Author, Theatre Artist, and Educator
Happy New Year! For me, 2020 will be a year of building - including building more writerly resources to share with all of you. Before I get to it, I don’t want to let the year slide by without shouting out an incredibly important part of my artist and educator life - connecting the crucial... Continue Reading →
Last month I had the pleasure of subbing for one of my Philadelphia Young Playwrights teaching artists. When I asked him how I could best aid the class of awesome 8th graders, he told me that the students needed help infusing more action into their play ideas. Action can be tricky. In an age of... Continue Reading →
Revision is hard. The deeper we dive in, sifting through sentence by sentence, the easier it is for our writerly lens to look at our creative work minutely through a magnifying glass. While details are important, every draft also needs us to look at it through the widest lens possible. A healthy panoramic view helps... Continue Reading →
On the Making Learning Connected hangout tonight, the conversation about hacking games, as well as Kim Douillard’s story about an amazing Monopoly remix, reminded me of one of the oldest improv games I know. I’m sure it goes by many different names, but I learned it as The Status Game. Thanks to the structure provided... Continue Reading →
Thanks to the great fun and greater conversation going on at Making Learning Connected, this week I’ve had memes on the brain. Ever since I made my first-ever memes to compliment my last post, I’ve been convinced there’s a writing game in there somewhere. Well, I’m excited to say that I’ve come up with not... Continue Reading →
Fresh off an amazing week of new play development for the How I Learned to Write Festival with Philadelphia Young Playwrights, I’ve been thinking a lot about the creative process and the creative mindset. So when I signed up today for the Making Learning Connected project and saw the first Make Cycle had a “How... Continue Reading →
The other night, thanks to the magic of the internet, I inadvertently stumbled on this article about incredible homes. My first thought was, “Squee!” because I would happily live in any of these places, but my second (and likely far more useful) thought was that any of these homes would be a fabulous start for... Continue Reading →
During my days as Artistic Director of a theatre company focused on new work and emerging artists, we used to host an annual Lock-In: five teams comprised of a playwright, director, and two actors each creating, rehearsing and performing a play in 24 hours. Every year, the first challenge given to the teams was a... Continue Reading →
For me, writer’s block is a funny thing. Back before I started teaching, when I got writer’s block I just…well, I just dealt with it, wallowed in it, avoided it by not writing, it depended on my mood. After I started teaching and I watched my students come up against it, however, my attitude toward... Continue Reading →
Mae Early 