Censoring Marino Faliero

The latest issue of The Byron Journal recently arrived, including my article "Shaping a New Marino Faliero for Drury Lane."

I first encountered the censored version of Marino Faliero, the only one of George Gordon Byron's plays to be performed during his lifetime, when I was in California for a reading of my play Bones of the Sea at Pasadena Playhouse.

Technically, the play was self-censored, as there is no indication that John Larpent, the Examiner of Plays at the time, demanded any more cuts than the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane willingly provided. Still, the theatre was effectively forced to make some of the most devastating cuts for political reasons.

You can read all about it in the article, which appears alongside some other brilliant pieces, including an analysis of Byron and slavery by Christine Kenyon Jones. She was the co-author of a great book on portraits of Byron, and recently wrote a new book on Jane Austen and Lord Byron.

Other articles in the issue include Ioannes P. Chountis on Byron and Edmund Burke and Konstantina Georganta on the Victorian reception of Byron's "The Isles of Greece."

Mary Anning Turns 220

If Mary Anning--the tartan-clad paleontologist who scoured the cliffs of Lyme-Regis for fossils in the nineteenth century--were alive today, she would be turning 220 years old.

Of course, all that lives must die, a fact she was all-too-familiar with given her line of work. My play, Bones of the Sea, uses Anning's life to explore how human beings grapple not only with their own mortality, but with the transience of all life in a world where far more species are extinct than have survived.

As I wrote earlier this month, Bones of the Sea had a staged reading at Pasadena Playhouse as one of three winners of the Mach 33 Festival of science-driven plays. Satya Bhabha directed the reading, which featured Josette Eales, Richard Short, Todd Brun, and Georgia Dolenz. The other plays in the festival were Sizzle, Sizzle, Fly by Susan Bernfield and The Surest Poison by Kristin Idaszak.

Mach 33 is a joint project between Caltech and Pasadena Playhouse, and the three writers were put up at a lovely hotel on the Caltech campus. I was also able to get over to the Huntington Library while I was there and take a look at some of the early-nineteenth-century plays in their collection.

Now I'm back, and I've been able to incorporate a number of the comments I received from the reading into a new draft of the play. So if you're interested in a new drama about one of the unsung heroes of modern science, contact me!

Mach 33 Continues

Last night the Mach 33 Festival presented a wonderful reading of my play Bones of the Sea at Pasadena Playhouse.

The entire cast did an excellent job, which was largely a tribute to Satya Bhabha, who directed the piece. Afterward, we had a great conversation with the audience over in the Friendship Room next to the theatre. Dramaturg Kate Langsdorf was there for that, as was our science adviser, Alistair Hayden.

Today at noon, I'll be speaking at a symposium along with Alistair and the other playwrights and science advisers. If you're interested in coming, it will be held in the Hameetman Center, Frautschi Hall on the campus of Caltech. We will be discussing the function of art in collaborative engagement with science and technology.

We also had a great article about the festival published in the Pasadena Weekly. Tonight, Susan Bernfield's play Sizzle, Sizzle, Fly is being presented, and then tomorrow Kristin Idaszak's The Surest Poison.

You can get tickets here, and you'll get a discount if you use the code: CALTECH.

BONES OF THE SEA Tomorrow!

As I previously wrote, my play Bones of the Sea will be receiving a staged reading tomorrow night at Pasadena Playhouse.

The piece was chosen as one of three winners of the Mach 33 Festival of science-driven plays. Susan Bernfield's play Sizzle, Sizzle, Fly will be presented on Friday, and Kristin Idaszak's The Surest Poison on Saturday.

Satya Bhabha is directing the reading of Bones of the Sea, and I've been attending rehearsals virtually over Skype. The cast features Josette Eales, Richard Short, Todd Brun, and Georgia Dolenz, all of whom are great, so I'm looking forward to hearing the piece in front of an audience tomorrow.

The reading will be at 7:00 pm on the main stage of Pasadena Playhouse, which puts on the Mach 33 Festival in collaboration with Cal Tech. Alistair Hayden, a PhD student at Caltech in geology and planetary sciences, has provided guidance on the piece, as has Sara El Shafie, of the University of California, Berkeley.

You can get tickets for the reading here. Then, on Friday at noon, I'll be speaking as part of a panel at Cal Tech, along with the other playwrights and science advisers. You can get more information on the panel discussion here.

California, Here I Come!

I previously blogged that May was looking up, and now I can officially announce that my play Bones of the Sea has been chosen as one of three winners of the Mach 33 Festival of science-driven plays to be presented as staged readings in Pasadena, California on May 9th-11th.

Bones of the Sea tells the true story of Mary Anning, a working-class woman in Dorset, England, who helped to revolutionize the field of paleontology in the 19th century. In flashbacks, the audience sees various scenes of the self-taught Anning and the wealthy scientist Henry De la Beche as the two forge an unlikely friendship that lasts through fame and glory, disappointment and heartbreak.

The play will have a staged reading on May 9th on the main stage of Pasadena Playhouse. Satya Bhabha is directing. The reading will feature Josette Eales as Anning and Richard Short as De la Beche. Todd Brun will be playing William Buckland and Georgia Dolenz the innkeeper Sally. Barbie Insua will be reading stage directions.

Dramaturg Kate Langsdorf has been providing support for the play, as have science advisers Alistair Hayden, a PhD student at Caltech in geology and planetary sciences, and Sara El Shafie, a doctoral candidate in integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mach 33 is a joint project between Caltech and Pasadena Playhouse. The reading of Bones of the Sea will be at 7:00 pm at Pasadena Playhouse on May 9th. It will be followed by a reading of Susan Bernfield's Sizzle, Sizzle, Fly on May 10th and Kristin Idaszak's The Surest Poison on May 11th. You can get tickets here.

Hope you can come!

Finalist for Mach 33 Festival

Last week, I announced that my play Dark Night of the Soul had made the longlist of shows being considered by the Free Spirit Theatre. Unfortunately, the play ended up not making the shortlist for the company.

However, my play Bones of the Sea has now been named a finalist for the 2019 Mach 33: Caltech/Pasadena Playhouse Festival of New Science-Driven Plays. Three winners are slated to be announced shortly.

Mach 33 seeks to foster conversations around science, math, and technology. It presents staged readings of unpublished new work, hosted by the Pasadena Playhouse, but produced by Caltech Theater. Plays are presented by casts including Caltech students, faculty, staff, and other members of the community. All readings are followed by post-show discussions with playwrights.

Bones of the Sea tells the true story of Mary Anning, a working-class woman and religious dissenter who revolutionized the scientific world at the beginning of the 19th century. Anning was the ultimate outsider: wrong class, wrong sex, wrong religion. Yet she managed to make remarkable contributions to the world, and I think it's about time to tell her story.

The script had a reading in New York City with a cast of wonderful theatre veterans, including Jessica Vera, Steven Haworth, Gordon Stanley, and Carole Monferdini. Elephant Room Productions subsequently did a reading of the play and featured it on a podcast.

In addition to Bones of the Sea, Mach 33 also chose as finalists ProjectX by Taylor Hatch, Sizzle Sizzle Fry by Susan Bernfield, The Surest Poison by Kirsten Idaszak, and Ushuia Blue by Caridad Svich.

Wish me luck!

Discover a Great New Play

Tomorrow (Monday) my one-act play The Love Songs of Brooklynites will have a staged reading as a part of Emerging Artists Theatre's New Work Series.

Zach McCoy is playing the part of Chuck, a recent transplant to Brooklyn from Wisconsin. Zach's favorite stage credits include David in Love and Human Remains, Bernard in Boeing, Boeing, and Colin in The Birthday Boys. He also appeared in my play The State of Colorado v. Tennessee Williams. He currently does extensive voiceover work, reviews plays for The Drama League, and runs a sustainable seafood restaurant on the Upper West Side. Zach is a proud graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis, IN.

The role of Chuck's neighbor Abbie is being played by Jessica L. Vera. Her previous credits include Bullet Catchers, The True History of the Tragic Life and Triumphant Death of Julia Pastrana, the Ugliest Woman in the World, and A Snowfall in Berlin. She has also appeared on the Hulu series The Path and is in an independent film, Beyond the Night, which will be premiering at Woodstock Film Festival. I've also had the pleasure of working with Jessica as part of the 36th Street Writers Block, where she read the leading roles in Capital and Bones of the Sea as I was developing them.

The reading is directed by Dev Bondarin, who is the Artistic Director of Astoria Performing Arts Center where she has directed Follies, Raisin, ...Spelling Bee, Astoria Stories, Merrily We Roll Along, and In The Bones. As Associate Artistic Director of Prospect Theater Company, she directs a musical theater lab which has produced over 80 new, short musicals. Her other credits include Elevator Heart, King Lear, and A Home Across The Ocean.

Tickets for the reading (which benefits Emerging Artists Theatre) are $10. That includes admission to readings of two other short plays, The Cruelty of Children by Raymond McAnally and Hamlet Investigations, Inc. by Ellen Abrams.

The theatre is located at 15 West 28th Street on the second floor. Hope you can make it!

Happy Birthday, Mary Anning!

Today is the 219th birthday of Mary Anning, the fossil hunter and paleontologist who revolutionized the scientific world at the beginning of the 19th century.

My play about Anning, Bones of the Sea, had a reading earlier this year by Elephant Room Productions. You can hear a selection from the play (and an interview with me) on the company's podcast The Trumpet.

Anning was a working-class woman and a religious dissenter. She had three strikes against her: wrong class, wrong sex, wrong religion. Yet she managed to make remarkable contributions to the scientific world. Now more than ever, I think we need stories like hers.

The fossils Anning uncovered (including the first discovered remains of an ichthyosaur, which she and her brother found while they were still children) provided the core of the fossil collection at the British Museum in the 19th century. Most of those fossils have since been moved to the Natural History Museum in London.

When I was in London a couple years ago, I took pictures of some of the fossils Anning had collected. Unfortunately, she had to fight to get some of her finds recognized. After she uncovered a plesiosaur, some skeptics claimed she must have faked the fossil, arguing no sea creature could possibly have had a neck that long. After colleagues of hers uncovered another plesiosaur fossil elsewhere, more people started to believe her.

I'm hoping the play will have another reading in the coming year. Stay tuned!

Trumpeting My Play

Last month, Elephant Room Productions did an in-house reading of my play Bones of the Sea, about the nineteenth-century paleontologist Mary Anning.

Robert Gene Pellechio interviewed me for ERP's podcast The Trumpet. You can listen to the podcast online here. It also includes an excerpt from the play, read by Katrina Art and William Gwyn.

It was great  to hear the piece read out loud in the recording, and I'm currently working on some rewrites based on what I heard. Hopefully, Mary will be able to take to the stage sometime in the future.

In the meantime, if you're interested in the company's Elephant Ears Reading Series, I definitely recommend ERP. They're a good group.