Play Listing (More info available at www.danieldamiano.com)

Full Length Plays

The Dishonorable Discharge of Private Pitts (2009)
Day of the Dog (2007-2008)
Graphic Nature (2006)
Dreams of Friendly Aliens (2004, Revised 2006)
The Narrow World (2002, Revised 2007)
The Old Wife's Tale (2001, Revised 2003)
Fate Would Have It (1999)
The Offspring of Lorraine (1997-1998)

One-Act Plays

Given Our Current Fiscal Crisis (2009)
The Enlightenment of Mrs. Cartwell (2009)
Attention Def...Hey, look, a Dog! (2007)
Did You Hear the One About the Mexican Laundress...? (2006)
Spell (2005-2006)
Bon Voyage, Mr. Phelps! (2004)
Stay (2002)
The Dessert Cart (2001)
A Moment of Weakness (2000)
Standard Time (1996, 2004)

Solo Play

The Hyenas Got It Down (2008)

My Year in Review (Hey, it coulda' been worse)

Though I’m often quick to dwell on the half empty glass, 2008 wasn’t such a bad year artistically for me. What I’ve learned over the years is that what gives an artist sanity is a sense of progression, and this past year was at least good for that. What was also nice is that the past year brought a combination of nice opportunities as well self-created projects. In February, I staged a reading of my existential absurdist play The Narrow World, which was read at the Drama Bookshop’s Arthur Seelen Theatre. Though it was intended to be a chance for me to hear this older play of mine in its currently revised state, it was also intended as a sort of Backers reading. Though it did generate some financial interest, it was nowhere near enough for a multi-week production. Regardless, this play will see the light of day yet! (It was also a recently a Top 5 Finalist in the YES Festival of New Plays through the University of Kentucky, though I’m jumping ahead).

Immediately after, I directed my lovely wife (Judy Alvarez) along with 2 other fine comic actors (Nicholas Daniele and Andrew Dahl) in my one-act Did You Hear the One About the Mexican Laudress…? for Howling Moon Cab Company’s One Act festival. Much to my pleasure, the piece rocked the house and accurately nailed the absurdity of profiling and the paranoia of the now exiting administration. Incidentally, this was actually the play’s second production, after it premiered in Teatro del Pueblo’s Political Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota the prior year. Shortly thereafter, I shot a bit in a yet-to-be released indy film, tentatively called Subway Stories, directed by Mark Street.

At around this time, I had learned that I was accepted to present a reading of my latest full-length play Day of the Dog at the wonderful Last Frontier Theatre Festival in Valdez, Alaska in June. This would prove to be a pivotal and cathartic experience on many creative and spiritual levels. Dog was then subsequently presented as part of Kitchen Dog Theatre’s New Works Festival in Dallas, TX the following week.

Upon my arrival back from Alaska, I was immediately thrust into casting and rehearsals for my one-act Spell, which I also directed. This was presented in Algonquin Theatre’s One-Act Festival and, happily, was selected to be published in their Anthology. No word yet on when that’s going to happen though. Regardless, the piece was very well received, and performed expertly by Michael Janove and Kathryn Kates as an aged couple suffering from unpronounceable illnesses.

The following month, my one-act Attention Def…Hey, look, a Dog! received it’s West Coast premier in Eclectic Theatre Company’s Hurricane Festival, after having premiered in New York the prior year.

In September, I presented a Workshop production of my one-man play The Hyenas Got It Down at 78th Street Theatre Lab, which was directed by the talented and innovative Aaron Gonzalez. The idea was, well, to present this show for free and allow it (and myself) to generate momentum in performing Hyenas at various venues in the future. As it turns out, its next life will be in Manhattan Repertory’s Winterfest in April, where they will produce it for 3 performances (April 8th, 9th & 10th).

The most recent creative event of 2008 came just a couple of weeks ago, playing the lead in the short indy Priming the Pump, directed by Jack MacGowan and adapted from a stage play by Mark Bellusci. The play is a sort of fish-in-a-barrel satire on the exploits of 2 talk show casting directors (myself and, alas, Judy Alvarez). What a blast!

Throughout the year, I also wrote a substantial amount of poetry, including an 11-part poem on my travels to-in-and-from Alaska, in addition to revising and sending out many of my plays, while giving as little credence to the “current fiscal situation” as humanly possible, especially with regards to its effect on theatre companies throughout the country. Fittingly, I am nearing completion on the first one-act I have written in a while, entitled Given Our Current Fiscal Crisis.

Much is open for the year 2009, though I am open to all the glorious possibilities. The priority for now, as always, is doing the work, doing it better than before,…and as often as I can.

Have a wonderful, happy and creatively fruitful year to come,…and don’t be a stranger!

Whatever Works - Works (Essay published in December issue of The Loop)

There are various phases in the playwriting process, and ones that I’m sure are not unfamiliar to playwrights in general. But for me, there are the few constants, much of which comes from not writing a thing, but simply embracing the time to think, read, absorb, digest and evaluate issues and potential characters before narrowing down what I ultimately feel compelled to dramatize. This is never an instantaneous process, but one that I find myself more and more drawn to. In other words, I don’t kill myself to write, but embrace the time before-and-between writing to simply allow things to accumulate within me. Yeah, I can flagellate myself into writing 10 pages a day but, with equal commitment and no guilt, I often prefer reading a book, seeing a movie, breathing, playing with the cat, walking, making a peanut and banana sandwich, playing the piano, writing a poem, watching Simpsons reruns, etc. For me, there is something to be said for doing little when it comes to writing. This is not to say that I don’t get antsy or impatient with myself for not finding that kernel of an idea or that particular character that becomes the impetus of my inspiration, or channel my frustrations into some other creative form, but the act of not writing I find no shame in because, like anything born, sometimes it just takes time for seeds to bear fruit. Yes, you can call this a sort of prenatal/Zen-like approach but, for Godsakes, just don’t call it “Writer’s Block”, which, personally, I consider a mythological term akin to Unicorns.

As writers, we should take comfort in knowing that the world is our oyster, and that the limits of our creativity and the methods by which we achieve it are limitless. The bottom line is that whatever works - works, and more power to us for discovering what that is!

Ultimately, I take solace in knowing that, despite however long I may be seemingly inactive, my pen will eventually touch paper and, with a certain excitement, I’ll begin creating something other than a grocery list.

62nd & Broadway (a poem)

At the center of the universe,
on an island within an island,
between oncoming and ongoing traffic,
sitting like Buddha with a light’n sweet coffee in hand,
I look up
as the sun beats down,
while pedestrians narrowly escape death,
seeking momentary refuge on my little island
before daring to cross to the other side of Broadway,
despite the orange-lit hand that forewarns.

A few make a mad dash before a mercilessly speeding cab
in the hopes that they will not become one with the pavement,
succeeding by barely a length.
No lesson learned here,
despite their mutual hyperventilation,
which I can hear from where I sit,
over the blaring horns and screetching brakes.

In truth, it’s really the only way to cross 62nd & Broadway,
unless you’re not in a hurry,
but everyone always is,
even with nowhere to go.

I’m not so centered, despite where I’m sitting,
despite my momentary lack of urgency to get somewhere
or nowhere.

But,
for now,
I’m just enjoying the view,
my coffee,
the sun,
and the feeling that I’m one with the universe,
instead of one of many trying desperately not to die.

Life after Death (a poem)

To have been alive after death
is something she never fails to remember.
The day she faded into the light
like a welcomed sleep,
her pain numbed by the moment,
while her family encircled her,
seemingly removed of their long-established dysfunction.

She suddenly resigned that this was the way to end things;
With her son,
whom she had not seen in a time,
for various reasons,
his face moistened with regret.
With her daughter,
similarly tear drenched,
long past her resentment of her brother.
And with her husband,
assuming that his unexpressed love was known.
And, in fact, his was never more apparent to her than that day,
as if he were combating the illness that was slowly escorting her into the light,
brighter by the second.

She was now an evening sailboat drifting into a celestial Lighthouse
that was set to guide her soul to a place that would hopefully make sense.

And then,…she heard a voice,
the volume of which would pull her back into her hospital bed,
surrounded by a sea of baby blue colored scrubs,
between which bobbed the tenacious faces of her family
excitedly conveying that she had been dead
…but was now alive.

This would move her,
both to tears and,
within days,
…to her feet,
which would transport her out of the hospital
arm in arm in arm in arm
with her husband,
son
and daughter,
and back into her somewhat happier life
…after death.

The Meal of Your Life (a poem)

You entered the room,
and sat at your table.
You didn’t ask for it,
yet there it was;
A plate covered in thought not your own,

and full you became
on someone else’s entrée,
not knowing what tastes good,
only knowing what you heard
about what you’d soon be served,
and then,
unable to withstand another bite,
you loosened the belt around your waste,
which offered you little space
for your own mind,
and so blind…you became,
traipsing and fumbling throughout all the rooms you’d ever enter,
sans an appetite for anything else.

The Audition (a poem)

I enter a bright, white holding room,
which looks the same as when I last was here,
surrounded by men whom I recognize but choose to ignore,
of similar age, build, height, weight,
emoting over a single page like a mad conductor,
furiously stabbing the air,
their primal yells barely restrained,
as they intensely pace an indentation into the floor.

They may be awful,
but they will be damned if not remembered.

One by one they are called into the room,
from where I don’t expect them to come out alive.
The walls muffle their bellowing,
as the waiting victims look at each other
with a judgmental roll of the eyes.

I am soon summoned before the tribunal,
like Galileo without a sense of importance.
I perform my three minutes
like a tense chimpanzee,
and am soon after released back into civilization
without so much as a banana.

The unknown escorts me to the street,
onto the subway and home,
where it resides within my stomach throughout the endless evening into day,
where I wait,
anticipating with bated breath
and vowing not to let it cross my narrow mind tomorrow.

Yet I’m kept awake by reliving the moment.
I say the lines to myself as if an annoying dream.
I wake up and speak to my medicine cabinet,
seeking approval form the Tylenol bottle and Aqua-fresh.
Obsessing to the nth degree;
If I had just emphasized the word “that”
instead of “you”,
my world would be different right now.

In the morning, I take the train into work,
and continue to exhaustedly murmur my lines from this tepid page of dialogue
under my breath, as if afflicted with a most unsettling malady…
until I convince myself that I wasn’t abysmal.

Indeed, this profession can make you crazy.

But, then again,…what actor isn’t?