More Phil Vassallo Dramatic Works Available

Performer Stuff, a website catering to actors, musicians, and dancers, has licensed six Philip Vassallo monologues:

• First in the Flesh, about a woman dealing with a stalker.
• What He/She Left, concerning the ultimate irreconcilable relationship.
• It's Time to Go, a look at developmental disability and aging.
• The Pickup, a young woman's defense against an assumed pickup.
• My Name Is Edgar, a blind man's take of the "seeing" world.
• Like Real Life, a person's recounting of a long walk in the name of art.

Below are the links to Philip Vassallo plays with premiere and publication dates in parentheses:

The Author Makes No Difference (unproduced; published 2014)

Every Day's a Holiday (produced 2021; published 2015)

Everything Means Something Else (produced 2003; published 2004)

The Eye Begins to See (produced 2003; published 2014)

Family Secrets (produced 2005; published 2006)

Hurry Hurry: Twelve Dramatic and Comedic Sketches (produced 2016; published 2015)

The Phoenix (produced 2003; published 2007)

Questions (produced 2021; published 2020)

Questions Asked of Dying Dreams: Four Short Plays (produced 1992; published 2021)

So What If Life's a Cliché? (produced 2011; published 2011)

The Spelling Bee (produced 1993; published 1995)

This World and That One (produced 2021; published 2020)

What Are You Running For? (produced 1993; published 2010)

Reading Scripts to Achieve Clarity

Reading plays is an excellent way to get a feel for the dialogue of life in general, and the questions of businesspeople  in particular. Few people read plays, yet we write at work based on imagined dialogues with our readers.

Imagine opening an internal proposal to your manager with this sentence: 

Splitting the Northeast Region into two sales territories will double our coverage, leading to 25% additional revenue after the first year.

You are assuming the following dialogue:

Manager: What do you want?

You: We should split the Northeast Region into two sales territories.

Manager: Why?

Writer: It would double our coverage. 

Manager: What would that do?

Writer: We would increase revenue by 25 percent after the first year.

Reading dramatic pieces not only entertains, it also gives insight into how people react, reply, retract, and repeat. Read some plays with this thought in mind and see how your ear for your audience improves.

A Powerful Look at Our Youth Culture

Drama lives. At its best, it offers profound insights into the human condition and our cultural mores. Besides focused writing and reading, few better ways exist to hone the writer's craft than to experience a compelling piece of live theater that merges comedic and tragic elements through deep, believable characters and an unusual yet accessible story line.

This weekend audiences continue to get such an opportunity as previews of Kenneth Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth started on Broadway. I saw this exceptional production with the same cast (Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, and Tavi Gevinson) and director (Anna D. Shapiro) at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on June 25. This production has no kinks to iron out, so I encourage theatergoers to purchase less expensive preview tickets.

A two-hour tragicomedy about aimless New York youth in the 1980s during the Reagan Era, the play premiered Off-Broadway in 1996 at the Intar Theatre and has since been staged in London, Melbourne, and other major cities. Yet 18 years after the first staging and 32 years after the date of play's setting, it remains a painfully relevant story about how the excesses of society have devastating consequences on our communication, aspirations, and relationships.