New website for Playwriting Endeavors

 See it at:

Bradmcentireplays

Directing two student-written short plays

Me "directing" [credit Josh Niccolai-Belfi/ TCC-SE]

I am an adjunct instructor at a small community college in north Texas. I originally was drawn to the job because I liked teaching at the college level. Since maybe a year or so before the pandemic, I have found myself directing a lot more at the college than teaching classes, which is not altogether my preferred course. Last week, two student-written 10-minute plays, complete with student actors and crew, which I directed, saw the light of day. The plays I directed for this year's Festival of New Plays included Blake Roper's The Friendship Application and DaShaun Ellis' I'm Thinking. They were both fun little playlets to work on. The playwrights were receptive to feedback and the student actors, mostly, put forth the effort.

The Friendship Application is set a hundred years in the future when civilization has become interplanetary. The government now matches people together as friends, provided one fills out the paperwork properly.

I'm Thinking was a fun little sketch about a student hung up on a writing assignment. His little sister and her friend step in and help by reading out loud from his wadded up attempts. They played at being pirates and cowboys and even do a stand-off, one as a mad scientist and the other as a secret agent. Eventually, an idea is sparked and the student can finish the assignment.

The Festival of New Plays ran February 22 - 24, 2023 in a small black box space at the college.

Student actors Madison Sanchez, Ethan Melendez and
Haleigh Ferguson in I'm Thinking, written by DaShaun Ellis
[credit: Josh Niccolai-Belfi/ TCC-SE]

Student actors Ethan Melendez and DaShaun Ellis in
The Friendship Application, written by Blake Roper
[credit: Josh Niccolai-Belfi/ TCC-SE]

Student actors Lina Koudy and DaShaun Ellis in The Friendship
Application, written by Blake Roper [credit: Josh Niccolai-Belfi/ TCC-SE]

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I have launched a new webcomic

I just launched a brand new-old webcomic. Let me 'splain...

Back in the late 1990s when I was a young and impressionable college student. I became enthralled with trying to create a sort of minimalist comic. The idea was not to have to draw the comic from scratch each time. The idea, instead, was that I would just need to update the word balloons. That is to say, I wanted to change what the characters say (the dialogue), not how the actual comics look (the art). Then I thought it would be neat if you removed characters altogether. What you might get would be a sort of anti-comic.

So, I came up with J. Herbin. Here was a character who was simply a passive observer in his own strip. It would have little to no movement or action. The dialogue would come in from out-of-frame. We, the readers, are overhearing an off-frame snippet of conversation just as Herbin is in the comic. I came at it as this little experiment. Would such a strip even be interesting? Could I still make it weird? Or even, occasionally, funny?

Since I had just graduated from college (where I had been a cartoonist for the school paper) and the internet hadn't really picked up momentum yet, I did not have an outlet for the idea at the time. My original J. Herbin comics only lasted a short while. I ended up putting it in a drawer and kind of forgot about it. 

I later learned about David Lynch's The Angriest Dog in the World and Max Cannon's strip Red Meat. I thought, "Hey, other people, much more well-known than me, have done this sort of thing. There might be something to this idea."

Over the last few years, while the zeitgeist kind of centered on questions of connection and isolation, I started thinking about this little minimalist anti-comic idea once again. I put it on my list for projects to launch in the new year and now, well, its here!

The first two new J. Herbin comics are up and ready to read on the brand-new website... HERE

I hope, if you are reading this, that you'll follow along each week and check out this little project. I am oddly excited about it.

An old J. Herbin comic from back in the day.

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Perhaps you would be interested in adding more excitement and romance, adventure and intrigue to your life. If that's the case, I don't know what to tell you. But I would suggest you subscribe to my newsletter. I mean, who knows? Life is full of surprises. I only send stuff out occasionally, but it is good stuff. Hit the button below...

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Petey Gale Goes Up and Beyond now on Amazon kindle

In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres in London were closed because of the plague. Actor and playwright William Shakespeare found himself without an outlet for his usual livelihood. So, he turned to writing straight up poetry. He turned out two epic poems (on commission): Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

During the bulk of 2021 while fringe fests and other theatre venues were closed due to the pandemic, I found myself in the same sort of situation as ole Shakespeare. So, I created a children's picture book for my son. I published the book as a paperback early last year. I titled it Petey Gale Goes Up and Beyond. It is about adventure and friendship. 

Here's a blurb: 

Petey Gale's friend Walter is one sad T-Rex. Petey has a plan to cheer him up and it involves a rare fruit in a far away land. This is a delightful tale of a friend helping a friend by heading off on an adventure to the far side of the globe on a hot air balloon.

Just recently, a year after the paperback was released, I have now put out a kindle ebook version. If you have a young one in your world, consider grabbing a copy.

Get the kindle version... HERE

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Perhaps you would be interested in adding more excitement and romance, adventure and intrigue to your life. If that's the case, I don't know what to tell you. But I would suggest you subscribe to my newsletter. I mean, who knows? Life is full of surprises. I only send stuff out on occasion, but it is good stuff. Hit the button below...

Leave a comment. If you are a robot or a blatant marketer trolling Blogger, then you will be deleted. Humans only, please.