Busy, busy, busy fall

As a teacher my definition of the season includes that fall has arrived when students are back on campus and the yellow school busses are again prowling neighborhood streets picking up and disgorging children. Fall is here: school is back in session!

Fall finds members of 517 Playwrights very busy indeed. Jim Betts is producing our evening of 10 minute plays, even as he is busy directing one of them: Steven Schutzman's The Weight. Jim is also producing another play, Shakespeare Abridged for a different local community theatre. And, full-time Jim is the owner, chief baker, and bottle washer at Bluegrass Baking Company at 3101 Claysmill Road, Lexington: 859 296-0581. (The Chocolate Mousse Cake is fabulous!)

Bill McCann, Jr. is getting his play, Its Who You Know: A Play about Identity and Opportunity, ready for its first (table) reading on September 13th; after the reading he is planning to make some additional revisions before submitting it to Sundance. Bill is in rehearsal for On Golden Pond in which he plays Charlie Martin. The curtain on On Golden Pond, produced by the Little Colonel Players in Pewee Valley, KY, will rise on Sept 24th for seven performances. (Reservations at 502 588-1557). Luckily for Bill he has few responsibilities for the Evening of 10-Minute Plays or he'd be burned out long before the second weekend in October!

Steve Taylor, a lawyer by profession a playwright by aspiration, is working on a larger stage than the rest of us. Steve is preparing briefs and arguments for a case he is arguing before the Kentucky Supreme Court later this fall.

Last, but certainly not least, Bruce Williams is seeking a second production by actively promoting his full-length play Tim: A Christmas Story; he is also awaiting word from Baker Plays as to whether or not they will publish it. Additionally, Bruce is appearing in Leon Kaye's More Pasta.

We're a diverse group with lots of talent. What we lack though is the talent YOU could bring to our little but ambitious group. Join us on September 13th for the next meeting of 517 Playwrights at the Beaumont Branch of the Lexington Public Library. The meeting will begin at 2:00 pm in the small conference room where we will read a members' work and then discuss it. Join us. 517 Playwrights is open to anyone-- actors, directors, playwrights, theatregoers-- with an interest in helping develop new works for the stage.