Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Spirit/Song

Another great collaboration this year was with an as-yet-unproduced script called Spirit/Song. This story follows a widowed mystery writer who discovers he can communicate with a lighthouse keeper's wife from 1875. Then he realizes she's a past incarnation of his late wife...and history says she dies tonight. 

I loved this premise, but with this story I hit a creative roadblock: try as I might, I couldn't make the plot knit together in a satisfying way. Five or six aborted first drafts in, I reached out to my friends Kristin Svenson and Parth Ruparel, who liked what I showed them and were willing to help brainstorm. So I did something I have never done with any readers before: I gave them partial drafts. All of them. Unfinished. Unedited. Some with different character, different scenes. I basically dropped my artistic trousers and exposed my every weakness. And they overwhelmed my fliching trust with unqualified support. With encouragement. With suggestions. With setting up multiple readings by very talented actors. They helped me get Spirit/Song to the best place I think it could be without the crucible of a performance.

But this piece was not right for Love Street (that's okay, not all of them are!). So I submitted it to the 2025 Quill to Act New Play Festival, run by Murphys Creek Theatre, a professional regional theatre in Murphys, CA. My script was chosen as one of three finalists, receiving a staged reading before a live audience. Through audience feedback and input from the artistic staff, Spirit/Song was chosen as the winner of the festival and will receive a full production in 2026! Next month I'll being collaborating with  Todd Thomas (artistic director) to develop the script still further...and even to provide input as they redesign their mainstage from a proscenium to a hybrid thrust! So, exciting things on the horizon for Spirit/Song!

Expanding Forms: Borrowed Lives

2025 also marked my first deliberate step into audio drama with Borrowed Lives, a historical thriller set in 1871 Chjicago. It starred the voiceover talent of the wonderful Lauren Rogers, above, and bcame the flagship offering from an audio production company, Obscura Dramatica, created by my friends Roger Bazinet, Fawzy Simon, Amanda Caraway, and me. The project brought together voice talent from across the United States and even from Australia, expanding not only the soundscape of the piece but my understanding of international collaboration. Working without the visual language of the stage was a challenge! It forced me to rethink rhythm, silence, scene-building, and emotional architecture. It’s a form I’m excited to continue exploring, and I already have a couple of other projects turning in my brain...

A Book Years in the Making

Outside of play production, one of the most significant accomplishments of the year was the publication of Theatrical Violence Design: Safety, Illusion, and Story in Stage Combat Choreography, co-authored with Richard Gilbert and published by Routledge Press (and currently 30% off until the end of the year!). This book represents decades of practice, pedagogy, and belief that violence onstage must always serve story first—without ever compromising safety. Seeing it hands of professional violence designers and aspirig artists has been profoundly gratifying.

2025 reminded me that progress doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it looks like a play quietly landing, a new form attempted, or a long-held idea finally becoming a book. I’m grateful for the collaborators, audiences, and theatres that made this year possible—and ready to see where the work leads next.