The new website for OLD LADIES FIND MONEY (https://oldladiesfindmoney.com) has launched! We’re talking to cinematographers and actors and getting ready for a shoot in the fall! Stay tuned.
The UNCERTAIN AGE Podcast (https://uncertainage.co) is written up on 06880. We’re a pod that reviews film and TV through an older lens. https://06880danwoog.com/2024/03/26/anna-nicholas-looks-at-films-of-uncertain-age/
BRIDE & ZOOM has hit the web! It’s a romantic comedy starring Kailey Rhodes, Jenny O’Hara, Gabriel Romero and Michael Shepperd and can be viewed at BrideandZoom.org. We partnered with VowforGirls, an organization seeking to end child marriage worldwide, but donations are voluntary.
To commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, I am making my film, UNIVERS'L, free to stream until mid-May. It is still the only narrative feature film made about the events that led up to the final hours before acquittal was handed down on four white police officers and the city erupted in riots.
March is starting with a flurry of activity.
I'm an organizer of the Portland regional End of Play event through the Dramatists Guild. The goal is for all 60 participants to write a play during the month of March. We'll be holding regular writing sessions and there will be a closing party and reading of some of the work created.
On the 5th, I'll be a guest speaker with Klamath Film, a collective of filmmakers and aspiring filmmakers in the region.
And later in the month, my short play THE VOICE IN MY HEAD, will debut at Cascades 10 in Bend, Oregon
It's autumn and leaves are falling but the trees are already at work, preparing the buds that will appear as winter recedes next year.
And so it is with our film script, OLD LADIES FIND MONEY. After a great first read-through last month, we're shedding leaves and reworking a few sections so we can begin pre-production in earnest as the next year's new leaves start to appear.
For inquiries about the film: BournosMedia@gmail.com
MUFF STUFF is set to debut March 11, 2019
The third book in this series that follows the antics of a Los Angeles based women's book club continues with Sarah taking her turn as narrator.
Now available for pre-order from Barnes and Noble or wherever books are sold. Ask your bookseller to check the Ingram catalogue.
The paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130541180?ean=9780990708032 The Nook book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130541180?ean=2940161259306
It was a pleasure being involved in the reading of Stevie Stern's new play, "The 2 Glennis Fish-Adams" to benefit Breast Cancer Research at UCLA on Sunday, Oct. 7 at the Odyssey Theatre, Los Angeles. With Denise Crosby, Lizzie Peet, Deborah Pearl, Gregg Eichelzer, David Johann Kimm and Mary Apick, directed by Tom Lazarus.
Next up, shooting a horror short!
GIRL V TROLL will have its first public reading, Sunday, August 19th, as part of the 2018 CoHo theatre lab in Portland, Oregon.
GIRL V TROLL, loosely based on the experiences of a real woman who refuses to be “kept in her place,” explores what might have happened if she had tracked down her worst online troll to find out why he felt compelled to torture her. Using Ishtar to drive the action, GIRL V TROLL becomes a timeless play for the internet age.
When I'm busy and traveling, I'm not thinking about updating my website even more than normal. So for the 10 of you to whom I am so grateful and might care a lick about what I'm doing, here it is.
I have mastered no new recipes for Fava beans, yet this was the first summer I can ever remember seeing them fresh in the market and now live for their return. The thing is, they're a lot of work, and the volume of unhusked pods per finished product is ridiculous. Seriously, start out with an 8"x 1.5" pod and you might get three .5 diameter beans. So I wouldn't recommended serving them at a dinner party unless you have lots of little fingers to help shuck.
In other news... early May brought me to the Pasadena Playhouse where OUT THERE RIGHT HERE had a masterful reading helmed by Brian Brophy of the Mach33 team at Caltech and starring Philip Baker Hall, Lizzie Peet, Paul Bartholomew and Mauricio Mendoza. I'm hoping to get a production going somewhere very soon.
My sketch team in Portland has been kicking it with NIGHT BUS, now at the Shoebox Theatre. We're a new company and we've received our first review. It's a good one: http://www.wweek.com/arts/2018/07/03/night-bus-is-a-wacky-sketch-comedy-show-that-holds-tight-to-a-brand-of-portland-weird/
And I participated in a 24 hour playfest last night at Profile Theatre with 29 other spontantous theatremakers and paid homage to Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, with my play. It went as well as could be expected considering it was written and performed in 24 hours.
Next up--finishing the edit on Muffia III, aka Muff Stuff, and, in August, developing a new play, Girl v. Troll in Coho Theatre's Play development lab. Thank you Coho and Philip Cuomo for the opportunity!
It's been hectic. The New York City Reading of THE ONE YOU FEED, was a great success. After the play being selected, The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation and O'Henry Productions put together a great cast with Heidi Armbruster in the lead role of Serena Wolcott, a shut-in who wakes up one day to find out her son has been radicalized and joined the so-called Islamic State.
Next up on Monday, March 12th at Sacred Fools Theatre in Los Angeles, MY KNEE HURTS will be included in "We the People Theatre Action," a series of short plays, the proceeds of which will benefit "Moms Demand Action" for sensible gun regulations.
At the moment, I'm torturing myself (probably unnecessarily though isn't that what writers do?) over the rewrite for OUT THERE RIGHT HERE, which was the recipient of the Caltech Mach 33 playwrights prize for science writing. It will be read on Monday, May 7th at The Pasadena Playhouse and I'm thrilled.
Two of my plays have won prizes this month, which after months of rejection has been gratifying and humbling. One never knows what the formula is but for whatever reason, each of these plays has resonated with different organizations.
The One You Feed was selected as a finalist for the Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation prize in New York City and will have a reading there in the spring of 2018.
Out There, Right Here was selected for the Mach33 Science play prize at Caltech/TACIT.
Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying writing and performing sketch comedy at The Ape Theatre in Portland, OR!
"Dying's easy, comedy's hard." So said actor Edmund Kean on his deathbed. Well, at that point, it would be, wouldn't it? I won't disagree but now that I"m about to debut in sketch comedy team Big Mother at the Ape Theatre, I've found it's an incredible opportunity to write for laughs. Soon to be at a theatre near you (maybe).
Tickets available: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/big-mother-sketch-comedy-for-the-masses-tickets-38733786799?aff=efbneb Use discount code: "MOMJEANS"
In other updates: Muff III is inching toward the finish line!
The new play is complete following rewrites from its first reading in July. Entitled GIRL V TROLL, the 4 character play follows a medical student as she tracks down her online troll, finally confronting him and discovering he's not what she expected at all.
ONE MINUTE WITH MELANIA, an online series will debut in October. Yes it's what it sounds like.
If you're in Portland on July 9th, please come hear the first reading of DAM THINGS, in which a young woman tracks down the troll who's harassing her online and gets a big surprise.
July 9th @ 5pm, Cerimon House, 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland (in the Alberta Arts District)
THE ONE YOU FEED is now in development with Corwin Evans (Production and Video Design), Michelle Joyner (Director) and Charisse Glenn (Casting Director).
I'm thrilled to have been asked to participate in the William Inge Play Lab this year with my play Ocotillo. This is the 36th year of the festival and Beth Henley is the featured playwright. That should be some Master Class!
ANNAPURNA has opened and the reviews are great. I am so grateful for a place to live and be in such a lovely play.
PALM SPRINGS LIFE http://www.palmspringslife.com/faithful-companion/
Buddha Belly had its inaugural reading as part of the Alliance of LA Playwrights LA/NY play exchange this weekend.
In LA, Buddha Belly was directed by Elin Hampton and actors were Michael Hanson and Tarah Pollock.
In NY the play was directed by Chelsea Anderson-Long with actors Alana Osborn-Lief and Geoffrey Lind.
The play will next be done as part of Portland's Fertile Ground Fesitval, January 19-29, 2017.