I know this is short notice, but if you’re in the Twin Cities there’s an opportunity to see a one-act play of mine this Saturday at noon. I wrote the script ten years ago because a women’s group had asked Theatre Unbound to provide entertainment at a lunch they were giving. They wanted something 20...
Category: Theatre
The History of Pre-Calculus
Sunday night I attended a workshop with company members of Green T Productions, to bring them up to speed on the discussions Kathy Welch (Green T Artistic Director) and I have been having about the “History of Calculus” project. I was afraid that the company members would find the topic dry or not see any...
The History of Calculus
I’m embarking on a new project with Green T Productions. I’ll be a consulting playwright on a work developed by the ensemble, similar to my role on Silkworms, though in this case I’m involved earlier, helping to choose and focus the subject matter. The working title is The History of Calculus, but I’ve promised we’ll...
Calculating vulnerability
I’m reading Fred Kaplan’s The Wizards of Armageddon. Was struck by a quote from an Air Force colonel responding to projections of what might happen to U.S. bases in the event of Soviet nuclear attack. I hope none of you are taken in by all this slide-rule razzmatazz. Remember slide rules? I bet that only...
Me and Mother Antonia, part 2
In the wake of the monologue I wrote last year about their first president, Mother Antonia McHugh, the Alumnae Relations Department at St. Catherine University asked me to write about her for their magazine. A new book has just come out about the chapel she built at St. Kate’s. No matter how many articles and...
Dreadnought
A while ago, I mentioned getting feedback from a fellowship application panel. This winter, I worked on revising the script based on their observations. The proof copy for the revised version arrived today. (The script is available here – or download it here.) Sometimes in the midst of a revision, I’ll realize I already have...
Me and Sylvia, part 2
Minnesota Women’s Press asked me to write a squib for their “Acting Up” issue, about “the role of the arts in creating social change.” This seemed like a good occasion to revisit Sylvia Pankhurst. What’s the use of art? – Minnesota Women’s Press Anne Bertram is a playwright and executive director of Theatre Unbound, “The...
The Loud Words
In “For Worse,” beleaguered substitute teacher Michelle, called in the middle of the day to sub for a sub in a seventh-grade English class, gets out some of her frustration by asking the students to shout their vocabulary words as loud as they can. I got this idea from my ninth-grade English teacher, the late...