This week's Village Voice has an essay by Mac Wellman on why he is hopeful about the state of theatre in New York. He mentions quite a few people I've written about here, and others I've seen but not written about. These include Anne Washburn, The Civilians, and others. One of the fascinating new groups he mentions was the one I told Paige West to check out when we had drinks on Friday: 13P, which Wellman describes thusly
13P (short for 13 Playwrights, Inc.) has just begun operations with a fine production of Washburn's The Internationalist at the Culture Project, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll (who also directed Courtney's Demon Baby). 13P is of particular note because it has been created by playwrights for playwrights on behalf of playsplaywrights who see no point in the whining endemic to the Theater of the Unproduced. Thus, each of the 13 will receive a full production before 2010, and each is expected to contribute manfully to the others' shows. A fine and intelligent idea in this day of institutional blandness. 13P is made up of Sheila Callaghan, Erin Courtney, Madeleine George, Rob Handel, Ann Marie Healy, Julia Jarcho, Young Jean Lee, Winter Miller, Sarah Ruhl, Kate E. Ryan, Lucy Thurber, Anne Washburn, and Gary Winter. These playwrights remain unawed by the difficulty of pursuing an aggressively non-corporate, non-careerist path.
For more on 13P, check out these articles from The Brooklyn Rail and CultureBot.
We recently saw Anne's play The Internationalist, having become huge fans after seeing her play The Ladies with The Civilians. The run for The Internationalist has ended, but I hope someone revives it. We saw it the last night, and they were turning people away. We thought it was brilliant, with an amazing cast. See the Village Voice review here. We took Anne to lunch on Monday to get a chance to just talk to her a bit outside of a "you're great!" chat after a performance at a theatre.
Finally 13P has an interesting deal going right now -- the Blind Optimism Package. For $180 you get 2 reserved seats for their remaining 12 plays, to be produced through 2010. We're going to buy the tickets. If nothing else, it shows my hope that I won't have to go into exile in Europe after the November election.
