excited to read. And you begin to tailor the pieces to the actors.”

           Nancy Bach, who joined the group as an actor, says, “For me, it was partly that I wasn’t acting at that time, so there were these Monday nights of wonderfully supportive people who wanted me to work. It was never like I was being taken advantage of, it was a chance to be around supportive people and do the thing I want to do.” Now Ms. Bach is working on her own play. She credits the other playwrights in the group with aiding her transformation from actor to dramatist: “I have learned how to write (plays) from these guys, just listening to what they say to each other.”

           Veteran playwright Bill Cameron also finds the group helpful. When not in production, playwrights often bemoan their forced isolation. By opening up their process to the collective, they’ve built a supportive group of friends and colleagues. “Community has always been a big part of it,” he says, “it seems to be inseparable from the theatrical process. Wonderful, insightful, sensitive collaborators; I love to go because I love to see these people and to be part of the community.”

           Dark Nights presented their first reading for the public this past September. Ms. Dilworth believes the reading format allowed audiences to be more honest about their reaction to the work. Their first audience liked seeing the nuts and bolts of theater making and enjoyed the readings, but they also felt more free to offer opinions. She remembers, “They said, ‘We didn’t have to feel guilty for liking or not, because it wasn’t a full production.’”

           Ms. Bach says with a laugh that they are just as honest with each other: “Please don’t bring that play in, I don’t want to hear it again!” But Dark Nights is as much about friendship as it is about writing. Ms. Bach looks forward to a long collaboration: “I’ve become very close to these people, I can’t imagine not seeing them.”

gcody@dramatistsguild.com