I have a humble (if, on the surface, rather radical) suggestion to make to the playwrights who read my TheatreFace blog: stop submitting your work right now.

Okay: that's the attention-getting opener. What I really mean to suggest is that you consider drastically reducing the number of plays you'll submit and the number of places to which you'll submit them. Reducing them, I should say, to as close to zero as you can stomach.

There are two reasons for this: one of them…

Not long ago, my wife and I attended a performance at a mid-sized (but growing) theater not too far from our home. It's a company we visit fairly frequently, not only because we have dear friends on staff, but also because we admire so much of what they do. We had a fine evening -- the story was well-told, the theater was quite hospitable, and we even won a bottle of wine from a drawing at intermission. Not bad.

A few days later -- by which time, given the ordinarily busy run of our…

So, I've been back from Humana now for several days, and a few days' distance is giving me a new perspective on the experience... as a few days' distance is wont to do for almost everything.

(My posts from the festival, in case you missed them, are here and here.)

One thing that's sticking with me is the…

In one way, Humana is just like every other conference in the world: there's simply no way to take advantage of every opportunity. Last night I was up till 2am chatting with colleagues, so this morning, after an inadequate amount of sleep, I really had to hustle to make it to breakfast in time. Me, three bites of eggs, a glass or orange juice, and an actor from the cast of HOW WE GOT ON, who was also running late: it was a typical meal.



The food was still barely in my stomach when…