LANGDON on YouTube

I just discovered that someone recorded a video of my one act LANGDON, THE SEASONAL BARISTA and posted it on YouTube. I'm not mad. Just weird that it showed up there.

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Looking Back at 2017

For the last several years I've been using this website as a kind of portfolio to collect together my creative projects (to be honest, that's pretty much the only point of this website). I have also been doing a little year-in-review deal over for a while (here's 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). So, here’s what happened in 2017...


Most of 2017 was occupied with my new role as parent. My wife and I brought a beautiful baby boy into the world on December 30th of last year. Obviously, adapting to my new role as a dad took priority over any creative pursuits. So here's a slimmed down look at the handful of theatre and other artistic things I managed to fit in.

In February, I released my play Raspberry Fizz on Kindle. It is the final work in a trilogy of ebooks of short stage plays that I now have on Amazon. Perhaps someday I will collect them together into a paperback edition.

The bulk of the year was just being cozy and domestic. Not until the fall did I get back on the map, so to speak.

In early August I had two plays in the One-Minute Play Fest produced by Kitchen Dog Theater. I went to see them. They went over pretty favorably.

I took my show Robert's Eternal Goldfish to Fresno, California for a two show weekend at an event organized by my friend Grant. It was titled Seattle-to-Fresno Mini Fringe. I had an epic beard.

Me performing Robert's Eternal Goldfish in Fresno

In September, for my birthday, I started a podcast called the Cultivated Playwright. I released nine episodes over the rest of the year ranging from reflections on Sir Peter Hall, minimalism, Dan Harmon and improv comedy to how Thor Ragnarok fits Goethe's Three Questions of Criticism.

In December I participated in Nouveau 47 Theatre's A Very Nouveau Holiday (my fifth time in as many years). This time I had a ten-minute play about a bear that refuses to hibernate and instead works in a coffee shop. It was called Langdon, The Seasonal Barista. It went over very well.

Emily Faith, Robert Long and Monalisa Amidar in Langdon, The Seasonal Barista

I directed Langdon as well as Jonathan Kravetz's Mr. Crispy. Kravetz's play was a sci-fi tear-jerker that deals with a failed screenwriter endlessly reliving his final night with the song-writing friend he had an infatuation with, through the use of a mail-order robot. It had a great premise, but definitely was not in line with the current zeitgeist, with a controlling male protagonist who self-indulgently manipulates a "female" robot to replay one of his memories/fantasies over and over again. 

It was fun to get a chance to direct again, especially my own work.

Charles Ratcliff and Cameron Casey in Mr. Crispy

That's about it. 2017 was a slow year for the ole theatre career, but exciting in a larger sense. I love being a dad, though it has caused a great amount of reflection on where I want to go from here on out and what I genuinely want to accomplish. 2018 should, hopefully, be filled with more balance and more creative endeavors.

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Nice Write-Up in TheaterJones about LANGDON, THE SEASONAL BARISTA

Yule Laugh, Yule Cry

Sharp actors bring laughs and drama to eight short holiday-themed plays in A Very Nouveau Holiday at the Margo Jones Theatre.

by Martha Heimberg | TheaterJones.com | December 13, 2017

Dallas — Take the Fair Park exit and drive past the huge parking lots at the 5,000-seat Music Hall to the Margo Jones Theatre, a small black box theater housed in the art deco-style Magnolia Lounge Building.  This elegant structure is the home of Nouveau 47 Theatre, currently showing its fifth annual production of short, holiday-themed plays by local playwrights, called A Very Nouveau Holiday. The fifth annual showcase is the work of Executive Producer Erin Singleton and Associate Producer Cain Rodriguez.

Small, swift, well-acted productions are special gifts any time of year, and these minimally produced plays are a happy anecdote to the many big holiday shows, featuring buckets of artificial snow and actors sweating in heavy winter costumes.


Each play here is 10 to 15-minutes long, and the actors bring not only their honed skills but also their props—a couch, a coffee bar, a laptop—to the stage. Some plays work better than others, but the subthemes of holiday joy and sadness are different and all the actors are solid. What’s fun to watch is the necessarily rapid rise to conflict and equally speedy resolution. Ribs show.

Emily Faith, Robert Long and Monalisa Amidar in
LANGDON, THE SEASONAL BARISTA

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My favorite play is Brad McEntire’s Langdon the Seasonal Barista, a surprising and hilarious three-scener about a non-hibernating bear hooked on coffee trying to keep his gig at Starbucks without mauling customers with love hugs and withstanding the ruthlessly upbeat HR woman who comes to the shop for an employee review. Tight, revealing and truly comic!

Directors working in the production include Andra Hunter, Rebecca McDonald, Brad McEntire and David Meglino.

Dallas is lucky to have a deep acting pool, evident in virtually all the shows I see in town. Actors filling multiple roles here are: Monalisa Amidar, J. R. Bradford, Cameron Casey, Emily Faith, Robert Long, Chris Messersmith, Charles Ratcliff II, and Jerome Stein.

Everybody’s good in their shifts of character, but I was totally knocked out by Robert Long, recently seen in Waiting for Lefty at Upstart Productions. He plays a caffeine-deprived bear, a depressive Santa and a goody-good teenager with riveting confidence, but somehow always keeping something of himself in his striking angular face and tense, wiry body. More, please.

Singleton and company invite you to BYOB and a friend, get obnoxiously loud with your laughter, and take all the photos you want.

Original post... 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 occassionally, but it is good stuff. Hit the button below...

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A Very Nouveau Holiday 2017

For the fifth year in a row I have a play in Nouveau 47 Theatre's A Very Nouveau Holiday collection of ten-minute plays. This event is usually quirky, thoughtful, hilarious, pensive and satirical! 

This year I am directing the world premiere of my own play Langdon, The Seasonal Barista. I am also directing Jonathan Kravetz's (formerly of Dallas and now based in NYC) heart-breaking piece Mr. Crispy. 

Langdon is a hilarious exploration of FOMO gone wrong. It features a bear who works at a coffeeshop during the winter instead of hibernating and the trouble he has navigating the workplace. Mr. Crispy is a sci-fi tear-jerker that deals with the last night of a relationship between a failed screenwriter and the song-writing friend he has an infatuation with.

Robert Long and Monalisa Amidar in rehearsal for LANGDON, THE SEASONAL BARISTA

These two pieces are joined by short plays by area writers Franky Gonzalez, Allison Hibbs, Jim Kuenzer, Ben Schroth, Greg Silva and Christopher Stephen Soden! 

A rockstar ensemble of directors, besides myself, include Andra Hunter, Becki McDonald, and fellow College of Santa Fe alumn David Meglino!

Actors in the project include Monalisa Amidar, JR Bradford, Cameron Casey, Emily Faith, Robert Long, Chris Messersmith, Charles Themayor Ratcliff and Jerome Stein!

Playing Fridays thru Mondays beginning December 8 - 23, 2017. Showtimes are 8:15, except Sundays (which offer 2 PM matinee times). At the Margo Jones Theatre, Fair Park, Dallas TX.

Admission $18. Student/Senior discounts available. Click HERE for tickets.