How is it 2022? First, I hope you're well. The past couple of years haven't been kind to many people - especially those in the arts community. If you're reading this, I am glad you're here, and wish you well in 2022.

Theatrically, I've been pretty quiet since the pandemic began, but I have some exciting news bottled up that I hope to share soon! My last production was in early 2020, just weeks before everything shut down, and I've spent this time working on my own writing, and shepherding some new plays through the development process with the Curtain Players New Works Initiative and Mad Lab's Young Writers project. I love working on new plays and watching playwrights manifest their visions.

As theaters have begun to turn their lights back on, it looks like I may see some of my own plays tread the boards once more. While I cannot divulge the details, I will tease that I received a request to stage my play The Last Queen of Wonderland later this year. Coincidentally, it was the last of my plays to see the stage before the pandemic, so it's kind of fitting that it could be the first one back. Where will it land? That, I cannot yet reveal; but I will as soon as it's announced.

If you're not familiar with my reimagination of Lewis Carroll's classic, I will let this awesome recommendation by playwright Claudia Haas describe it. Seriously, I should just make this the description when promoting the play:

Instead of waiting until January 2018 to promise a return to blogging here, I thought I'd get a jump on that and start the process now. Blogging used to be something I did on the frequent. Of course, now I'm working a full-time day job, working a second teaching gig, and we have our two boys at home (Toddler Sony and Baby Sony) and they are both forces of nature. Of course, in all of that, this year I've joined the Curtain Players Board of Directors, taken on mentoring for Mad Lab's Young Writers lab, and finding time to write a new play (which will see its first staging this week)!

So yeah... maybe that's why the blogging has fallen to the wayside. Maybe. Maybe it's because I have like five draft blogs, all on big, grand topics relating to issues in theatre or the world. Things like copyright or ethics or politics, and ultimately they all just ended up sounding like me trying to sound important, like I was writing for Howlround or Dramatists. Noble pursuits, but not what I'm focused on right now.

Going forward, I'm going to blog about the projects and things that excite me. Might be my stuff. Might be what a local company is doing. Might be what a pal is doing. Might be something I saw on TV or on stage on in a movie.

And they'll be short. Like this. Because it's past my bed-time and I've got a long day tomorrow.

G'night friends. 

Happy New Year!!
Full disclosure: posted this on my Facebook page today; and because we're within a week of welcoming a new baby into the Sony household and I'm on a deadline to finish a new play, I'm totally copy and pasting that post into this blog. Lazy? Or selective prioritization? You decide. :)

As the curtain opens on 2017, I want to take a moment and thank some people for making 2016 a creatively memorable year. First, THANK YOU. Yes, YOU. For liking this page, for following my creative endeavors, for seeing my shows, for liking my posts, for sharing your comments, for supporting the arts, and for being part of my universe.

Thank you Available Light Theatre for welcoming me into your space once again for 24 Hour Theatre; your fearlessness and passion is inspiring, and I love playing in your world.
Thank you Curtain Players and Westerville Parks & Recreation for staging 'Robin Hood & the Secret of Sherwood' --- from the previews in January at CP to giving the Secret of Sherwood its second full production (and first outdoor staging!), it was grand to see my work on such a scale in my hometown; you are noble hearts, all.
Speaking of sophomore outings, thank you to Elaina McKnight Shaver for bringing "The Last Queen of Wonderland" back to the stage and doing so in the context of arts education; your devotion to teaching and nurturing young theatre artists fills my heart with joy --- I look forward to our next stage adventure in 2017!
Thank you to MadLab for inviting me to take part in your Young Writers program for 2017; I love your commitment to creating new plays and supporting playwrights, especially young playwrights, and I'm honored to have the opportunity to mentor a writer and work with you all this year.
Thank you to John Newkirk for your support and invitations to collaborate; I'm excited to see what we create on film!
Thank you to Bianca Sams for the chats, the insight, and the encouragement; you inspire me to reach higher.
Thank you to King Avenue Players for another year of designing your show posters, and thank you Todd Adam Decker for bringing me on to design posters for your projects --- I love creating in many forms and truly appreciate the opportunity to work with all of you on these designs.
Thank you TreePress for your drive, passion, and support of playwrights and theatre; I look forward to growing my relationship with you and getting more of my plays onto more stages in the coming year.
Finally, thank you to my wife Laila Sony & family for the love and encouragement to pursue all of these wonderful opportunities.
As you can tell, 2016 was a wonderfully creative year, and I look forward to the projects lined up for 2017 and any new ones that come along!

Truth, to me, is about trust of information. If I believe what you're telling me is true, I react to it based on that. If I later learn that you lied to me about that thing, I see that moment in a new light, I see you in a new light, and I further question every subsequent interaction until I believe trust is restored.

​Truth is more about perception and belief on the receiver's end than anything. What I believe to be true and what IS true can be very different things.

With that in mind, in a play, I follow the playwright's lead and decide what to believe based on how the story is presented. Obviously, in a play we set things up and we subvert expectations. At some point, I determine, as an audience member, whether the narrator is reliable. A reliable narrator can subvert my expectations and give me a perception shift, and still be truthful to me. Just because I see the play differently after a perception shift doesn't mean I've been lied to.

However, if the playwright "lies" to me --- and I cannot reconcile the perception shift with what I've already experienced, and I then believe it's not a shift, but that everything before that moment was a "lie" and erases the experience I just had, then I lose trust in the playwright and I lose all emotional investment. It's a betrayal. Just like with a person. So, yeah, it's important to be honest in writing, just as in life. It doesn't mean we can't subvert expectations or create reveals and perception shifts that rely on slight of hand. It's just creating an understanding of when you're doing slight of hand and when you're on the level, so I know what to expect of the experience.

​I expect plays to use slight of hand, but I expect them to be honest about it and so when I go back, the end makes sense with what I've seen. If one part of the play creates falsity in another part, if it invalidates it and that invalidation is not explained as part of the perception shift, then it's not honest anymore and my experience is marred. It's like getting to the end of a magic trick and instead of being amazed, you feel conned.

I had an absolute blast taking part in Available Light's 24 Hour Theatre event. It was my second time writing for AVLT, and the entire event is such an adrenaline kick. Had the chance to work with the wonderful Audrey Rush as my director, and a trio of actresses for whom I would write anything, anytime, anywhere, just to see them breathe live into my words. Josie Merkle, Eleni Papaleonardos, and Krista Lively Stauffer. Such a privilege to work with them!

If you've never been to an AVLT 24 Hour, I highly recommend doing so. They brought together 6 writers, 6 directors, and an ensemble of actors on Friday night. We drew names and formed into teams, and then went from there. I wrote the script overnight and then came to the theater on Saturday morning to work with Audrey, Josie, Eleni, and Krista to finish it up and polish through rehearsals. There's something invigorating about rewriting in the room. I LOVE LOVE LOVE working with actors. So much of play is often written in a vacuum, and that's one of things I've adore about events like this one. It forces the collaboration element that is essential to theatre to begin much sooner than it might have otherwise.

Thanks AVLT for a great weekend!

Tonight, I'm heading to a screening of short films here in Columbus, Ohio. One of those films, I had a hand in creating, so it will be extra special to sit in the theater and see my name flash up on the big screen. It's been almost six years since I properly worked on a film (for my movie, Separation Anxiety), and so when my friend Brant Jones called me up to ask if I wanted to write a script for the 2015 48 Hour Film Project here in Columbus, I didn't hesitate to say yes.

Each year, in cities around the world, filmmakers gather over a 48 hour period to make short films. The specific 48 hours varies from city to city. For Columbus, it was last weekend (July 24-26). The 48 Hour Film Project rules are simple. Filmmakers are given specific parameters at the outset (parameters they have no previous knowledge of) to include in their films: a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue. Those are the base guidelines. Once the requirements are announced, they start the clock. 

Why the rules? Because it's a competition. Over the next 48 hours, each team must write, shoot, and edit a film, which ranges in length from 4-7 minutes. So it's up to the team to manage their time. How much time do you spend writing, how much in production, and how much in post? There's probably no magic formula --- just a ticking clock, and the wonderful challenge of creating something out of (almost) nothing. 

Each city's participants are vying to win in their own city and move on to compete with other winning films. So the winning film at the 48 Hour Film Project Columbus will eventually go up against the winner of, say, the 48 Hour Film Project St. Louis, at Filmapalooza in Hollywood. This annual event, which brings together the winning films from all the host cities, is used to select the best of the best and send them on to a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes is a pretty huge deal. To show anything there, ever, would be pretty awesome for any filmmaker. It's like the World Cup of film festivals. Many would argue that it is the pinnacle of film festivals. So, ultimately, one of the 28 teams that made films in Columbus last weekend could advance all the way to Cannes, France, and show their film to the world. It's happened twice before. To even have a chance of getting there, we had a lot of work to do; in the aforementioned 48 hours.

Without getting into a complete play-by-play, let me quickly run you through the 48 hours over at Two Pop Studios (Brant's production company), at least from my perspective. This was my first 48. I had an idea of what was going to happen based on having had friends participate in earlier years, Brant (a returning filmmaker) had prepped me, and I recall my own days of film studies at Notre Dame with tight weekend shoots on shoestring budgets. Even still, it goes faster than you think.

The kick-off event was a crowded flurry of excitement and anticipation. Held at the Gateway Film Center (where they will screen the films tonight), representatives from every team were there. Lots of chatter, lots of networking, and lots of waiting for the unveiling of the required elements and the genre draw. The genre draw ensures that only one or two teams cover each genre (yay for variety!), but also adds to the challenge. You might get drama, comedy, horror, sci-fi, romance, thriller, etc., and the entire tone and aesthetic of your film is thus determined about five minutes before you set off to film.

We pulled DARK COMEDY. Sweet. I like dark comedy. I was pretty happy with that genre. Once we all had a genre, we were given: a character to include (Ron) who had to be a twin; a prop (a wrapped gift); and a line of dialogue that had to be included ("Try it. What have you got to lose?"). There was a moment of acknowledgement that the rules had been set, and then we were off. Off to film, off to write, off to... wait, do we even have a story?

No. We didn't. Not yet. So we headed to the cantina next door. Me, our director Matt, our DP Scott, and Ben (one of our actors), ordered some food, some drinks, and began brainstorming. I won't go into details, but by the end of that meal, we had a great starting point and I took off home to write. And write. And write. All night. Between fits of slumber and writer's block. Between dusk and dawn. Between several cans of Coke and a bag of cookies. I wrote.

Sometime in the morning, I emailed off the script to Matt and Brant. Later, I sent revisions. They went to work. I went to sleep. By the time I arrived on set that afternoon (again, sleep), they'd already shot half the film (it's 7 minutes long, but still!). It was such a thrill to watch the actors bring characters to life that had only been created twelve hours before.  

I tried to capture some behind-the-scenes photos while I was there, but I'll admit that most of the time I simply enjoyed watching these talented people work. Here's a smattering of pics that won't spoil anything from the film.

The shoot lasted all through Saturday, just up until dusk. Our four amazing actors, Ben Gorman, Sonda Staley, Linda Dorff, and Peter Graybeal, blew me away with their commitment to everything; and by how much fun they made it. Scott, our DP, and Micah, our sound man, knocked it out. There was another crewmember, Ryan, who left before I got there, but I heard he was awesome. I don't know about anyone else, but I had a right, lovely time. We had a small cast and crew, a mix of friends and new friends. Our hosts (the owners of the house we filmed in) were wonderful and gracious. Our producer even made us lunch (even though I wasn't there to enjoy Brant's tikka masala).

Once the shoot was done, it was up to Brant and Matt to work together to edit it down to fit the 4-7 minute regulation time. Brant was already starting the rough-cut while were still shooting, actually. It's strange, sometimes, being the writer. You're very much the first person in the relay race that is filmmaking. Sure, I was on set for the filming, and Matt and I talked about some script changes on the day, but in the end my work was mostly done in the first 12 hours of the event. Once filming was completed at the half-way mark (or just beyond it), I was done. Much like the actors and the crew, I went home, got some sleep, and said a little prayer for Brant that we gave him everything he needed to put together a solid film.

We must have, because we all received an email from Brant on Sunday night that they'd completed the film and turned it in on time. Matt worked with him on the editing process, as any director would, and I have to give major props to Brant and Matt here. Matt's directing style is pretty great; and I felt like he understood and had a great respect for the script, which as a writer is always such a gift when working on a film. Of everyone who worked on the project, he and Brant did the lion's share of the weekend. Matt was there at the kick-off, for brainstorming, on set all day, and working with Brant to edit and deliver the film. Brant, as our producer/editor, has been working hard for months to put together this wonderful team of people (I'd work with any of these people again in a heartbeat), and was always on the go during the shoot, doing whatever was needed of him to get the job done. 

Tonight, we see the results of our hard work on the big screen. It will be awesome to see what the other teams did, and how they worked those parameters into their own stories in their own genres. I'm quite happy with what we made.

For my first 48 Hour Film Project, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. 

UPDATE (8/9/2015): The Last Con is now shared on Vimeo! Enjoy!

TWO POP STUDIOS PRESENTS "THE LAST CON" BEN GORMAN  LINDA DORFF  SONDA STALEY
AND PETER GRAYBEAL DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY SCOTT SPEARS SOUND BY MICAH JENKINS
PRODUCED AND EDITED BY BRANT JONES WRITTEN BY JEREMY SONY DIRECTED BY MATT HERMES

I like to think of theatre as this culmination of frenetic energy that bursts forth onto the stage and then disappears. It was there, it happened. You go see it. You live with it. You applaud when it's over. You go home. They pack up. Everyone moves on. It's like the circus that way. It's like life. So why did The Century Box feel different?

After the curtain falls, the actors and crew strike the sets, lights, costumes, and everything else that made this temporary world something more. This is how every theatre show ends. I know this. I live this. It's simultaneously one of my most favorite and "unfavorite" things about making plays. I love that they are ephemeral and real and just for us, those in the room in that moment, and then they're gone. Yet, I hate when they're gone. I miss them.

This one, The Century Box, I will never forget. This one was real. A century box is simply another term for a time capsule. So, much like building an actual century box and filling it with history, I built a play which centered around a century box and ultimately served as one. Usually, I write about fictional people. I make up stories. This play --- these people, these stories --- this one was based in truth; based in history. It came with this enormous responsibility to honor these sons and daughters of Grove City and Jackson Township, to tell their stories, and to remember them.
 
You see, this year marks the 200th Anniversary of Jackson Township --- specifically, the Jackson Township located in the southwest corner of Franklin County, Ohio. I specify because, just in Ohio alone, there are 37 Jackson Townships; something I now know because I wrote this play. This Jackson Township, the one which encompasses The City of Grove City, has been my focus for over a year; and it has been my absolute pleasure to get to know the story of this township and the people that built it.

It was all the more sweeter to see it come to life; to see history take the stage. Even more rewarding was watching the audience watch the play. More then once, I saw people recognize the historical figures I chose to highlight, or remember a story because their parents or grandparents had lived it. A family name would be said and an excited chatter would crop up somewhere in the audience. Family names like Grant, Hoover, Miller, Breck, Chambers, Schilling, Gantz, Borror, Willert, Orders, Smith, Dunnick, and so many more. Descendants of the people we were portraying were there, watching their grandparents and great-great grandparents exist again, if only for a moment; and every time one of them came up after the show and shared their story with me, I was moved.

Like I said, it's an enormous responsibility to portray history on stage. History is such a fragile concept; it truly is just stories isn't it? Stories that we pass down from generation to generation. Our stories. Our viewpoints. Of which we all have our own, don't we? History is a combination of facts and memories; so to take that and then dramatize it... there may be two sides to every story, but there are an immeasurable number of sides to history. Thus, there are infinite possibilities as to what a century box for Grove City and Jackson Township could hold. This play was but a glimpse of what I found, and even that feels like just the beginning.   

While this chapter of The Century Box has come to a close, I'm not done with this play. I hope to share more stories, to see this play back to the stage, and to watch it grow and evolve as the City of Grove City and Jackson Township has grown and evolved over the centuries. Until then, I will fondly remember the last weekend of May 2015, when the Little Theatre Off Broadway took a bunch of my words and made history come alive. I love what my director, Lisa Napier-Garcia, and her cast and crew put together, but it was no easy task.

200 years carries with it more history than any one person could have possibly encapsulated into one play. My hope is that the play inspired the audience to do what I did --- I hope it encouraged them go to the Grove City Library and read about their history. I hope they will visit the Southwest Franklin County Historical Society, and that they will take some time to find out more about the people who came before them; to research the pioneers and entrepreneurs that built their city; to find and share the stories of the people that lived here. 

To remember them. Because they are fascinating. And I hope I did them proud.

Photos courtesy of The City of Grove City. May 29-31, 2015 at Central Crossing High School.

The Century Box
by Jeremy Sony 

Presented by: The City of Grove City and The Little Theatre Off Broadway
Directed by: Lisa Napier-Garcia.
Featuring: John Bils, Kate Charlesworth-Miller, Amelia Crabtree, James C. Daniels, Glen Anthony Garcia, Nicholas Garcia, Kathy Hyland, Tahrea Maynard, Mark Miller, Holly Rahrig, Sue Rapier, and Martha Kathryn Smith.
Production Crew: Donnie Lockwood, Kat Wexler, Bev Babbert, Michael Bynes, John Heckman, D.C. Simpson, and Jai Furlong.

Special Thanks: Grove City Museum, Karen Lane, Jim Hale, Mike Lilly, the Staff at Grove City Library, Central Crossing High School (Billy Smith, Catherine Knoblauch, Sophia Friend, Nathan Weaver).

I'm thrilled that we're just weeks away from the premiere of my new play, THE CENTURY BOX, which celebrates the Bicentennial of Jackson Township and the history of Grove City, Ohio. Premiering May 29-31, in Grove City. Details below.

Told through a series of vignettes and monologues, THE CENTURY BOX follows a sister and brother who discover a forgotten time capsule in an old house up for auction. Setting off an adventure that reaches back to the origins of their hometown; they'll have to solve this mystery of the century box before the auction, or risk losing it forever.  

The full version of "The Century Box" will premiere Friday, May 29 at 8:00p.m., in the Ed Palmer Auditorium at Central Crossing High School, 4500 Big Run South Road. Performances continue Saturday May 30 at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00p.m., and a final performance on Sunday, May 31 at 2:00p.m. All performances are free.