I will now finally spill the whole beans on this thing I've been hinting at. Tonight, me play AN INTERVENTION FOR ISAAC is getting a staged reading, produced by the Boomerang Theatre Company.

How did this happen? Blatant favoritism. Well, I do think it's a good play and it's not inconceivable that another company might have chosen to do it, but it sure did help that my old pal Kate Sandberg is the literary manager of the theatre.

But I need that kinda kick in the pants. I always have, but especially since the end of grad school. I've never been good at self promotion, sending out scripts and summaries to theatres. But after than one disastrous day towards the end of class, where a reading of a play I had previously liked a lot, I really shut down. Didn't write. Didn't submit.

But now I am, as the new description of the blog says, back in the saddle. Turns out A) I like this B) I'm not bad at it.

We had our one and only rehearsal last night. It's gonna be good. A very solid cast who took the script well, and the few places where I didn't like what they did I would chalk up to "it's just a first pass through the script" or Kate (who is also directing) can straighten it out with a few words.

Oh, the play needs plenty of rewriting. I cut a lot of it, because it was wordy and overly on-the-nose. There are still some "You can write this shit, but you can't say it" kind of lines, and those will be going soon. But actually I may restore some of the cut stuff, since I think I may have thrown off the rhythm of some scenes and denied myself some climaxes (though that might be a "first reading" problem that a real rehearsal process could clean up). We'll see.

So Amanda and I have invited a bazillion people to this and, oddly, a lot of them seem to be coming. Wow. Like, one of her RAs is bringing her floor. There's something about a free show ...

Fun coincidences: That picture one the website, advertising the reading? That's Johnny Giacalone, an old Vassar chum.



Johnny's not in my reading, but guess who is?

By random chance, Paco Tolson. Paco not only went to Amherst High with me, but Pelham Elementary ... and Brown with Abe and Molly.

Yet, none of us got him this job. Actually, I haven't seen Paco in nine years since we acted together in a performance of David Rimmer's NOBODY DIES. So it's just raw, un adulterated coincidence that he's here.

But here's more: Paco is playing Pablo, who I was originally going to call Paco, but decided not to because Paco Tolson was the only Paco I had ever known and I decided to use a more common name.

I love this business.

Curtain's up at 7PM tonight.

(Hey, check out this link and scroll to the bottom -- New York Theatre listings, baby!)