TOM'S BLOG

MY YEAR
IN
REVIEW

2025: A Year of Stage, Screen, and Service Dogs

As 2025 comes to a close, I’m looking back at a landmark year for my playwriting portfolio and screenwriting career. It has been a twelve-month journey of creative growth, Off-Broadway development, and award-winning independent film premieres.

From the New York theater scene to NJ film festivals, here are the highlights of my professional journey.

The Rise of BARKLEE: From Script to Off-Broadway Development

My full-length play, BARKLEE, reached major milestones this year. Inspired by a true New Jersey legal case regarding service dog rights in schools, this narrative explores disability advocacy through a sharp, comedic lens.

Off-Broadway Development: I was honored to have BARKLEE selected for the AMT Theater 2025 Main Stage Development Program in NYC—a premier platform for new contemporary plays.
AEA 29-Hour Staged Reading: Following a successful development cycle, we held a high-profile Equity Staged Reading on October 14, 2025, at the AMT Theater.
Creative Collaborations: The project continues to evolve under the direction of Steven Ditmyer and features a powerhouse performance by Vincent Piazza (Tulsa King, Boardwalk Empire), who brings life to our wisecracking title character.

THE CHOCA: World Premiere at the NJ One-Act Play Festival

Back in my home state, my short play THE CHOCA celebrated its World Premiere. Produced by the Dragonfly Multicultural Arts Center in Plainfield, NJ, the piece was a featured selection at the New Jersey One-Act Play Festival, highlighting local voices in the Tri-State theater community.

Award-Winning Screenplays & Film Festival Success

2025 was a prolific year for my work in independently produced films and international screenplay competitions:

Best Comedy Win: My film THE O.G.S. took home top honors at the MMM (Music, Movies, Mic Drop) Festival in Hanover, PA.
Short Documentary Premiere: I made my directorial debut with FRANNY’S COOKIES, winning Best Long Short Film at the 2025 Krampus Holiday Film Festival in Asbury Park. It also screened at the AMT International Film Festival in New York City.
Acclaimed Screenplay "BEDBUGGERS": My drama screenplay BEDBUGGERS—a Fade In Awards Grand Prize winner—continued its festival run as a:
- Finalist: Mystic Film Festival (CT) & Hot Springs Screenplay Competition (AR).
- Semi-Finalist: New Faces New Voices, New York New Stories, and Chicago Script Awards.
- Honorable Mention: Hayden Films Screenwriting Competition.

Professional Memberships

Tom became a member of the 2025 La Mama Umbria International Playwright Retreat in Spoleto, Italy under the guidance of Master Playwright, Dael Orlander-Smith. Cavanaugh also became a member of the Playwright Director Workshop at The Actors Studio in New York CIty.

He remains an active member of:

· The Actors Gym

· Naked Angels Theatre Company

· New Ambassadors Theatre Company

· The Dramatists Guild of America

Looking Ahead to 2026

Thank you to the community of playwrights, filmmakers, and supporters who followed my journey on SUBSTACK and at live screenings.

Stay updated on my upcoming 2026 script submissions and production news at www.tommycwrites.com.

AUGUST 31, 2025

My short film, WHAT A TREASURE is

nominated for a Comedy Award at the

2025 ALL THE LAUGHS COMEDY AWARDS
in Atlanta, Georgia!
SEPTEMBER 26-28th
www.atlcomedyawards.com

AUGUST 7, 2025

As I pack my bags, a whirlwind of thoughts races through my mind. This will be my first time traveling alone in a foreign country, and I don't speak the language. I'm on a mission. I'll land in Rome, take a train to Termini Station, and walk to my hotel. After spending the night in Rome, I'll head back to the station and catch a train to Spoleto, Italy, in the Umbria region. There, I'll spend the next two weeks in workshops with the La Mama Theatre Company and the esteemed Master Playwright, Dael Orlandersmith. I'm filled with both excitement and anxiety.
Thankfully, I have a plethora of technical support to help me along the way. My phone is equipped with translator apps, and I have earbud translators ready to test out. I've packed a collapsible water bottle, AirTags for my luggage, a laptop, an iPad, an iPhone, a wireless Beats headset, a battery-operated fan to hang around my neck, a small portable air cooler, a thumb drive, and a portable disk drive with all my writing on it. Magellan didn't have this much capability when he circumnavigated the globe!
I've also bought a book of poetry about Spoleto, the town where I'll be staying, and I've watched several hours of interviews with Dael Orlandersmith. I can't wait to meet her, as I resonate deeply with everything she has discussed in her interviews.
This journey is an adventure within an adventure. Despite my Irish last name, I know very little about being Irish. I often tell people that I was "raised Sicilian" or "Mediterranean," but after many long nights of reflection and investigation, I've realized that I know even less about being Italian than I thought. The few Italian terms and sayings I know are Americanized versions developed here in the States. So, I'm not even speaking real Italian... I SPEAK MEATBALL!
We fly at night! My next update will hopefully be from my hotel room in Rome, not lost or mugged on the streets.
Ciao!

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August 8, 2025

DAY 1…. More like…. WTF… if this is world traveling…. I haven’t missed a F-en thing!

My flight started 8pm last night in Newark, the city I was born in…. I haven’t taken a “RED EYE” flight for over 20 years, but I was told for Europe, that’s how it’s done. It started off fine, but up in the air… the food was 1970’s airline meals so I passed on that… THEY DO NOT OFFER SNACKS, FLIGHT BOXES OR EVEN PEANUTS like they do on the “domestic” flights in the USA, so…
I passed on the meals and was prepared with 2 bags of unsalted cashews to chow down on… then…. I don’t know why… I can never get the wifi to work on my phone on UNITED so… no different. ALSO, I can’t charge the iPhone 16 because it’s an a plug and I have a C plug…. And no blue tooth link so I’m stuck using the complimentary ear buds and every movie sounds like they have a waterfall in the background, but I’m on a trip… grin and bear. I thought I was going to read 2 plays while on this 8 hour flight… when they go into sleep mode… it’s lights out… pitch black except for the screen…. And

I didn’t want to hit the reading lamp….so me and bad audio spent the night together.

Next morning they off breakfast sandwiches, but the fake eggs in that kills me, so I didn’t take it and downed a diet coke. I didn’t really sleep all night despite downing sudafed and well… I go off the plane and hit the airport…”a little cranky”

The airport is a dump and sooooo big that all I did was walk from assignment to assignment. Passport, to Baggage, to Customs with a train ride in the middle… and off to their train station, which all signage well makes, but makes sense, so I took a few unnecessary elevator rides.

Bought the ticket from the train from this station to Termini Station on the app. That was good cause all the trains were sold out, but I had to wait 2 hours to get on my train, the girl told me I could change the ticket, but my internet wasn’t working and the cafe was packed where I’d have to use their internet…so I sat there…. Waiting…. At least that train ride was okay, but still haven’t
eaten or used a bathroom cause even the mens room has a line around the block.

So I get out of this sh&thole and take a train to bigger dump called TERMINI!

Termini makes Penn Station NYC look like a country club. My hotel is a 2 min walk, but my GPS isn’t working. I get it to work and make my luggage ridden way to the hotel. Get up to my room and NO ELECTRICITY! Nothing works… I call the desk, you have
to put your key into a slot on the wall and the electricity turns on! WTF????

I need to charge my phone cause thanks to the modern world half my needed documents are in there and now… I have to use
the adapters to charge up… and the first adapter is so complicated I have to call my sainted pro traveler brother in New Jersey and he teaches me how do all this! Honestly, the third adapter I bought off Tik Tok and it’s everything they promised and worked waaaaay easier.

My poor brother listens to me and calms me down because I’m so on the next f-en plane ou too here! But he calms me and now
I have AC, water and charged phone. I get Pizza from the place next door and guess what… ALL THE HYPE is nothing but
HYPE! The pizza wasn’t better, than people were nice there, but you know what… F-ROME…it’s not great!

Hopefully this gets better… or I’ll be cutting this short and going home…. I don’t do things like this normally. My brother has been
a world traveller and lived abroad since he was a teen and he loves it, but for me…. This day sucked and I think ROME SUCKS!

Back to Termini in the morning and already I have an unheard of event that I have to get off the train 3 stops early and take a
BUS the rest of the way…. WHY? No one can tell me…. F this place! AND in contrast I’m watching my friends Tony, Matt and a bunch of High School kids in Italy at the same time and they’re having the time of their lives!

I think I went to the wrong ITALY!

Wish me luck!

AUGUST 9th, 2025

Day 2 - I wake up and that’s good… UNTIL!!!!!!

I stayed locked in my hotel room with the electricity on and the AC running all night… because “When in Rome”!

I wasn’t doing what the Romans were doing! They were all out having a good time and taking pictures and vids of them doing it. I know, I have Tik Tok, but I was too exhausted and scared to go out into this new place without all my senses. I slept in and ate the hotel buffet which was awesome and I felt better after filling up with proteins and 2 Diet Cokes. I was feeling myself again and got brave… I walked out of the hotel room.

I walked around the block!

I saw things.

Then after I breathed enough UN-conditioned air. I went back to my hotel room and prepped for the day. Mostly that meant over packing my luggage and checking out.

I walked across the street and back into the bowels of hell again… TERMINI STATION!

It’s a combo of indoor and outdoor design. In other words it’s LOUD AS HELL and HOT AS HELL all at the same time. I found the BIG BOARDS! The train boards with track listings and times and trains and…. It was almost normal. I have spent over 40 years of my life sometimes 7 days a week staring at the famous big boards in Penn Station NY. I know how to read the train boards, even if it’s in Italian.

My train gets posted 2 E.

I enter the mouth of the beast… the Termini Train Tracks. I go to the first worker I see. They have all been very helpful and have gotten me this far. I ask if this is for the right train and he points to TRACK 1…

But it says 2E

He says yeah, keep walking. So, I start walking down track 1 and this big beautiful train is rolling in and coming towards me…. I’m excited. It pulls up, and I get on board, but I notice the majority of people walking in front of me keep going and never stop, but that’s none of my business.

I’m on my train. I’m walking back to find a seat…. I end up in first class, but I don’t have that ticket, but I’ll pay for the STEP UP… but this ain’t NJ TRANSIT. There’s no step up paying and the conductor or what ever the F you call the in Italian says “Wrong train! This goes to Milan!”

He helps me get off the train. I ask “WHERE IS TRACK 2E” and he points to Track 2 which now is over a mile away…. And I only have 7 minutes to make it… I try to make it and when I get back to the original train guy that helped me… he says now… you have to walk to the very end of Track 1. That’s where 2 E is… so I do that and soon as a I get there the doors shut!

The train is locked up and I pound on the door like a pathetic version of Cary Grant in a Hitchcock movie, chasing Audrey Hepburn after a robbery in Paris or some Euro place that I’m hating now and yelling, in my best Cary Grant Accent, “HEY BUDDY! OPEN UP!”, but of course the conductor inside the trains looks at me with that Italian face as if to say, “I have a train to run, who cares about you?” And that’s when the train pulls away… leaving me standing on the platform in tears with 2 overstuffed suitcases and a totally deflated American attitude with none of “My Jersey” machismo left to carry me back into the old world.

I spend the next 10 minutes calling my brother and yelling “THAT’S IT! I’M COMING HOME! F-THIS BACKWARD ASS, SUCK JOB, MOTHER F-ING, SH&THOLE COUNTRY WHERE NOTHING MAKES SENSE AND NOTHING WORKS!

My brother is a world traveller since he was 15. He learned how to speak Spanish and French in Junior High School. Took both languages all through high school and got a degree in Linguistics from Georgetown University. He wouldn’t ever call himself a genius, but I would.

He’s brilliant with a beautiful soul. He talks me down from the next United flight. I buy another ticket and try again, but it says the same track assignment… 2 E.

This time, I am strategic and plant myself at the entrance in front of 2 with eyes on the most helpful train worker. She explains keep walking. GO FURTHER… and I’m seriously not lying when I say the walk was longer than two New York City blocks…. And 2E in American English is really

TRACK 1 E - The E either stands for END of the PLATFORM or E for END of the CITY!

I walk to this distant train and the conductor nods the same nod all the conductors nod when I ask, “IS THIS THE RIGHT TRAIN?” I think they train them to do that.

I get on, plant my luggage and take a seat. Texting my brother the whole time who is insisting “DON’T WORRY! WHERE EVER YOU END UP WE WILL GET YOU THERE!

The train leaves.

I ask the tattooed Italian brother sitting opposite me… TERNI, SPOLETO?

They smile and nod yes… just like the conductors did and I’m now convinced this is a scene from THE BODY SNATCHERS and they’re all POD PEOPLE!

I watch all the passengers… all the women are gorgeous. My fave part is listening to two black women, talking loud and in Italian, but the images and the loud voices made me think… “Oh yeah this like a NY Train ride… I’m okay”

The landscape is beautiful, but I’m too exhausted to appreciate it until on a hill, I say my first ruined castle or villa and the wake up call hits… I’m going to Umbria, but one more obstacle…

Some reason I have to get off a few stops early and take a bus to my destination… SPOLETO.

I begin to pray… “God, I’m in your land of The Pope… where it all started… I will do three Hail Marys and an Our Father if this bus is better than the train experience!

God must have answered my prayers because I get a message that there will be an INTERN there to get you on the bus

In Italy… GOD HEARS YOUR PRAYERS!

I meet RU and she’s wonderful and gets me on the bus and takes me the rest of the way… and it’s all wonderful! After the bus we meet Richard and he drives us to the La Mama Villa. He drives like me with the windows down in the summer heat and bumping 70’s disco songs and I’m thinking… damn found my tribe.

So we had a great tour of the place. I have this awesome room with a great young playwright. We share what they called an apartment and it’s great.

We meet DAEL ORLANDERSMITH and she’s as articulate and cool as I thought she would be… and I love that I cried 6 of her plays over 4000 miles to be here with us all… cause there’s like 30 cool, ass playwrights and theater makers here… and this is good.

And… I can breathe again… and

Maybe, Italy ain’t so bad!

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AUGUST 10th, 2025

Every morning we wake up and meet for breakfast at 8:30 in the cafe. Breakfast consists of mortadella, cheese, bread, butter cookies and espresso, I have to tell you a very delicious espresso made by RICHARD, the same cool dude that rolled up with a LA MAMA sign on his SUV, windows down and 70’s disco bumping!

We chat and eat and laugh… it’s wonderful to have so many playwrights all in the same place, supporting each other and not tearing down or competing against each other. This is the CORE DE ESPIRIT that I have in some groups in the states and definitely NOT in other groups, but here at La Mama it is MAGICAL!

After breakfast, at 9:30am we all meet with the Master Playwright. Today is my turn to work with her, DAEL ORLANDERSMITH and I have pages, and I bring my play to her and the group. The session starts with me and I ask “How do you want to do this? Should the actors stand or stay seated?”

Dael just looks at me and says, “Tell me what your play is about?” Do I panic? Do I look for answers? Do I make some shit up? Nope, None of that… I’m ready for this question… because my friend, mentor and teach BOBBY MORESCO has been asking me the same question for twenty years now!

I tell Dael and the room my story and in the middle… she asks me a more distinct, exact question about the characters… does this panic me…. NO… because Bobby has done that too for 20 years…. And I answer and she questions me again… and I answer and she questions me again…. And I LOVE THIS!

THIS IS THE PROCESS….

And these are THE QUESTIONS!

“THE QUESTIONS” as taught to me by Bobby Moresco go back to when TENNESSEE WILLIAMS handed ELIA KAZAN (Here’s my ACTORS STUDIO roots kicking him DEAN JAMES LIPTON would be so proud!) he hands KAZAN a first draft of the play CAMINO REALE, Kazan reads it and says to Williams, “THIS PLAY ISN’T READY YET. IT’S NOT READY FOR THE QUESTIONS”.

A play has to be so fine tuned that the playwright and the play have all the answers to every question the actors, directors, audience and any schmoe on the streets will ask!

When you can answer all the questions, not only is your play fine tuned, but you’ve run your words through all the steps of the process, your craft that you can and well… only just learning the value of this with a play… it’s okay to not have all the answers now, but eventually…. And I’m ready for this and I have answers… but I still don’t have em all on this little play and Dael even stops and asks “Is this too much?”

I answer like a prize fighter… “No, hit me, come HIT ME”.

We go round and round and Dael looks at me and asks “WHY DID YOU WANT TO WRITE THIS PLAY?”

I stop… I think about it… I can feel my emotions rising and because I know I am in a safe place with people I trust…

I feel like I rolled up the sleeves on my Tee-shirt and said…

“Okay, you want it…”

I start to cry… I try to talk, but my voice is gone… I can’t talk because of the tears, but I manage to get out “BECAUSE MY…”

I’m not gonna post my inner fears here… not because I’m afraid to, but because… these are some of my monsters right now… my inner demons… but I talk and I cry and DAEL looks at me and
Her face is different and she looks me in the eye and says…

“I think this is the play you really want to write!”

AND I NOD MY HEAD YES… and thank her…

And she moves on to the next playwright.

I have my answers and it’s lunch time.

We go to lunch. We eat. After lunch, I go back to my room and sit.. like I’m doing right now… at desk over looking this Italian Farm Valley in this ancient Italian Villa founded by a New York City theatre legend, and I write…

I finish by 6pm and dinner is at 8pm… and I have outlined, synopsis and logline… a new play and rewrite of the original play outline, synopsis and logline.

In the morning, I will have a meeting, one on one with DAEL ORLANDERSMITH and… I cannot wait.

THIS IS PLAYWRITING and I stand on the shoulders of many great teachers, and I am so thankful.

WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS
and
WE ARE THE DREAMERS OF THE DREAMS!

Ciao!

AUGUST 11th, 2025

I had the best sleep! I’m living in a room for 3 people, with 3 beds and I’m the only person in this bedroom and down the hall is another playwright and the bathroom. Amazing artwork on the walls and when I step out the glass double doors, there is a veranda with table for 4 and a view of the valley… and when it’s cool and silent in the morning… it’s perfect.

I sat in a chair on the veranda and just thought about life.

8:30 is breakfast and 9:30 is the playwriting workshop.

Dael Orlandersmith is my kind of playwright! Her plays YELLOWMAN and UNTIL THE FLOOD rocked my world!
UNTIL THE FLOOD is a living history play, where she Interviewed the real people of St Louis after the Michael Brown shooting. She questions the play and the unspeakable thoughts of people experiencing the truth of the situation and when I listened in interviews. She never passed judgement, she says no one knows what was in the mind of the cop that killed Michael Brown. I’m sure she takes heat on this, but the play… well this part made me tear up…

“I just keep going

Keep minding my business

Every day I pass that shrine to Michael Brown

I pass it every day

Every single day

And

I think that could be me

That really could’ve been me

That could have been my blood flowing on this street

And
I think

I got one more year to get out

Just One more year

Please god / let me get out of

Please God-don’t let that happen to me”

See the way it’s blocked out differently? The structure on the page is exactly the way Dael wants it to be. Dael’s a poet and a playwright and I hear and see the poetry when I read her work. MORE than anyone else. I love that.

YELLOWMAN is love. Domestic violence, growth and really explores what a person can be and what we all can be. It’s such a good play, but made her a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

But…

My all time favorite is her play BLACK N BLUE BOYS BROKEN MEN… five characters and all the writing packs punches, but when the Irish man, IAN, escapes his abusive father and leaves for London… I was cheering for him to get out… I couldn’t tell if he was gonna leave or not, but when he did… I wanted to applaud and I wasn’t watching it live… I was just reading it!

This is the MASTER PLAYWRIGHT we get to learn from and… I was an observer for the first half the class went up. Tomorrow I go up and I’m going to have pages read… I’m very nervous, but I know I’m in good hands. I’m trying something different, but I’m very passionate about this piece!

Wish me luck!

It’s been 95 in the afternoon and I just did not have it in me to do a 4 hour walking tour… I stayed at the villa and worked on two new plays I’m working on… and did you just read that? I liked the way it sounded… “I stayed at the villa and worked on two plays!”

La Mama Umbria is pretty magical and the people I talk to here are really talented and smart and…so many good plays are going to come out of this group…. And

I hope mine is one of em!

Cya!

"A PLAY IS STORY, CONFLICT & RESOLUTION"
-DAEL ORLANDERSMITH

AUGUST 15th, 2025

I’ve written plays in Hollywood, Cedar City, Utah, near the ocean in Cape May, New Jersey, and on the plains of Independence, Kansas, but I’ve never written a play in such a magical environment as the La Mama Villa in Umbria!

It’s not just because I have a great room in a 700 year old villa with great views, a great staff, amazing meals and water cooler machine that gives you hot, cold and SELTZER!

(Y’all know I have a soda addiction, Diet Coke and Diet Dr Pepper which I have not has since I left Rome… I’m going COLD TURKEY and my best friend that’s stopping the fiending craves is this machine!)

I have worked in many Playwright Festivals and Symposium, but this one… man… 24 talented, interesting, accomplished and hard working writers, lead by Master Playwright, DAEL ORLANDERSMITH!

Dael is inscredible! She asks the questions and pushes you to explore things in ways you never thought of with a logical and sincere approach that I’ve never seen! She asks the questions, but then logically connects the dots by examining characters past, but not just questioning… she just knows how to connect the dots better than anyone I have ever worked with and when it was my turn… she got me to a place where I came out with a new play. Maybe I was always there, but she showed me how to not be afraid of it and I needed that… even at this age… I’m still learning and connecting the dots.

Let me show you a day in the playwrights life at the Villa!

8:30 Breakfast and you ain’t had Espresso, until you’ve had an espresso from RICHARD in the La Mama Cafe! Along with hard boiled eggs, Motadella, Ham, Turkey, Bread, Biscuits, Fruits, Cereals and more…. And you meet up with all the playwrights and talk a little shop!

9:30 you climb the hill and enter hall where you either grab a chair or a yoga matte and the Master Playwright leads their class. We’re talking playwrighting and Dael Orlandersmith goes around the room, first talking to each playwright and seeing what they’re working on or finding out what they want to be working on and then, next thing you know thee hours is up and it’s lunch.

Lunch is 1:00 and it’s another religious experience! Fresh pasta dishes, Italian Farm to Table hot dishes, a meat dish, fresh tomatoes and other side dishes. Wine and Seltzer flows!

The rest of the day, you might have a one on one session with the Master Playwright, tour the area, hit the pool or take a nap… and there’s always writing… lots and lots of writing.

Below are some sightseeing and villa pics… it’s an amazing, magical experience, especially for someone that loves playwriting as much as I do!

I’m gonna miss seeing everyone here daily… it’s been that good!

AUGUST 17th, 2025

We start our final 24 hours in the house that ELLEN STEWART built. Our last day in the 700 year old villa known as, LA MAMA UMBRIA INTERNATIONAL. I’m watching the sunrise on the ancient Italian valley outside the glass of the double doors that open to a stoned porch with stoned walls with flowers and green trees following… and am I sad? Will I miss it? Will I miss everyone? YEAH, OF COURSE, but just past the sadness is an energy, a life force, that I can tell you… I did NOT have before I walked on to this property and it’s not from the ancient Italian rocks or the eclectic collections of art and instruments. It’s not from all the good food that was poured into us from chef and the staff, even though it’s the best food I’ve ever eaten on a daily basis in my life! It’s not from all that.

It’s from the people!

It’s from the staff!

It’s from the twenty-five PLAYWRIGHTS!

Twenty-five PLAYWRIGHTS from all over the world that have all been living under one roof, taking their meals together as a community, seeing the sights of Italy in groups together, and exposing their lives, their vulnerabilities and their hearts through plays, monologues, songs and just conversations in studio or over meals or in moments just sitting next to each other on a bench or a rocking chair… and having someone listen and not pass judgement. Not only did these international playwrights do this, but our leader, our teacher, our mentor and inspiration, did this right by our side, every step of the way.

I’ve never experienced any of this ever before and probably won’t ever again!

I emphasize that this journey was experienced by a collection of PLAYWRIGHTS because this is not a gathering of your average citizens! The great, American playwright, Romulus Linney once told me, “You can always tell the playwrights in a group, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a bar or classroom, the playwright is the one, off to the side, silent and chewing on the furniture!”

Our minds are almost always somewhere else! We’re thinking of stories and plot points and dialogue, where it should go and how it should sound and “I’ll add that when I get home!”

So, for two weeks now, this was home and we weren’t the only PLAYWRIGHT in the house!

My friend and producing partner, Chuck Parker in Los Angeles once told me, “You have chosen two of the most lonely professions.” Referring to writing and police dispatching, but the truth is I didn’t choose them, they chose me and for a long time, I was the only one walking this road. I was blessed with a loving family that supports me still to this day, but I’m always alone in a room, staring at a screen, trying to figure out the lives of other people on and off the page. Even in the police dispatch world, I’ve been alone like this.

We have lived in this this house, created our stories and learned about our craft, ourselves and more important have learned about the lives and crafts of the other playwrights in the room, in the house… and you know what…

THEY GET ME!

No one here asked “What’s wrong?” When I was sitting off to the side in my own thoughts.

No one here suggested stop writing and get a “real job”.

No one here told me I couldn’t write for people of color, women or any other person in a life that I didn’t live.

No one did that here.

I’ve never had an experience like this and I do these similar kind of gatherings all the time. I’ve never had the teacher, the Master Playwright sit down to a meal with us and open a bottle of wine as we played songs on our iPhones or talked about writing or their world and our world and the things and people we’ve known… I’ve never had a Master Playwright in these gatherings, treat us the way we were treated here… This time we were treated like a comrade in arms and we were all part of the theater world and we we are all doing the work.

My fave part were the daily gatherings in a dance studio where we all gathered and read our stories or talked about our stories or revealed the truthfulness of our stories. All playwrights were questioned… and you don’t always have to answer. I’ve been working like this for over 30 years, but here it was different. Here not only did you feel the challenge to be the best story teller you could be, but here… you came out of the session with answers and directions. Here I never walked out wondering “WHAT DID THE TEACHER MEAN?”

You know you hit what I call “Pay Dirt” when DAEL ORLANDERSMITH has this look combined with a small smile and eyes sparkling and focussed and she says “THAT’S THE PLAY YOU WANT TO WRITE” or “THAT’S YOUR STORY!” I watched that happen many times in that room and I had that happen twice. I am coming home with two new plays started that I will work on over the next year and I’m so excited.

My fave part in all these things is when we meet in SALON. An informal gathering, usually late night, organized by the talented, fellow playwright, LAUREN BROWNE where we have work read and we applaud, praise and encourage with critiques on how to make the work better… playwrights with other playwrights… I love these sessions!

The playwrights… most from New York, lots from other states in the U.S., others from all over the world and some from here in Italy. I can’t tell you the names of places because I know them by their stories… the comic with the (You know what? I was going to post little anonymous snippets of their stories here, little descriptions that you would know their stories and not know anything about their identity, but they're all playwrights going out into the world and they're going to tell you their stories! That I have to give them! They're great story tellers! You'll know who they are when they're ready!) and… honestly, this was the best collection of work that I have ever seen in one gathering! I say that after I admitted this in public here… when the stories lose me… when they lose my interest… I start to write plays in my head… I’ve been doing this for years… but here… seriously, never did I drop out…. The stories were so good… HERE I never wrote a play in my head until I got back to my room laying in bed… that is a first. I love that! THANKS ALL!

The other first was… one night… we went back to that dance studio… some brought drums, others bought songs… and they dimmed the lights and we danced! We used our bodies to interpret the songs that were permeating the air… and we danced… tribal? Maybe… expressive in a safe place… it was freeing… I was free… and used my 60 year old, 280lb body through space and time… and I haven’t done that in public for over 25 years!

I DANCED!

All this compiled… and thought about… I can honestly say…

I met myself in the La Mama Villa and I met myself because I was surrounded by playwrights in a safe playwrights space… all in the...

HOUSE THAT ELLEN BUILT!

Thank you ELLEN STEWART

PS La Mama Umbria 2025 Playwrights… I really love you!

June 7th, 2025 A Night in the Showroom

On a Saturday night in Asbury Park, New Jersey, my two other filmmaker friends and I decided that we were tired of hearing the word "NO" from Film Festivals, Producers, Production Companies, and Studios.

We rented an Art House Movie Theater and invited a group of friends and family to a retrospective of our work. Films we made over the last ten years, some of which were being shown for the first time. The 66-seat theater was about three-quarters full. Wine, cheese, and popcorn in the lobby, along with a Red Carpet walk featuring a great backdrop of our three production company logos.

Most of the audience consisted of the cast and crew. We rolled all the films, and it was AWESOME! People laughed, cried, and cheered! There were so many great moments, but nothing will compare to walking into the lobby for the first time and seeing the name of my family's production company logo on a banner for the first time! It felt like a huge accomplishment and a sense of "WOW! THIS LONG JOURNEY WAS SOOOOO WORTH IT!.