Progress Report #1
The 2026 Edition
Hi Paid Subscribers,
Welcome to our first Progress Report of the new year! I really loved writing this series last year. It was really exciting for me to see how those three projects did and did not unfold. I’m looking forward to doing it again this year - but with all new projects. Well, almost all new. You’ll see in a moment.
As a reminder, last year we followed the development of two commissioned plays and a novel. Here’s where each of those stand as of today:
The College Collaboration Commission play -
We’re Okay, We’re Okay, We’re All Gonna Be Okay was written in about a month and refined from July - October with its premiere at Austin Peay University in November. I was lucky enough to go out to Clarksville and see its first production, though unlucky that it was the night of a fire drill. Still, I was so glad to get to see the dress rehearsal and subsequent livestreams the school did.
Just last night, I zoomed into a first readthrough of the play with RIT, who is producing this play next month. I’ll be heading up to Rochester in February to see it (!!!). After that, there’ll be a public reading of the play in New York City, so if you’ve been curious about the piece and live in NYC, you’ll have a chance to see it.
The Boomerang Theater Commission play -
The Evergreen Players Proudly Present a New Version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya was written in about a month in May and refined through January of this year, just a few weeks ago. Boomerang provided the play with a series of touchstone developments - a virtual reading in June, an in-person table read in October and a public reading as part of their First Flight Reading Series in January. Each time, the play deepened and expanded thanks in large part to director Scott Ebersold leading its development in the room.
There’s no concrete plans for its future, though Scott and I are eagerly looking for places that might be able to help us continue its journey together. In the meantime, you can read the current draft of the script on New Play Exchange.
Orpheus Novel -
And finally, my novel that I….really didn’t prioritize as much as I wanted to last year.
It wasn’t a total bust - I have pages and pages of handwritten passages of this novel and think that there’s an ending in there somewhere. But I had to set it to the side, especially towards the end of the year. Which is frustrating but was the right thing to do. We can only work on so much and I had to prioritize other projects, teaching and deadlines.
But this year, I’m prioritizing the novel. Which brings us to the three projects I’ll be working on for this year’s Progress Report series…
