BPW’s Not The First In Boston. We’re Not Even Close.
I would love to take credit for being a ground-breaking revolutionary in Boston, a la Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, leading playwrights to freedom through self-production. But, the fact of the matter is, I’ve been sitting in theaters for many years admiring other theater artists in Boston produce their own work, thinking, “Man, I want to do that, too.”

There is a tradition in Boston of self-production starting, for me at least, with Ryan Landry and his Gold Dust Orphans who has been producing his own work for at least a decade. Then there is Dawn Simmons and A. Nora Long at New Exhibition Room, John J. King and his Vaquero Playground, and Charlotte Meehan and Adara Meyers at Sleeping Weazel, all putting out their own work. This past October, three Boston playwrights self-produced full-length plays: my script, Turtles, by BPW, Pete Riesenberg and his Office of War Information produced his play, J.A.S.O.N. and Bill Doncaster produced his play, Two Boys Lost through his company, Stickball Productions.  This isn’t a fad, and I would love to see seven or eight other companies like Boston Public Works producing original, full-length plays by Boston playwrights, along with individual companies like the ones Nora, Dawn, John, Ryan, Pete, Bill, Charlotte, and Adara have started.

For some reason, playwrights have been relegated to a rather impotent role in the traditional theater. While I’m certainly not discounting the traditional theater model, and I especially support the theaters in Boston too numerous to list here who do produce new work by local playwrights, my hope is that, through Boston Public Works, more playwrights can see the possibilities presented by self-production and simply see it as a viable alternative to the traditional method.