Revolutionary Drama

Tonight, I'm having a private reading of my play Combustion with American Renaissance Theater Company.

The play tells the story of Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier, who revolutionized chemistry around the same time a political revolution was happening in France.

Megan Greener will be reading the part of Marie-Anne, who figured out the mechanics of how to perform experiments that changed the way we think about matter. Frank Hankey will be playing her husband, Antoine, who was more focused on theory than the actual experiments.

A third character in the play, being read by Eric Percival, is the ghost of Jean-Paul Marat, a key figure in the French Revolution who sparred with the Lavoisiers and ended up getting assassinated in his own bathtub. (This later became the subject of a famous painting by Jacques-Louis David.)

The French Revolution has always inspired great drama. In fact, re-enactments of the storming of the Bastille were staged soon after that event took place. Throughout the revolution, playwrights like Olympe de Gouges wrote about current events for the stage. The Bastille and the Terror later had important roles in the play The Black Doctor which became a star vehicle for Ira Aldridge.

Perhaps the most memorable depiction of the French Revolution is in A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens's novel which was first adapted for the stage in 1860 by Tom Taylor. The events of the revolution keep resurfacing though, such as in the 21st-century playwright David Adjmi's Marie Antoinette, which I recently saw at Marymount Manhattan College.

My own play adds to this tradition, but also brings focus to the unique partnership of two scientists who tried to change the world, but got caught up in the world changing without them. I hope to be able to share this piece with the public soon in a full production.

Advancing

Sometimes being a playwright means making small advances, little by little, hoping that something will finally stick.

That's how I've been feeling lately, as many small things have been dripping in, such as my play Combustion being named a semifinalist for Broken Arts Entertainment's Loved Ones series.

Combustion re-imagines the life and death of Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier, who revolutionized chemistry around the same time a political revolution was happening in France. I've also been trying to get a reading of the play scheduled with American Renaissance Theater Company.

After an Earlier Incident, a play I previously developed with ARTC, has moved on to Round 2 of the selection process for the B Street Theater's New Comedies Festival in Sacramento. The festival had more than 400 submissions this year, so competition has been fierce.

So things continue to crawl along. I just hope that something sticks soon.