How we chose LETTER FROM ALGERIA

Hey blogoshere,

This is Guy Olivieri, a producer for GUP, and today I wanted to talk a little bit out how we found LETTER FROM ALGERIA, our upcoming fall show.

Well, first, my big project for the year is coordinating the annual reading series; this year it was in November. We try to find new scripts (as many as we can) and then we choose the 4 best for staged readings. The hope is that one of them will resonate, and we’ll want to do a full production.

We’ve gone through this process in the past, but this was the first year that it worked like a charm. After the staged readings, we all knew: we had a great play on our hands.

The Process:

So, I put an ad in Backstage, and on Facebook, and contacted all of my friends who were writers, and asked for play submissions. One of those friends was Michael Ian Walker. I’m an actor myself, and I’d been in a staged reading of a great musical called THE MAKING OF MADELINE MOORE, written my Michael Walker and Kyle Ewalt, a couple of months before. I asked Michael if he had a play and he sent LETTER FROM ALGERIA.

Y’all, these two scripts could NOT be more different: MADELINE MOORE is a supremely silly musical about vapid socialites, and ALGERIA is a dark and sexy drama that takes place in Belgium and war-torn Algeria. Night and Day. I’m still floored that Michael could be that versatile a writer, and still pretty-much undiscovered.

Back to the selection process! Thanks to a large committee of play readers, we got all 70 plays and musicals read, and each was given a score (1 to 100). If it scored over 60, then I read it as well. The finalists, about 10 plays/musicals, were all read by me, Kate and Phil – and we made our choices:

LETTER FROM ALGERIA

By Michael I. Walker

Directed by Jordana Williams

AVOW

By Bill C. Davis

Directed by Jerry Less

THE OTHER PLACE

By Sharr White

Directed by Ethan McSweeney

THE THING ABOUT JOE

Book & Lyrics by Matthew Hardy

Music by Randy Klein

Directed by West Hyler & Shelley Butler

We had a board meeting where we all met to discuss the pros and cons, and ultimately we choose ALGERIA. Each play was great, and each reading had its own strengths, but when it came down to it, ALGERIA felt like the best fit with GUP.

I’m, personally, psyched to see what we come up with for this Fall production. Hope to see you all there!