Happy Spring! I write this to you from the Jury Assembly room of the San Francisco Hall of Justice. While the jury instruction video is playing, I would love to share an update of all the exciting careerish things that are in store for me in the coming year and slightly beyond. I was supposed to send this in January, but you know, things happened. And things are happening!
Exciting things like -
* An Artistic Home - And I'm doing a fundraising walk for them!
* A World Premiere!
* An awesome musical.
* Continued life of my slightly older stuff!!
* I'm raising money for my artistic home.
Z SPACE - My (salaried!) Artistic Home in San Francisco
Z Space has been my ad hoc San Francisco home since I squatted in its hallways and rehearsal rooms in 2005 and has been my happy place ever since. As of January 3 2013, I am now the Playwright in Residence at the Z Space Studio in San Francisco. I've got a nice desk, a key and alarm code and, thanks to the grant we got from the Andrew W Mellon foundation, a full time salary for the next three years!
I'll be involved in Z in all sorts of ways, plus will be writing at least one thing that will premiere there during my residency. I'm so so excited to be working with Lisa Steindler and the whole Z Team and I'm so excited my crisis about what the hell I'm doing with my life has now been pushed into my 40s.
THE TOTALITARIANS - A World Premiere - New Orleans and Washington DC 2014
My dark comedy THE TOTALITARIANS is getting it's world premiere in early 2014! And I think it's a pretty good play. It's about lying, believing things without facts, and the state of political discourse in America. It's kinda dark, pretty funny, a little mean, good chunks of sex and death plus my attempt at writing political speeches that are rousing, inspirational, and meaningless.
A blurb about the play: (which I am stealing from Woolly Mammoth):
Francine, the ambitious speechwriter for a rich housewife’s vanity campaign for public office, has stumbled upon pure gold: a perfectly patriotic slogan. So what if it’s totally meaningless? And so what if her doctor husband disapproves? With it Francine can turn the campaign around and make her unpredictable, gaffe-prone candidate electrifyingly powerful—and finally, just maybe, get herself out of Nebraska.
A commission for the National New Play Network through the New Dramatists Full Stage USA program supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (yes, I'm super melloned).
WHERE YOU CAN SEE IT SO FAR:
NEW ORLEANS, January 2014, Southern Repertory Theatre!
Directed by Ken Prestininzi and featuring Judith Hawking as Penelope Easter
WASHINGTON DC, June 2014 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre
Directed by Robert Ohara
(and probably somewhere else after that TBA)
TWITTER:
Some other New Stuff i'm working on
FALL SPRINGS: A Musical Disaster
I continue to work with amazing composer/collaborator Nikos Tsakalakos on our Global Warming disaster musical, FALL SPRINGS: A Musical Disaster. It's about a town sinking into the ground and nobody does a whole lot to stop it. We had our first workshops at New Dramatists last fall and at Ars Nova in NYC this past February (postponed from our first workshop attempt in October due to Superstorm Sandy. And which a reading took place during the big blizzard. This all seems appropriate.)
A short play about food
I'm writing a 20 minute play about food as part of a collection of 20 20 minute plays about food commissioned by Berkeley Rep. Mine features actors in vegetable costumes.
UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS/PUBLICATIONS of MY SLIGHTLY OLDER STUFF
BOB and T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common) are now published by Dramatists Play Service.
Bob has already seen productions this year at the Aurora in Lawrenceville, GA, The Geva in Rochester, and a 42 minute version made it to regionals in the Texas One Act competition via Keller High School. Echo Theater in LA is doing it this summer. Plus, I see there are also productions coming up in Cape Coral, Fl and Kingston, RI,
Boom, Hunter Gatherers, and Colorado
Are all continuing to be done. boom has now had over 70 productions across the globe (including Kuala Lumpur), and saw its first foreign language production in Buenos Aires, translated by local Actor Nicolas Waller. Que bueno. Hunter Gatherers is slated for productions in Las Vegas, Chicago and also has French translation and team desperately in need of a producer!
Finally
I'M RAISING MONEY FOR MY ARTISTIC HOME - Sponsor me?
Z Space is having it's 20th Anniversary Fundraiser, the Rent Walk. Z is housed in the lovely Project Artaud complex and supporting over 300 artists/year and maintaing their two beautiful spaces ain't cheap. They are hoping to raise 20K in their quasi-annual Rent Walk, where I will be donning sturdy shoes and trucking around. Consider this the much shorter not as ambitious and less medically oriented but still VITAL and well spent support of making the world a better place.
Please consider making whatever donation you can to make sure my desk remains in a covered room! Will you sponsor me in my walk to raise money for this amazing arts organization in San Francisco?
TO donate you can head here, and say you're sponsoring me!
OK, that's about it for now. Thank you all for your continued support, friendship, patronage or lack of support, evilship, and ignorance depending who you are.
As always, my website,
peternachtrieb.com has lots of the latest information or your enjoyment.
I semisweet at @PeterNachtrieb but not sure how I feel about it.
Lots of love!
peter
