The Philadelphia Connection

The latest treatise by B.J. Burton.
The latest treatise by B.J. Burton.

As I teased in my last post, a new book hit the market yesterday called The Philadelphia Connection by B.J. Burton.  B.J. was one of the playwrights associated with the Brick Playhouse back in the late nineties and early naughts, and since those days, she’s engaged in a series of adventures and misadventures and illicit activities that have led her to teach at Rosemont College and write a book about Philadelphia playwrights.  The book features interviews with fifteen local scribes, of which I am one.  To be honest, she interviewed me maybe four years ago, so I’m a bit foggy over what I talked about.  However, looking at some of the sample pages that I found at Google Books, I surmise that I said plenty of stuff to get me in trouble.

The TOC reads like a who’s-who of Philly playwrights.  Right off the bat, she’s got the holy trinity of Bruce Graham, Michael Hollinger, and Tom Gibbons, so the book should definitely be taken seriously.  Jacqui Goldfinger is there, whom I interviewed for an episode of Martinis with Nick last year.  Also my buddies, Alex Dremann and Katie Clark Gray.

So, if you have any interest whatsoever in Philly theater and learning how the proverbial sausage is made, you should buy this book.  Also, B.J. needs your money.  I mean, she teaches college, for crying out loud.

To end on a final note of shameless self-promotion, this is not the first time I’ve been quoted in a book.  Bruce Graham and Michele Volansky published an interview with me in their book, The Collaborative Playwright, and New York playwright Jeffrey Sweet published one of my playwriting exercises that I did for his class (as well as his critique) in his book, Solving Your Script.  Self-promotion aside, if you have an interest in becoming a playwright, I recommend both of these books.  The former gives some insight into what the business is like, and the latter gives some great advice about technique.

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