The Cutler Initiative

Playwrights Joy Cutler and Nicholas Wardigo.
Playwrights Joy Cutler and Nicholas Wardigo.

I probably should have done this last week, but I had a fun time at Joy Cutler’s reading last Monday at the Drake’s reading series.  I already pointed out all the players in my last post, so I won’t bother here, but the short of it is that they were all really good.  Also, I made a new friend, Jenna Kuerzi, who looked really familiar, and to whom I looked familiar, but we decided to mutually ignore any possible past crossings-of-paths and agree that we just met that evening over my flask of bourbon.  Probably for the best.

Anyway, Joy’s play, Reaching Beatrice, was downright queer (in an Alice-in-Wonderland way, not a gay way).  Based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, it was about a guy taking a horrific elevator ride through a hospital, trying to find Beatrice, who may or may not be one of the patients.  There was a freaky twist at the end which caught me off-guard (not such an easy thing to do), and like a handful of other readings I’ve attended, I desperately hope that some theater somewhere picks this thing up, if for no other reason than I want to see how they deal with some of the problematic aspects of the script.  That’s right, I made it all about me.

Shifting gears a little, I’m going to attend the launch of a novella tonight at Main Point Books.  I met novelist Fran Wilde last fall, and I’m interested in reading more of her stuff, particularly since her book, Updraft, was recently nominated for a Nebula Award.  Go Fran!


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