I was recently cast in WNEP Theater’s next production, which is titled The (edward) Hopper Project, and will be directed by the AWG himself, Don Hall.  Performances will take place at the DCA Storefront Theater, 66 E Randolph in downtown Chicago.

There’s lots more info about the project and how it came into existence over at WNEP’s website, so I won’t go too much into detail here, except that 9 writers in the WNEP family (Mary Jo Bolduc, Jen Ellison, Bob Fisher, Tom Flanigan, Don Hall, Merrie Greenfield, Joe Janes, Cholley Kuhaneck, and Rebecca Langguth) wrote pieces inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.  The result is a lovely, episodic script about brief encounters, long-awaited reunions, missing pieces, and burning subtext.  The kinds of moments whose importance can’t be known until days, months, years later.  Or, as I phrased it at an early reading: “This is life, as you missed it.”  (I don’t even really know what that means, but I thought it sounded apt somehow.)

WNEP Theater presents:

The (edward) Hopper Project

Written by
Mary Jo Bolduc, Jen Ellison, Bob Fisher, Tom Flanigan, Don Hall,
Merrie Greenfield, Joe Janes, Cholley Kuhaneck, Rebecca Langguth

I was recently given a profile in F Newsmagazine, a student pub at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Many thanks to Rita DeAngelo for a thoughtful and well-written article!

“More than comedy or drama, Barsotti explained, the fear genre is transcultural. Everyone is afraid of the unknown, the supernatural, the Other. As he sees it, decent horror is viscerally frightening, good horror is psychologically frightening, and great horror is both. By creating relatable scenarios, Barsotti’s horror is heightened. The audience members then can associate with it, recalling fears and projecting them onto what they are watching unfold. In this way, the viewers fill the unanswered with their own thoughts, inciting fear in a more personal way.” Read full article

Bill O’Driscoll at the Pittsburgh City Paper gave THE REVENANTS a nice preview in this week’s Short List.  It’s accompanied by a lovely photo of Makeda Duncan-Parker and Valentina Benrexi, taken by director Mark Whitehead:

“Zombies, like vampires, warrant endless metaphorical revision. George Romero cast the undead as living vessels for, among other things, racism and consumerism. Lately, with zombies only more popular in popular culture, we’ve heard (in The Wall Street Journal, no less) about “zombie houses,” foreclosed and vacant. Now North Hills native Scott T. Barsotti has a new twist. The Chicago-based playwright uses zombification as a metaphor for cataclysmically altered personal relationships — a new way to explore what makes us human.”  Read More…
~ Bill O’Driscoll

Just saw this today, the PPTCO poster for THE REVENANTS, and some notices in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh City Paper, and Pittsburgh Galleries Blog.  Getting very excited…

Tickets!

In the days following Deathscribe, there have been several lovely writeups of the show on various blogs, including…

“DEATHSCRIBE 2009 proved to be an extraordinary night for both theater and horror fans alike…a completely triumphant event.”
~ Chicago Stage Review

“I…remember finding and downloading some of the old horror serials that were similar to The Twilight Zone in style and content. It is these radio shows that DEATHSCRIBE 2009 reminded me of…It was quite an enjoyable night.”
~ SHU-IZMZ

…and a few nice bits about THE SKINNY MAN:

“[The Skinny Man] provokes both my primordial fear of chthonic spaces (basements) and my rational and experience-derived disgust of cockroaches. It is a creepy-crawly piece with lots of cursing and mummy-dry wheezing, with the Foley Artist banging out sounds of brick and mortar crumbling and things that go SHATTER in the dark.”
~ Killer-Works.com

“Scott T. Barsotti, author of a previous WildClaw production, The Revenants, closed out the night with his vaguely Blair Witchy The Skinny Man…Let me tell ya, the foley artist did a lot of celery and lettuce crunching for this one.”
~ Fearful Symmetries

Fearful Symmetries also, I just realized, wrote a wonderfully in-depth review of WildClaw’s production of THE REVENANTS after seeing it on closing weekend, opening with this:

“If Edward Albee was a horror fan, he might have concocted The Revenants wherein a man and a woman try to plumb the depths of their affections for one another and for their undead spouses. Instead it was Scott T. Barsotti who penned the play…”

I love it.

Thank you to all of the writers, directors, performers, foley artists, musicians, readers, and listeners who made DEATHSCRIBE 2009 such a successful evening of radio horror!

HUGE thanks to Katie McLean, Kate Brown, Mike Ooi, and Ron Kuzava for making THE SKINNY MAN as creepy, intense, and awesome as I could have ever hoped. Could not be more thrilled with my director and cast, not to mention Brian Amidei and Scott Tallarida for their outstanding and chilling foley work (on my play and throughout the evening…Brian and Scott kicked ass).

Also, big big thanks to everyone at WildClaw, I’m humbled to work alongside these folks.

And hearty congratulations to Chris Hainsworth, whose heart-breaking and disturbing play Remembrance won the Bloody Axe.

Sometime soon, WildClaw will be releasing podcasts with recordings of Deathscribe 2009, including all five produced plays, and posting them to the Blood Radio blog. I’ll be sure to link to them when they’re available!

Check this out.

This was put together by WildClaw ensemble members Charlie Athanas and Aaron Christensen, with help from Craig Spidle and Scott Tallarida. Freaking awesome and awesomely freaky.

DEATHSCRIBE is this Monday at the Music Box. You can still get tickets through WildClaw’s site and TicketWeb.

I’m on Twitter… twitter.com/barsots

(Photo: Kyle LaMere)

Yesterday, Chicago Dramatists announced the names of their new Resident Playwrights. My name was among them. Chicago Dramatists is a great organization that has a long history of cultivating playwrights’ careers. The residency lasts 3 years, with the possibility of renewing for a second 3-year term. I’m very excited to see what this opportunity will bring!

The other new Resident Playwrights for 2009 are Dana Lynn Formby, Andrew Hinderaker, and Ruth Margraff.

From the Chicago Dramatists website:

Chicago Dramatists’ Resident Playwright program was conceived at the founding of the organization in 1979. It offers an artistic home to the Chicago dramatists who potentially will make significant contributions to the American theatre repertory. Resident Playwrights are beneficiaries of the theatre’s fullest and longest-term support; they include a diverse mix of established professionals and promising new writers living in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, with a wide range of artistic and stylistic interests.

Tickets are available for WildClaw Theatre’s Deathscribe (if you’re in Chicago) and PPTCO’s production of THE REVENANTS (if you’re in Pittsburgh).

Deathscribe tickets…Oct. 5 only (tickets are going fast)

THE REVENANTS tickets…Oct. 16-31
–Click to view PPTCO’s 2009-2010 season flyer!