Academic Criticism on Armstrong

Not long ago, I received an email asking me if I'd written a play about Delia Bacon. The person had heard about it through the website Academia.edu.

It turns out, an academic scholar had published a paper analyzing my play The True Author... Revealed. Natalia Vysotska, a professor at Kyiv National Linguistic University, wrote a paper called "'I Am Not a Freak!' Delia Bacon as a Dramatis Persona" that appeared in American and European Studies 2017, which is published by Minsk State Linguistic University.

The paper cites this blog, as well as my play, which appears in The Best American Short Plays: 2008-2010. Katherine Harte-DeCoux has appeared in the one-act play at a couple of different venues in New York, and the piece also had a student production in Ottawa. It portrays Delia Bacon giving an imagined lecture at the U.S. Consulate in Liverpool, arguing that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by Sir Francis Bacon.

Vysotska correctly writes that the aim of the play is "not to take part in the long-lasting authorship debate" concerning the plays of Shakespeare. Rather, the piece "urges us to see the Bacon phenomenon not merely as a historical curiosity, still another 'mad woman in the attic', but as a dramatic figure at the intersection of cultural, gender, and power relations in the mid-19th c. USA going through crucial transformations."

It's gratifying to see my play analyzed in an academic paper, particularly one that also cites Nathanial Hawthorne and the renowned Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro. If you'd like to read the play, you can order a copy of the collection it appears in here.

The True Author... Revealed in Ottawa

My play The True Author... Revealed will be making its Canadian debut this month as a curtain-raiser for Sock 'n' Buskin's production of Macbeth at Carlton University in Ottawa.

The full title of my piece is THE TRUE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS FORMERLY ATTRIBUTED TO MISTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE REVEALED TO THE WORLD FOR THE FIRST TIME BY MISS DELIA BACON. That's a bit of a mouthful, though, so I generally refer to it as The True Author... Revealed.

As you can guess from the title, the piece is a perfect opener for a Shakespeare play, particularly for one that descends into madness and chaos. (The historical Delia Bacon ended her life in an asylum.) It portrays the American woman who first popularized the notion that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone other than an actor from Stratford. And yes, it's a comedy.

If you're in the Ottawa area, the show will be playing at 7:00 on November 24-26 at the Kalish Mital Theatre. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for the general public. Kosta Diochnos is directing The True Author... Revealed while Sarah Haley is directing the Scottish play.

For more information, check out Sock 'n' Buskin Theatre Company.

Applause! Applause!

I just received in the mail two copies of Best Monologues from the Best American Short Plays, Volume Three. This book contains two monologues from my short play The Rainbow.

And I'm in good company. The book also has two monologues by John Guare (one from Five-Story Walkup and one from Seven Card Draw) and two by Shel Silverstein (The Trio and The Devil and Billy Markham), among many others.

Not only that, but this is the second time I've been included in such a collection. My short play with a long title The True Author of the Plays Formerly Attributed to Mister William Shakespeare Revealed to the World for the First Time by Miss Delia Bacon is included in Volume One of the series.

By the way, you can watch Alex Sunderhaus performing a shortened version of that monologue last year at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe here:

The True Author... Revealed

And you can buy the two monologue collections on Amazon here:

Volume One

Volume Three

And if you're interested in The Rainbow, the full play is published in The Best American Short Plays: 2012-2013, which is available here:

The Rainbow

Hope you enjoy them!

Book Release One Week From Today!

Next Wednesday, December 3rd, Applause Books will be celebrating the release of Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays. Come out at 6:00 to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe for readings of some of the monologues, including a selection from my own play The True Author... Revealed.

Ken Kaissar directed The True Author... Revealed back in 2009 starring Katherine Harte-DeCoux. Applause subsequently anthologized it in The Best American Short Plays: 2008-2009. It is inspired by the life of the nineteenth-century scholar, author, and complete basket case Delia Bacon.

Unfortunately, Kate won't be able to perform the monologue next week, but Alex Sunderhaus, who was recently seen in my play The State of Colorado v. Tennessee Williams, will be on hand to do the honors. Rumor has it that Maja Wampuszyc, fresh from her successful run in pool (no water) will be reading a monologue as well.

Some of the other authors whose work will be presented include Liliana Almendarez, Dano Madden, and Pamela Sneed. Admission is $5, but you'll get in for free if you order a copy of the anthology here:

Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays

It should be a good time, and hopefully we'll pack the house!

Best Monologues

I recently received in the mail my contributor's copy of Best Monologues From the Best American Short Plays, which is part of the Applause Acting Series. Volume One includes my one-woman play The True Author of the Plays Formerly Attributed to Mister William Shakespeare Revealed to the World for the First Time by Miss Delia Bacon.

Dawn Cardinale produced the play in New York in 2009 starring Katherine Harte-DeCoux as Delia Bacon. Ken Kaissar directed the piece. More recently, Kate reprised her role at the Looking Glass Theatre as part of the evening of short work Broadside!

I was very fortunate to have the piece included in The Best American Short Plays: 2008-2009, and last year William Demastes, who currently edits the series, asked me if he could include it in the Best Monologues book. You can imagine how long I took to think about that one. (What do you call a tenth of a nanosecond again?)

The play tells the story of Delia Bacon, a Connecticut woman who was the first to popularize the idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone other than that man from Stratford. (For the record, I do not share Miss Bacon's opinions.) She gained the attention of a number of prominent intellectuals, including the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who at the time was American consul to the city of Liverpool. I condense a great deal of Miss Bacon's life, to show her excited research, frenzied revelations, and slow descent into madness all in one speech at the American consulate.

In reality, it took a lot longer than that for her to go insane, but sadly she did end up in an institution writing sheer jibberish. (Not that her initial writings were the most coherent, anyway.)

Needless to say, I'm honored to be included in the monologue anthology, which also has pieces by Adam Kraar, Julia Jarcho, Liliana Almendarez, and Neil LaBute. If you're interested in buying it, here's the link on Amazon:

Best Monologues From the Best American Short Plays

http://www.amazon.com/Monologues-American-Volume-Applause-Acting/dp/1480331554