One more week to check out BRAHMAN/I: A ONE HIJRA STAND-UP COMEDY ROUTINE!

I've spent the last month working on this weird, wonderful, and utterly hilarious play about an Intersex Indian-American stand-up comic, directed by my incredible wife and also starring my dear friend Aila Peck. It plays through the end of the month in Ithaca, NY, and it's an educational and entertaining look at gender, colonialism, and love. Seriously — even if I didn't have to sit there with a bass every night, I'd still think it was a worthwhile experience for everyone. Here's a peek:

I also chatted with Chris Heddon on WHCU 95.9 The Arts Beat.

It was supposed to be an interview about the show, but took some wildly entertaining turns into dancing death bunnies, the nature of mythophysics, and of course, Journey.

Here's the edited, Brahman/i-centric clip:

And here's the even more ridiculous full interview about, well, everything:

"GIMME INDIE ROCK!": The Simple Comforts of A Future Perfect

A Future Perfect is a brand new play by Ken Urban about indie rockers in their 30s dealing with marriage, careers, babies, and of course, rock and roll. The show is currently receiving its world premiere in Boston with SpeakEasy Stage Company, and if you're anything like me — that is, the creative indie rock type somewhere between the age of 24 and 45 trying to find a balance between still doing what you love and living some semblance of an "adult" life without explicitly selling out and/or turning boring — there's a good chance that this show might hit that sweet spot for you. It has all the charm and humor of a great indie movie (like The Happy Sad, also by Ken Urban and currently available on Netflix), along with a fantastic soundtrack featuring the likes of Pavement, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Smiths, Dinosaur Jr., etc. etc.

In short, it's pretty fantastic. 

Then again, I might be biased. After all, the show is directed by my partner, M. Bevin O'Gara, and I also did some music and video projection work for the show myself (in addition to the sound design by Nathan Leigh). So I mean — sure, if you want to put it that way, I guess I would be biased. But it's also an incredibly touching story about friendship, adulthood, and not losing sight of the things that you believe in. Even without the personal connections, that still hits pretty close to home for me.

A Future Perfect runs tonight through February 7 at the Calderwood Pavilion in the South End (there's also a Pay-What-You-Can performance this coming Sunday, Jan. 11). If you're reading this, you'll like it. Trust me.

Also there's puppets.

Performances, Publications, Panels, and More!

There's lots going on at Camp Thom Dunn (is there ever not?); and so, I interrupt your regularly scheduled weird nerd pop culture discoveries & progressive political rantings to, ya know, talk about myself for a minute.

• As previously mentioned, my play True Believers is now available for purchase through Indie Theater Now, and you should totally go buy it, because it only costs $1.29, so why the hell not? (I'm also considering making the script available through Amazon's self-publishing portal, if there's demand for it, even though I do have some ethical issues with Amazon as a company. But dammit if they're not cheap and convenient)
   
• I will be returning to rock the Mortified Boston Christmas show on Friday, December 19 at Oberon in Harvard Square. Tickets are $15 and they're going fast, so hurry up if you want to see me play some really, really, really bad and embarrassing songs I wrote in high school! Which obviously you do.
   
• My words will grace the stage for the third consecutive year in the Boston One-Minute Play Festival (#OMPF). The festival is the brainchild of Dominic D'Andrea, who produces these little bursts in most major cities across the country. It's a fun night — as writers, we're not really given any prompts other than "60 seconds, one page, MAX," so it's neat to see what kind of thematic patterns emerge through that. It's a neat way to gauge the temperature of a city, and the topics that consume its collective consciousness. My two scripts will be directed by Stephanie LeBolt and Hatem Adell, and they'll be performed on Monday and Tuesday, January 5 & 6, at Boston Playwrights Theater.
   
• I'm also excited to announce that I'll be featured on a whole bunch of panels this year at Arisia, Boston's largest and most diverse science fiction & fantasy convention, January 17 — 20 at the Westin Boston Waterfront. Here's where you can find me (when I'm not at the bar or in bed, I mean):
  • Neurodiversity in SF/F — Saturday @ 11:30am in Marina 2
  • DC Comics on the Small Screen — Saturday @ 5:30pm in Marina 2
  • Behind the Bristol boards: Comics as  Profession — Saturday @ 7pm in Marina 4
  • We Know (Philip K.) Dick — Sunday @ 10am in Marina 2
  • Superman & Religion — Sunday @ 11:30am in Burroughs
  • Story Autopsy — Sunday @ 2:30pm in Alcott
  • The Medium & The Message — Sunday @ 5:30pm in Hale
  • Writing & Racial Identity — Monday @ 1pm in Hale
     
• AND SPEAKING OF COMICS! I have 2 more comics coming out through Grayhaven Press — one is a story in their Science Fiction anthology, and the other is a super villain story featured in their "You Are Not Alone" anti-bullying anthology. Both comics will feature art by my buddy Dave Ganjamie, and he and I particularly pumped to actually have some comics going on, after talking about it for the last couple of years. I'm not sure when these comics will actually be published, as I'm currently working on the scripts, but of course, and let you know and link to 'em when they are.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dave Ganjamie

Oh yeah, and then after all that stuff's done, I'm getting married, but ya know, that's a minor event.

Good News For True Believers! (the play, I mean. I guess the people, too)

Two, count 'em, TWO  big announcements about everyone's favorite geek culture serio-comedy theatrical romp (that being True Believers, which I wrote): 

• I have officially signed a digital publishing contract with the wonderful people at Indie Theater Now, an online extension service of the New York Theatre Experience, Inc. that presents, promotes, and preserves new American plays in script form. The full script will be up soon (possibly along with some of my other plays?), but for now, you can check out my playwright profile, anyway.
   
• True Believers will be receiving another public play reading in New York City, this time with the fine folks at Animus Theatre. It's the season kick-off for their 2014-2015 New Play Reading Series, so if you're in or around the New York area, please come check it out! The reading will place this coming Monday, October 27 at Bunga's Den on W 14th Street in Manhattan beginning at 7:30pm. So BE THERE, or make your own Hipster Slave Leia or Steampunk Jesus costume for Halloween.

And if for some reason you found your way to this website / blogpost and have no idea what I'm talking about, well, you're in luck, because I've got a whole section of my website dedicated to True Believers, complete with script samples, production photos, reviews, and more.

For the Cyborg Head of Stan Lee!

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Zach Winston as Billy cosplaying Galactus.

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Rachel Katherine Alexander as Chloe cosplaying Slave Leia with a hoodie, 'cause it's cold.

Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise Dhaoibh!

(that's "Happy New Years" in Irish, 'natch)

It's a busy end to the Holiday Season, with back-to-back-to-back celebrations, but here's a quick update on some things. First, a little New Years poem I wrote over at Five By Five Hundred about 2012's significant lack of jetpacks. I also wrote a little blog / essay about my brain as a writer entitled "Less Talk, More Rock" for the Boston One Minute Play Festival, which is this coming weekend, January 5-7, at Boston Playwrights Theatre, and features two short plays that I wrote. I have very specifically avoided rehearsals, so I'm excited to see what's going to come out of the little bits of text I wrote. If you're interested but unavailable to make it to the show, the 8pm performance on Sunday, January 6 will be streamed live on HowlRound's NewPlay TV, so you can watch the whole thing from the comfort of your laptop.

That's all for now; see you in The Future!

One Minute Play Festival!

This year, I had the honor of being asked to contribute two plays to the annual One Minute Play Festival, and I have to say, writing a one minute play is a much bigger challenge than you'd expect it to be. The festival hits the stage in January, and I'll share information about the performances when I have it. In the meantime, I posted one of the plays as my weekly post over at Five By Five Hundred, so you can check it out there. Generally speaking, these plays are meant to be open-ended vehicles for the director, more than a chance for the writer to show his stuff, but I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out.

"The Call" at FiveByFiveHundred.com

Betrayal Begins

We just started rehearsals today (well, rehearsals in Boston; there were a few preliminary days of tablework in NYC) for our upcoming production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, one of his most highly regarded plays. The show runs November 9 - December 9 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre, under the direction of Maria Aitken aka the mom of the director on SMASH aka the lady from A Fish Called Wanda aka fucking Maria Aitken. Anyway, here's a video I made of our Artistic Director Peter DuBois talking about the production:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOhQBRYb-So&w=485&h=273]

True Believers Updates, Part I

Okay. Breathe. We just made it through opening weekend of True Believers, which saw mostly packed houses and very responsive audiences (and only a few technical malfunctions that hopefully no one noticed but me). All in all, I'd say it's going well so far! We'll just have to wait and see what the critics have to say about it. In the meantime, here's a little interview I did with Jacqui Bryant, a local Boston entertainment blogger, about the show. Full disclosure: I thought she was writing an article, not posting the full interview transcription, so some of my answers, uh, well, they go on for quite a while (I wanted to give her a lot of information to pull from!)

We also got a nice shout out in the print & online version of DigBoston / The Weekly Dig:

Now, you might assume this unconventionally comedic play (penned by local playwright and Emerson College alum Thom Dunn, go Lions etc.) chronicling the interactions between conventional comic convention-types—aspiring artists, single-minded fanboys, haute couturecosplayers and so on—would be a tad nerdy. You would be right. Some World’s Greatest Detective stuff, that is. But just how nerdy are we talking? Try “Cyborg Head of Stan Lee” nerdy. Yes, that’s a kind of nerdy. The “most” kind.

Ha. Thanks, guys (I think...)

Opus Affair, a social group for young professional interested and involved in the arts in around the Boston area, also highlighted the show in their "On the Town" weekly roundup, praising it with favorable comparisons to both Closer and Magic Mike (both of which I assume were intended as compliments though I'm not entirely sure...)

Anyway, stay tuned, True Believers, for more updates, including production photos and...The Cyborg Head of Stan Lee!

I'm Back Now, And I Brought T-Shirts For Everybody!

I have a confession to make. I didn't really bring t-shirts for everybody. Although I do have these sweet new business cards! So that's cool, right? I know I've been slacking (again) lately (again) with keeping this website updated with all of my various doin's. But it's not like I've not been not doing things (...or is it?)! Instead, I've just been too busy doing things to, ya know, write about doing things. It's kind of why I hate meetings in general, because I'd rather be doing things, than talking about doing things. So this website's kind of like a meeting then. Except I don't hate it; in fact, I quite love my little website here. So really, not like a meeting at all.

(shut up Thom) Okay so here's a brief rundown of where the hell I've been:

• My very short play, Stumped, was performed as part of a staged reading series to celebrate Company One's production of Hookman.
• My debut comic book story, Not Dead Yet, finally saw print in GrayHaven Comics' sci-fi anthology, The Fifth Dimension! Also the first printing already sold out, which means maybe someday you'll be able to sell that shit on eBay for like $20 (but probably not)
• I did a totally awesome article for Quirk Books comparing Samuel Beckett (the playwright) to Sam Beckett (the time traveling protagonist from Quantum Leap) and it was totally awesome. Don't believe me? Ask the former executive director of the American Theatre Wing!
• I also started doing some writing for Tor.com, with my first article being a roundup of great sci-fi/fantasy rock bands (so basically my two favorite things, combined. If only there was more beer!)
• We did another staged reading of my play True Believers as part of ImprovBoston's Geek Week celebration. It was really great to hear the play out loud in front of different kind of crowd, as it helps me figure out what kind of changes I need to make to the script before the world premiere this summer at the Factory Theatre (July 12 - 21! Get yer tickets while they're hot! Just kidding, they're not on sale yet). The lovely producing folks at Vagabond Theatre Group have a post up over at their website about the event so you can catch up on all the happening. There's also the first part of an instructional series about how to make your very own The Cyborg Head of Stan Lee, which actually comes a lot more in handy than you might think.
• Did I mention that I launched a new website for the Huntington, and that our world premiere production of The Luck of the Irish was extended, and sold out almost every night? For being, ya know, "just my day job" or whatever, sometimes it keeps me pretty busy as well.
• Plus Cupcake! So many things, so very busy with this wonderfully little world-premiere-musical-that-could. We raised $6,000 in our Kickstarter campaign (we were going for $3,750...whoops!), and we were the featured show this past Friday on Goldstar. You may have seen some of my sexy posters around town as well (just don't tell Grant that I photoshopped his arm a bit...) Previews start this Thursday, May 10!
• AND, to top it all off, I've only got like 50 pages left to read in Infinite Jest (finally! Jesus God this book is epic), so I'm gonna go finish that right now and hopefully conquer my crippling fear (no pun intended) of paraplegic Quebecers.

A Love Story for Grownups

In the marketing copy, we've been calling BEFORE I LEAVE YOU "a love story for grownups" — but what does that even mean? Sure, it's a play about old people. Or at least, it's a play about characters, most of them happen to be transitioning from middle aged to old aged. Playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro play tells a beautiful, seldom told middle-age love story with the freshness and smart sensibility of a young independent filmmaker. While the characters might be older, the humor and the heart of the story are for everyone. I spoke with the cast, director, and playwright about this idea of age that permeates the play, and how we can all relate to it. The world premiere of BEFORE I LEAVE YOU at the Huntington runs through November 13 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfHYN9ORB8k&w=500&h=284]

Behind the scenes of Before I Leave You

This season at the Huntington, we're trying to take a slightly different approach to our video content, this time creating more small and focused "featurettes" instead of one longer, all-encompassing piece about each show (mainly because people have no attention span for 6 minute videos, and this way we can more in). The first up is a series of interviews with Before I Leave You playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, director Jonathan Silverstein, and the rest of the cast, explaining the story and themes of this new Boston-based world premiere. Enjoy! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDhFKQuZiY&w=500&h=284]

True Believers Facebook Contest

As mentioned before, my new play, True Believers, will be receiving a workshop production as part of the Berkshire Fringe Festival. I'll spend two intensive weeks in the Berkshires, writing and re-writing, before the public workshop on August 13. Here's the elevator pitch for the play to get you interested:

The heartfelt lives of starcrossed lovers, psychotic fanboys, aspiring comic book writers, cybernetically enhanced humans, and girls who dress like Princess Leia all intertwine over a whirlwind Comic-Con weekend.

(Also, part of the play is set in WORLD OF WARCRAFT. Like, the actual scenes play out within the world of WORLD OF WARCRAFT, when they're not otherwise taking place on the convention floor. Totally cool, right? I'm brilliant)

To get everyone excited about the smörgåsbord of events going on at the Berkshire Fringe Festival (as if True Believers somehow weren't exciting enough on its own), they're holding a Facebook contest to get you extra pumped. One lucky winner will walk away with a $100 cash prize, a season pass to the Berkshire Fringe Festival, and — AND — a snazzy t-shirt. (because we can all use more free snazzy t-shirts, amirite?)

You can read the detailed contest instructions over at the Berkshire Fringe website. Win that money, use it to buy me a beer, and come check out True Believers on August 13!

Fancy Backyard Bohemian Play Readings (plus beer)

Last night, we held a small reading (well, okay, it's a fairly large cast, but there was audience, so whatever) of my new play True Believers, at the Westerly Street Theatre Company and BrewPub. Also known as My Backyard. Clearly of all of my neighbors were quite impressed by the psuedo-Bohemian lifestyles of me and my friends read plays and drank homebrewed beer. Did I mention that True Believers is a play about Comic-Con, and includes cyborgs, girls dressed as Princess Leia, and scenes that take place entirely in WORLD OF WARCRAFT? Okay, so maybe we're less Boheme, more Geek Chic. I'm cool with that.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the reading; everyone had great feedback to share, and the response helped to get me even more excited for workshopping the play as part of the Berkshire Fringe Festival in August (during which there will be a public staged reading of the play, featuring professional actors and directors. Not that my friends aren't professional actors/director [which, some of them are! No, really.], but they're also, well, my friends, and I know them).

Stay tuned (for more information on) True Believers!

Writing, Writing Everywhere, and Not a Drop To Read

I have to apologize for the radio silence here at ThomDunn.net over the last few weeks. Layne Anderson, a close friend and former roommate of mine, passed away unexpectedly on April 7^th, and as much as I've kept up with everything (well, almost everything), time has been rather a blur. I've chronicled the situation as impersonally as possible over at FiveByFiveHundred.com in two posts — Shark Grief, about my own grieving process, and iWake, which as entirely fictional account of a some inappropriate gallows humor inspired by the situation of which Layne would have most certainly approved. Meanwhile, this week's entry steps away from the morbidity and explores the quantum mechanics of one night stands as interpreted through Bell's Theorem, using the Shrödinger's Cat experiment as a proof. Hopefully, that sounds ridiculous (and ridiculously intriguing) enough for you to check out Shrödinger's Cat Call, also over at FiveByFiveHundred.com.

Also in the last two weeks, we've officially opened Sons of the Prophet at the Huntington, which is then moving to the Roundabout Theatre Company Off-Broadway in the Fall. Plus, I did some filming for Art & Design of the 20^th & 21^st Centuries and the Boston Print Fair, did a small reading of my new play, True Believers (which is set at a Comic Book Convention and features a cameo by the Cyborg Head of Stan Lee, among other things), and started rehearsals and arrangements for my (wait for it) all-male hard rock Lady Gaga tribute band, Alejandro & the Fame, which is going to be every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. Come check us out on May 20^th at the afterparty for Propeller Theatre Company's all-male production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Huntington's B.U. Theatre.

Woo. Okay. I think that's it. Tune in next week for your regularly scheduled programming.

Sons of the Prophet Teaser Trailer

Check out this brand new teaser trailer that I created for Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet, which is having it's world premiere at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston before moving to the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York later in the year. Also, featuring Joanna Gleason, who totally won the Tony Award for the Best Actress for the original production of Into the Woods! Ya know, if you're into that kind of thing.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2hLIVECji8&w=500&h=311]

And in case you were wondering, the deer's name is Bruce.