“Carbon-Based Life Form Seeks Similar” to be Published

I’m pleased to report that an abridged version of my play “Carbon-Based Life Form Seeks Similar” has been selected for publication in the forthcoming anthology “105 Five-Minute Plays for Study and Performance.” The book will be published by theatrical trade publisher Smith & Kraus, Inc. and is edited by John Capecci and Irene Ziegler. The publication date is tentatively scheduled for August, 2016.

The play in its original form was first produced by The Independent Theatre Collective in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 2010. The play was subsequently produced the following year by The Curan Repertory Company at the American Theatre of Actors in New York, as part of its Notes From The Underground Festival.

The popularity of the ten-minute play has risen exponentially over the past 15 years and is now the dominant format in most short play festivals, so it will be interesting to see how this further reduced configuration fares.

A sketch or a skit, of course, can be as short as the writer chooses, but in order to be considered a work of drama, a ten-minute play has to conform to certain rules. It has to have a substantive story, it needs an identifiable beginning, middle and end, and it has to engage and involve its audience within a very short space of time. The challenges of accomplishing that in half that time are clearly even more daunting, and so I very much look forward to reading the achievements of my fellow playwrights upon the book’s publication.