Category: drama
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The Awesomeness of Show Week
Again. I’m privileged. I write, and I’m in a situation where I can produce it for the stage. And it’s awesome! Show week is coming up. It was obvious last evening as I put in six hours on set and light design. It’s not a finished product yet, but here’s what I have so far.…
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Play Submissions Much Easier after a Few Years of Writing
I am consistently sending my plays out to festivals and theaters with the hope of getting produced. Sometimes I’m successful. Many times not. The competition is fierce, to say the least. But now that I’ve been writing consistently for the past 7 or 8 years, I have a volume of plays (especially short plays) at…
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Songs in Your Head: The Unintended Consequence of Producing a Musical
It sounded like a great idea in the abstract. A musical, I said. How fun will that be! A blast! Let me choose one. Hmmm, I want one which would have cross-divisional appeal at our school. One in which, for example, if I didn’t get a lot of high schoolers auditioning, then I could still…
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Play Feedback: Drive-By
I regularly submit my plays to theatres and festivals around the world. Some are chosen for production. Most are not. The competition is fierce. I love receiving feedback which is why I always submit to the Pittsburgh New Works Theatre. They have a fantastic process in which two unnamed judges give detailed feedback about all…
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Wearing a New TECH Hat
My role as drama director has shifted as I now produce my shows in a brand new theatre-style auditorium. In the past, I’ve had a dedicated theatre tech staff, professionally trained in lighting design for dramatic shows. I used to tell those fine professionals what I wanted and they worked their magic. Well, no more.…
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LED Lights and Theatre
Most of my experience in doing lighting design for theatre was drawing a sketch of what I needed and handing it to a talented technician who actually knew what to do to make it happen. The systems I worked with were good but old school. You know, strip lights, parcans, colored gels, fresnels, and ellipsoidals.…
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A Lot of Learning on the Horizon
The school where I teach drama is on the verge of having a brand-new, state-of-the-art auditorium. I like to call it a theatre, myself. It’s completely outfitted with Source 4 LED lights which are awesome and so incredibly versatile. It’s got a ETC Element lighting console and a complete professional Bose sound system coming next…
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Finally – Christmas Drama Collection Coming in 2019
I love writing Christmas plays, and I’ve written thirty of them over the last few years — including a couple Christmas mini-musicals. Now, finally, I’m going to be pushing hard over the next few months to get them out into the marketplace. Tales of Wonder is a three-part series of full-length Christmas shows which premiered…
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Successfully Built Dictator 2.0
Last night ended another show. We had two successful showings of HOW TO BUILD A DICTATOR 2.0. It was loads of fun and had two great, responsive audiences. The premise of the show is a political rally where people show up to nominate THE ONE for world leader. I can’t get into the gist of…
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How to Build a Dictator 2.0
Two years ago I debuted an experimental theatre piece of mine entitled “How to Build a Dictator.” It was directed by my talented former student and theatre wizard Ysabel Loh and it was part of the Penang Performing Arts Centre Black Box Experiments series. It was tremendously fun to put on. We had a great…
Author Mark W Sasse 