Craft Discussion With Playwright Audrey Cefaly

All topics playwriting with Producer/Actor/Director James Elden of Playwright's Spotlight

For those of you that like to listen to me drone on about my writing world, here I am talking about the evolution of Alabaster (#AlabamaGoatPlay) with James Elden ("Play Noir," Punk Monkey Productions). TOPICS: stagecraft, theatricality, hypnotic language, playwright vocabulary, the rules of the card game, silence, and asking big questions. Have a listen!

PRODUCTIONS OF ALABASTER PRESENTLY ON STAGE ACROSS THE COUNTRY

CHARLOTTE

Michael Simmons (standing) prepares Zoe Matney for a makeup test in preparation for the upcoming run of Alabaster at Carolina Actor’s Studio Theatre (CAST). Photo by Christine Hull

Carolina Actors Studio Theatre (production of Alabaster) immerses the audience in the distressed Alabama world of the main character, making use of areas outside the main stage, including the hall in the Mint Museum Randolph as well as crannies in the museum’s circular Van Every Forum auditorium. Photo by Jeff Cravotta

SAN DIEGO / CHULA VISTA

OnStage Playhouse’s production of Alabaster in Chula Vista Photo by Daren Scott.

LOS ANGELES

Fountain Theatre’s production of Alabaster. Photo by Julie Fowells.

GRAND RAPIDS

Alabaster at Actors Theatre Grand Rapids / Photo credit: @sensitography

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PREVIOUS ARTICLES BY AUDREY CEFALY

• How to Write the 10-Minute Play

• Stop Saying Stupid Shit

• 52 Vocabulary Words for Playwrights
  A collection of weird and unusual words for the things we do as playwrights.

• 10 Things Playwrights Wish Their Actors Understood
  A love letter

• To Speak or Not to Speak?
  4 Ways to Create Indelible Non-Speaking Roles for the Stage

• 21 Things I Know About Playwriting
  I wrote my first play twenty years ago. I wrote my second play one year later. Here are 21 things I learned in the year between the two.

LEAN MORE ABOUT AUDREY

• @audreycefaly | Linktree

• Visit my website for more about me and the work I do!

• Purchase my plays from Concord Theatricals.

• Follow me on Facebook.

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QUICK LINKS TO MY PLAYS

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Audrey Cefaly's plays (Alabaster, Maytag Virgin, The Gulf, The Last Wide Open, Trouble) have garnered the Lammy Award, the Calicchio Prize, the NNPN Goldman Prize, the Edgerton, and a Pulitzer nomination. Her works have been produced at Signature Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Barter Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Florida Studio, Florida Rep, Gulfshore Playhouse, and countless others. Cefaly is a Dramatist Guild Foundation "Traveling Master," an Arena Stage playwright cohort, and a recipient of the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers Conference. She is published by Concord Theatricals, Applause Books, Smith & Kraus and TRW.

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