Tartuffe at College of the Canyons

Next month, in addition to writing verse dramas, I will be acting in one. I'm playing the title role in Moliere's Tartuffe. Performances are November 14-18, 2007.

For tickets and additional information, check out Tartuffe at College of the Canyons.

Polyphony Magazine

In 2003, Keith Eckert started Polyphony, a short-lived online magazine devoted to narrative and dramatic poetry:

With Polyphony, I hope to directly address the questions surrounding narrative and dramatic poetry. Have the novel and short story replaced the narrative poem? Is there a niche that narrative poetry uniquely fills? Is verse drama the quaint exercise of a bygone tradition? Could narrative and dramatic poetry reach a wider audience than lyric poetry?

The magazine ceased publication in 2005, but the issues are archived and well worth reading.

Check out Polyphony.

John Surowiecki Wins Verse Drama Prize

The Poetry Foundation has announced the winner of the first-ever Pegasus Award for Verse Drama:

John Surowiecki is the inaugural recipient of the Verse Drama Prize of $10,000, honoring a living poet who has written a previously unpublished, outstanding original verse drama in English. In addition to the cash prize, the winning manuscript will be presented as a staged reading in New York and Chicago in 2008. The Verse Drama Prize brings renewed attention to an under-recognized area of poetry and encourages poets to work in a new genre, thereby bringing fresh life to the art.

Read more here.

Francesca: a play in verse

I'm writing a new verse play based on the tragic love story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta. The story comes from Dante's Inferno. In the nineteenth century, Francesca da Rimini became the subject of several plays, operas, and paintings.

I've posted the first scene on my website: Francesca: a play in verse