25 years ago, I wrote and directed a post-modern adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Twain’s book is a masterpiece but it’s controversial because many people don’t realize that the novel depicts the character Jim through the ignorant eyes of its narrator, Huck. There are, in fact, many people (including a number of scholars) that misread the story entirely or reacted to the dialect or Twain's very conscious use of the N-word, and believe the book is racist. So

January was a strange month in this country, but I was fortunate enough to have a number of good projects and collaborators during my 4-stop road-trip, and happy to see old friends and colleagues in the Bay area, the Midwest and Southeast Texas. I spent two weeks in Berkeley helping Pamela Gaye Walker develop her one-woman show Little Big Mouth . I knew her from a class I'd taught a few years ago at the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She's also an old friend and cast-mate of

Jed Diamond, Clarence Brown Theatre, 2025. When I was in 6th grade a neighborhood lady staged an abridged version of A Christmas Carol with a bunch of local kids. I played Scrooge. I caught pneumonia just after the auditions and was in bed for 2 weeks, but I used the time to memorize the play; so when the Ghost of Christmas Past forgot a line during our performance, I cued her. Fast forward to 1998. I was working at Milwaukee Rep and Joe Hanreddy and I began writing our adapt

I just returned from two months as a Fulbright Specialist in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I was hosted by Ala-Too International University, and gave workshops and presentations for the administration, department heads and numerous classes. This was a kind of homecoming too, since I was a Fulbright Scholar there in 2023. I particularly enjoyed teaching in some new contexts at Ala-Too. First, I was asked to collaborate with two psychotherapists on a seminar in Psychodrama, which was a

Theatre for Living Training, Vancouver, 2025 I've worked in theatre in various roles as a practitioner and an educator. Lately, I've also been exploring new avenues. One of these was a couple of workshops in Theatre of the Oppressed, a form of participatory theatre developed by Brazilian director Augusto Boal in the 1970's as a tool for social and political change. Then I found Theatre for Living, which David Diamond developed from Boal's work. David ran a theatre company in

I spent most of last August in Azerbaijan. I was there to help to run a free summer camp in a in the foothills of the Southern Caucasus...

It's been a while since I've posted an update. Freelance life has it's rhythms and this last stretch has been a period of plans, pitches...

December was pretty full. In Knoxville, my co-adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL played to full houses at the Clarence Brown Theatre. This...

I am delighted that my co-adapation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is being remounted again this year at Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee, and that my good friend Jed Diamond will once again play Scrooge. I co-wrote this version with Joe Hanreddy at Milwaukee Rep back in the 90's, and co-directed the first production with Joe in Milwaukee's gorgeous Pabst Theatre. Jim Pickering played Scrooge that first year. Then in 2002, I directed it the Rep production with Jon Daly as

The XI Internacional Festival de Teatro RD is over and EL PANFLETO was a huge success. We had two sold out shows, with a number of added seats and lots of people who weren't able to get in. The audiences responded with enthusiasm to the humor, the suspense and the emotional impact of the show. The actors were in the flow and the whole thing felt magical. It was great culmination to our 5 year collaboration with this play, which began with our staged reading for an invited au

I'm back in New York after two weeks in Santiago rehearsing for a remount of my play EL PANFLETO (The Pamphlet ) with Coturno Teatro. In March 2020, we premiered the play just before Covid hit. We had two performances and then everything shut down and that was that,. However, in October the Dominican Republic is hosting the XI Internacional Festival de Teatro (FITE) with 35 productions from 18 countries. The festival will include performances in both Santiago and Santo Doming

It's been a while since I posted here. Happily, it’s because I was absorbed this past winter and spring as a Fulbright Scholar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I posted regularly on Instagram and FB, but neglected this blog. Now I’m back in NY and catching up. In Bishkek, I was teaching at two universities: Ala-Too International University (AIU) and the American University of Central Asia (AUCA). At AIU, I used theatre and creative writing techniques to teach English (mostly to futu

It's December and my production of THE TIN WOMAN has just closed at Next Act in Milwaukee. The play was not easy to mount in that space but I think we acheived a strong production, thanks especially to the beautiful "water-color" projections by Aaron Sherkow. The play is part comedy, part drama, part fantasy. It tells the story of a heart transplant recipient who has not yet come to terms with still being alive. Her journey (and parents the spirit of her heart donor) leads he

My Fulbright in Bishkek is looming on the horizon, and I’ll now also be teaching at the American University of Central Asia. I’ll teach a course called Creative Storymaking , both there and at Ala-Too International University, for filmmakers, journalists and theatre makers. It's going to be an adventure for all of us. These two courses are in addition to the courses I will teach at Ala-Too (AIU) using creative exercises (mostly theatre and creative writing) to teach upper-lev

It's been a good summer. In July, I directed a one-man show about Al McGuire. McGuire was a college basketball coach who led Marquette U. to national prominence and victory in the 1977 NCAA tournament. He later became a broadcaster for NBC sports, where he worked with Dick Enberg until just before his early death from leukemia. Enberg wrote the play, McGuire, which premiered a few years ago at Milwaukee Rep. It was very successful but a protacted legal battle ensued over the

I now have my Fulbright posting for the winter/spring semester of 2023. I'll be at Ala-Too International University in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan. And this week is the virtual orientation for the Central Asian Fulbright cohort for 2022-23. It's a diverse group of U.S. scholars, researchers and soon-to-be English Teaching Assistants who will be posted throughout the region. Though most of the others will begin in the fall, I'll begin in January. However, I've alr

I've received another Fulbright Award. Next year I'll spend nearly 6 months as a Fulbright Scholar teaching at a university in Kyrgyzstan (or possibly two). It's a small country, formerly part of the Soviet Union, just north and west of China and south of Kazakhstan. I applied in September and had a finalist interview several months ago. I'd almost forgotten about it, or at least put it on a back burner. Now it's suddenly a reality and I'm delighted by the upcoming challenge

Almost unbelievably, it's 2022. I'm hopeful for a terrific year though I imagine it will also have its surprises. Speaking of which, I'm just getting over the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which Santa brought me. Wasn't too terrible but it did lay me out for a week and then I felt strange and tired for another week. Thankfully, now I feel fine. My last project of 2021 was another incarnation of UP CLOSE (BUT NOT TOO CLOSE!) with JOHN McGIVERN. John has won 5 Midwest Emmy Awa

I'm in tech for SO YOU CAN LOOK AHEAD at Lamar University. I'm really enjoying the process and thankful to finally see this play produced. I've done a bit of rewriting, and since I didn't direct any of the previous readings it's the first chance I've had to work on the text with actors. Objectivity is a challenge when one is both writer and director, but I've certainly been able to improve it, and revision various moments in more interesting ways. My cast has been great and I

It's been a while since I posted. Most recently, I directed THREE VIEWINGS by Jeffrey Hatcher at Next Act in Milwaukee. It opened in late Sept. and runs through Oct 17. It's the first live production for Next Act since the pandemic hit, though we also videotaped it and it's being offered virtually. It was great to be back in the theatre again and I was really happy with the production, which features three terrific actors. I'm now in Beaumont, Texas, directing a production o