E-Merging Writers

Fn Productions and E-Merging Writers has launched the new 2008 Stage This Competition.

For information on previous work, please go to Fn Productions.  E-Merging Writers is in the midst of a very long migration process.  We can be found in the future at the new WordPress version of this site. 

Our last competition went great.  The book is great.  The experience was great.  Hope to continue that.  And yes, we are still dedicated to keeping PlaywritingOpportunities.com going as long as we possibly can.

No thanks to Time Warner for STILL not fixing the cable modem problem, but here, two days late, are the Semifinalists and Honorable Mentions for 2007's Stage This, TOO!  Finalists will be announced by the end of August.  Private readings will be held in two closed sessions to facilitate our final selections for publication.

Stage This, TOO! Semifinalists

Birthday, Carlos Manuel
Blue Collared Dreams, Jon Tyler Owens
The Dark, Janice Kennedy
Feeding Mr. Why, Craig Delancey
The First Fireworks, Alex A Broun
Goodbye New York, Greg Tito
Gut Shot, T Cat Ford
Here's My Card, Lowell Press
Inbetween, Laura Wheatman
In the Corridor, Campbell Navarro
Johnny Ramirez Really Wants to Kiss Me, David Matthew Barnes
The Minuteman, Eddie Beverage
Moonshine on the Rocks, Jeffrey James Keyes
The New Wife, Wendy-Marie Foerster
Orange Sunset, Victoria Koestler
Our Little Angel, Steven Korbar
Piney Ridge, LaChris Jordan
Night Nurse, Cara Vander Weil
Pissing on Your Shoes, William Walls
Saturday Night Newtown, Sunday Morning Enmore, Alex A. Broun
Sid and Walt, Paul W. Rogalus
Small Mercies, Hannah C. Klimetz
The Last Box, Joseph M. Harper
Terror,...

Tags: 10-minute plays, finalist, honorable mention, semifinalist, stage this

We're going into the home stretch of the competition.  This weekend we'll be choosing the semi-finalists for Stage This, TOO!  There were 109 plays entered.  I know because I read every one.  Some fine stuff in that stack of 109 plays, too.  I'm very happy about that.  This is a lot of work but when we get to this point and see that we get to promote playwrights of quality, it helps create a certain joy about the long hours of reading, writing feedback, and gathering data. 

Most of the data is gathered.  We're just waiting on a few scores from a few judges.  The scores are averaged and highest scores are immediately part of the semifinals, but that's only a few plays.  We get the rest from pulling the "controversial" plays: the ones that some liked and some didn't - and in particular, the one's that got strong reactions and the readers immediately begin cheering for or adamently against.  We find a fourth and often a fifth reader to provide feedback in different forms, some written paragraphs critiqueing dramaturgy only, some evaluated for "stageability," and some reading it for overall content.  From there we decide what fills the rest of the...

First and foremost, our 10-minute play competition deadline has been extended to July 1.  We're a bit busy and know we can't start our adjudication schedule until then, so we're giving more opportunities to submit.  If you'd like to submit, go to our Stage This, TOO! submission page and follow the three steps.

Your humble webmaster has been involved in a very fun and exciting project here in New York City.  The East Village Fragments is being presented by Peculiar Works Project and includes 80+ actors in 25+ scenes that take place on the streets of the East Village.  The selected excerpts are plays that were made famous/infamous in the original Off-Off Broadway houses that changed the landscape of theatre in the 50s and 60s.  In our scene, Lullaby for a Dying Gaul (or Lullaby for a Dying Man), we've had water thrown at us, undercover cops try to arrest the man playing GUARD because of his toy gun, and last night, thanks to an accident involving a cab, two police officers and the local firehouse representative were finished with their skirmish in time to lean against the cop car and watch our scene play out.  They seemed impressed.  Cops are never impressed.  We felt that...

Tags: east village fragments, peculiar works, playwriting, playwriting opportunities, stage this

The Stage This, TOO 10-minute play competition deadline is fast approaching and there's already rumours with Fn Productions that we may extend that deadline ... so keep your eyes peeled.

On other notes, your humble webmaster, Frank Blocker, has won the one-act portion of University of Illinois' Inner Voices Social Issues contest, with his play Patient Number.  The play has been a semi-finalist (Reverie Productions) and a finalist (Tennessee Williams' One-Act Play Festival) and was workshopped many moons ago at the fabuous Actors' Express in Atlanta under the title Waiting Room.  No word as yet whether they will produced the play, but we'll keep our fingers crossed.

As for this glorious website, well, we are continuing on with building.  Two of our bloggers, tennis freak Scott Marvin and queer writer Kenneth Allen are back in business, full swing. 

Why does it take so long to get things order?  ... some have asked.  Well, consider this: one month ago I sent a request for information to the help desk of the folks who host my site(s),...

Tags: fn productions, inner voices, plays, social issues, stage this, theatre, wordpress

Adding Google's AdSense to Queer Chronicles for Ken over at Blogger.com, I get a Gmail telling me I have to do one of two things to verify the account:  add a meta tag into the code for his blogger, or create a file in the same directory as the blog.  These two things are not allowed by Blogger ... which is now run by Google, who does AdSense and sent me the email via their very own Gmail.  I sent a message back to the AdSense people to get it corrected.  (There is simply no way to ask any specific question in the website "Help" area other than the one's they think you'll ask ... how unhelpful is that?).  The reply from AdSense did not address anything from my message but assured me that the approval process was pending and if I had any questions, I could drop them into a Group area at Google AdSense.  So, I can hack out some of my space and let them have the advertising - which requires they get access to all my accounts and my web pages - and no one can speak to me?

I looked next at WordPress, where...

Tags: blogger, blogspot, bluehost, freewebspace, google, google adsense, web hosts, wordpress

I am trying to cobble the pages back together, both past and future.  As usual, I am trying to do it all at once.  On top of that, I'm having to learn how to use the beta blogger that I am stuck with.  Whee!

Good news includes, Stage This, TOO! is off to a roaring start.  Entries are arriving.  Very exciting stuff.

Bloggers from elsewhere are joining our community.  A few are up already.  Anyone else?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Anyone? .... 

Is it the air of spring?  Things seem to have started moving.  It's as if the mud is finally letting go of the tires.

I apologize for the limitations of this site.  I am trying to update but the new "beta version" of the blog software that my host is using is extremely uncooperative. 

A few updates -- FnProductions is slowly getting off the ground.  The dates have been pushed back to the fall for the first production.  More details on that at a later date.

Fn is teaming with E-Merging Writers to offer Stage This, Too!, the second volume and second contest for the best ten-minute plays we can find.  The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2007.  More details will be posted after this coming weekend.  Our first volume, Stage This, was done in conjunction with the now defunct theatre company, Creative Mechanics.  The event was a great success and the book even more so.  Playwrights were pleased and we could not have been more proud to promote their work and introduce them to the world.

Look for new postings next week and, hopefully, you will begin to see the changes that we've been planning for ... well forever, it seems. 

E-Merging Writers is teaming up with Fn Productions to expand its offerings.  This will enable E-Merging Writers to focus on playwriting and publications as a producing arm will be available for readings, contest implementation and of course, producing new works. 

Fn Productions premiere performance is planned for July.  Barring any issues with permission, Fn Productions will begin its first season with a production of Christopher Durang's Laughing Wild.  But before production begins, the company has promised to assist E-Merging Writers in offering STAGE THIS! TOO, the second edition of our playwriting contest and ten-minute play publication.

Meanwhile, E-Merging Writers is continuing to expand sister site PlaywritingOpportunities.com, adding new pages for playwright links, ongoing opportunities, and some new challenges.

The website, too, will be merging with Fn Productions in the coming weeks. 

Tags: christopher durang, emerging writers, fn productions, laughing wild, stage this, sydney stone

Ah, "Where has the site NOT been?" might be a better question.

After the defuncting of the theatre company attached to E-Merging Writers, the lack of assistance with PlaywritingOpportunities.com (the helpful branch of this site) and having a producer run hide behind daddy's coattails because he cannot follow through on contracts he signed, frankly (no pun intended), I got tired of the whole thing. 

After some re-evaluating of life and other such miracles, I put the playwritingopportunities.com page back online earlier this year but have only recently gotten the page completely up-to-date.  Scheduling is everything. 

Next comes this page ... and I guess I've already started ....  It's time for E-Merging Writers to spring back to life.  But that's going to take some time.  I'll have to re-think this entity and what it's all about.  Hopefully, it's about all types of writers -- helping them succeed and/or helping promote them.  Publishing books and producing plays is still part of the plan

Producing will be done under the auspices of a new company called F'N Productions.  This company will concentrate in its first year (2007) on producing only a few works.  Hopefully, the second production will be an original, but the first production...

Tags: e-merging writers, fn productions, playwriting opportunities, queer chronicles, slaves of votarus, stage this