RADIO GHOSTS a Semi-Finalist for National Playwrights Conference

It is with much enthusiasm that I learned Radio Ghosts has made the first cut for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

Of the typical 800 - 1,000 scripts submitted annually through their open submission policy, roughly 20 - 25 % make it to the semi-final stages of deliberation. From this number, 20 - 25 % become finalists, with usually 5 - 8 scripts selected from the finalist's pool for inclusion to the Conference.

So yes, these are long odds. But the first cut is the deepest.

And while this achievement is not the goal, it is welcome encouragement, especially since the script was selected before the re-writes of Boomerang Theater Company's "First Flight" staged reading in November, and before the major revision that resulted from the intensive workshop at The Painted Bride Art Center's "Bridal Salon" in January.

I am thrilled that upon giving us the good news, the National Playwrights Conference also allowed us to send an updated draft of the script, which expresses much stronger work thanks to the awesome team of people put together by Boomerang in NYC and to the outstanding group of artists that exploded the hell out of this thing for the Painted Bride in Philadelphia.

Big congratulations to Mike Vernusky, whose electronic music composition and whose friendship and deep listening and questioning all continue to inspire our work together.

As we wait to learn our fate with The O'Neill (and the half-dozen other opportunities we've applied for), Mike and I are already hard at work with the fantastic people of New Leaf Theatre in Chicago in preparation for their "Treehouse Reading Series" in March, to continue learning from this project, to continue to rip things open, to continue working to make this thing the best version of itself possible, and to generally enjoy sharing as much creativity together as we can.

Big hugs,

ROMERO