25th anniversary

January 5, 2009, will be the 25th anniversary of the opening of my play Christmas at the Juniper Tavern, which remains my "claim to fame" in the Northwest, I suppose. (My play Famililly, which won an international competition and several other awards, still has never been produced in the Northwest. Go figure.)

There are a lot of amusing war stories associated with this production, which I'll save for January 5th. A local play reading group asked for permission to read it next month. Often someone is producing it around now but this year I haven't heard about anyone. Of course, one wonders how much is done without permission. Twice I've stumbled across small theater groups who produced a play of mine without permission, and therefore without royalties. My personal favorite play was done in NYC this way in a cafe! This pissed me off. I didn't learn until over a year later, when I found the poster on the net. Actually if a company identifies itself as poor, I often waive royalties or insist they be divided among the actors. You don't get rich on small theater productions.