OT: AFLIC @ The Bad Theater Festival
Hey all!
I have some really exciting news, and an interesting story to share as well.
Six years ago, I went to Durham School of the Arts in Durham, North Carolina. My experience there was by and large less than pleasant. It was a terrible time in my life, but one where I was literally writing and directing constantly to avoid a state of constant depression. I left DSA halfway through my sophomore year of high school because I was so unhappy there, and I was feeling incredibly creatively limited.
However, I had two friends there named Liz Bynum and Rachel Atkinson, and at the time--2007--Juno had just come out, and somehow, Liz and Rachel got this idea to write a bizarre parody of it and jumped on the bandwagon. The result of that parody is called "AFLIC", or "Awkward Fornication Leading To Immaculate Conception". It's about a girl named Bernie who falls in love with Chip, a gay guy, and decides that she is going to carry his child. The play is narrated by a play of legs, and Bernie's mother, Carol, is completely insane and is convinced she is Mother Goose. Anyway--the play is kind of a mess. We fought a lot during this process and it essentially ruined my friendship with them. I never spoke to Rachel and Liz again after I left DSA.
Fast forward six years later, and I am a senior in college. I get a notification during 31/31 that the Bad Theater Festival is looking for submissions. Although my submission was rejected from them last year, I figured I'd give it another shot. So I dug through some of my old abandoned plays, and what do I find but "AFLIC"--a play that time simply forgot. I re-read what we had written and immediately was tearing laughing. The show is truly bizarre, clunky and makes little to no sense--and is just the result of a couple of teenagers experimenting with form. But the thing is, while it's kindof "bad" it's actually kindof brilliant. So without hesitation, I emailed it over to them half-expecting to get rejected again.
But then I got an email a few weeks later, and as fortune would have it...we got in!
So anyway fast-forward a bit, I get in touch with Rachel and Liz again after six years and I have decided to colloborate with one of my good friends and favorite directors, Drew Weinstein, to bring this piece to life. I still can't believe I'm getting a New York debut as a playwright, and that this play--out of all the plays I've written--is getting staged, when we were all certain that this play died in 2007.
The moral of the story is NEVER DELETE YOUR OLD DRAFTS. Sometimes some of your old drafts are actually not terrible and are totally worth revisiting. You never know when the opportunity may arise to pull one out and polish it up. You never know, man....
Anyway we're premiering on November 1st at 5pm at the Treehouse Theater in NYC. We'll be putting up a kickstarter soon - we need money!!!
I'm thrilled to embark on this journey, and to share this wacky piece of theatre with the world, and by the world, I mean a very small percentage of the NYC Theatre Community.
Xoxoxo
Sean
I have some really exciting news, and an interesting story to share as well.
Six years ago, I went to Durham School of the Arts in Durham, North Carolina. My experience there was by and large less than pleasant. It was a terrible time in my life, but one where I was literally writing and directing constantly to avoid a state of constant depression. I left DSA halfway through my sophomore year of high school because I was so unhappy there, and I was feeling incredibly creatively limited.
However, I had two friends there named Liz Bynum and Rachel Atkinson, and at the time--2007--Juno had just come out, and somehow, Liz and Rachel got this idea to write a bizarre parody of it and jumped on the bandwagon. The result of that parody is called "AFLIC", or "Awkward Fornication Leading To Immaculate Conception". It's about a girl named Bernie who falls in love with Chip, a gay guy, and decides that she is going to carry his child. The play is narrated by a play of legs, and Bernie's mother, Carol, is completely insane and is convinced she is Mother Goose. Anyway--the play is kind of a mess. We fought a lot during this process and it essentially ruined my friendship with them. I never spoke to Rachel and Liz again after I left DSA.
Fast forward six years later, and I am a senior in college. I get a notification during 31/31 that the Bad Theater Festival is looking for submissions. Although my submission was rejected from them last year, I figured I'd give it another shot. So I dug through some of my old abandoned plays, and what do I find but "AFLIC"--a play that time simply forgot. I re-read what we had written and immediately was tearing laughing. The show is truly bizarre, clunky and makes little to no sense--and is just the result of a couple of teenagers experimenting with form. But the thing is, while it's kindof "bad" it's actually kindof brilliant. So without hesitation, I emailed it over to them half-expecting to get rejected again.
But then I got an email a few weeks later, and as fortune would have it...we got in!
So anyway fast-forward a bit, I get in touch with Rachel and Liz again after six years and I have decided to colloborate with one of my good friends and favorite directors, Drew Weinstein, to bring this piece to life. I still can't believe I'm getting a New York debut as a playwright, and that this play--out of all the plays I've written--is getting staged, when we were all certain that this play died in 2007.
The moral of the story is NEVER DELETE YOUR OLD DRAFTS. Sometimes some of your old drafts are actually not terrible and are totally worth revisiting. You never know when the opportunity may arise to pull one out and polish it up. You never know, man....
Anyway we're premiering on November 1st at 5pm at the Treehouse Theater in NYC. We'll be putting up a kickstarter soon - we need money!!!
I'm thrilled to embark on this journey, and to share this wacky piece of theatre with the world, and by the world, I mean a very small percentage of the NYC Theatre Community.
Xoxoxo
Sean
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