The NJACT NJ Perry Awards The good people at Maurer Productions OnStage have informed me that their production of Around the World in 80 Days has garnered seven eight Perry Awards nominations. Whoo hoo! Of course when they told me about the nominations I had never heard of the NJACT NJ Perry Awards. Turns out it's a pretty big deal. The Perry Awards are given for outstanding achievements in New Jersey Community Theater. The awards are a wing of The New Jersey [...]
Pendragon Theatre I got an email the other day from an old friend of mine and sent this picture with the caption, "Where I am today." I'm not sure if he lost a bet but I was glad he was there. Bucolic Lake Saranac. Turns out it was a production of Around the World in 80 Days at the Pendragon Theatre in "It's So Far North It Might As Well Be Canada" Lake Saranac, NY. From reading a review of the [...]
Around the World With Long Beach Playhouse Long Beach Playhouse is in the midst of a lovely run of my play Around the World in 80 Days. Long Beach Playhouse is in the midst of a lovely run of my play Around the World in 80 Days. When I wrote the play, I wanted it to be a show that both adults and kids could enjoy. I grew up on the Marx Brothers and Monty Python, so I wanted to [...]
80 Days Rolls On (Thank God) The Alley Theatre in Houston, TX recently closed its amazingly successful run of my play Around the World in 80 Days. (Directed by my dear friend Mark Shanahan. He likes it when I mention him). It's always sad to see a run come to an end. Fortunately I have more productions this month. Long Beach Playhouse Port Gamble Theatre Company in Port Gamble, WA is producing Around the World in 80 Days April 1 [...]
Take the Tom Jones Song Poll, Please So Paul Mirkovich are a little over halfway with recording demos for our new show Tom Jones the Musical. Paul has gone back to work on The Voice so it'll be awhile before we can sit down again in the studio. In the meantime, in order to help me out with which songs I should put on the Dramatic Publishing website, could you please take this poll? Thanks so much for helping me [...]
The Making of Tom Jones [embedplusvideo height="360" width="669" editlink="http://bit.ly/1Xovyvk" standard="http://www.youtube.com/v/puUnDk8P2P8?fs=1" vars="ytid=puUnDk8P2P8&width=669&height=360&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=" id="ep8316" /] My good friend Paul Mirkovich and I are in the midst of recording songs for our new musical Tom Jones, based on the novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding. Not based on Tom Jones the Welsh singer. Writing songs always scares me. It's a bit out of my comfort zone. I never know if they're good or plain old crap. I felt [...]
Tom Jones - The Musical The other day I wrote about how my friend Paul Mirkovich and I are recording mock-up demos for our musical Tom Jones. It's been a long time in the making and I'm excited to finally record the songs. The plan is to do these mock-ups so Paul's band can hear them and then we'll record with the band. The idea we've come up with is to keep the story in the 1600s but with modern [...]
So there I am in St. Thomas, as one is want to do in January, leafing through a tourist guide book. I'm reading about the best places to get a Rolex, a brief history of the Virgin Islands, and then I get to the calendar of events. And here's what I see. December 18 - 20 Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. What!? I don't know if I'm more excited to have a production in St. Thomas or that I made it [...]
Ocean State Theatre Hits 80 Days Out of the Park The good folks at Ocean State Theatre are killing it with their production of Around the World in 80 Days. “Mark Brown’s ingenious adaptation of the Jules Verne novel for the stage is a delight on stage in Warwick!” Ingenious? I like this reviewer already. My good friend Minita Gandhi is playing Aouda. This is her second time around with the show. A two-timer, as I like to call her. She [...]
The Season for The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge Now that Halloween has come and gone, it's time to turn our attention to the ultimate holiday season of the year. That time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. And what better way to celebrate that glorious time than with a copy of my play The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. Start a new tradition by gathering the family by the fireplace and reading the play out loud. Your family will delight [...]
