Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 22

Becoming your Default Hyperbole Number

It is my personal theory that everyone has one.

“Ican’t pick you up right now, bud.I’malready carrying37 billion things.”

“The doctor’s went fine apart from the fact that I had to sit in the waiting room for 37 hours before they saw me.”

“Those socks are 37 years old. You could definitely spring for new ones without holes.”

I call it your Default Hyperbole Number and it’s your go to number when you want to exaggerate for emphasis. You may not even be aware you’ve got one, and I wasn’t as...

August 2016: failing at taking breaks & other established character flaws

I think this might be the first time I’ve written my writing recap after the month has already ended.

Here’s what July2016looked like in writing…

YearlyGoal
556,549/600,000 words (93%)

Monthly Goal
My goal was to take Augustoff. This meant, I could write if I felt like it but didn’t have to.

Total Words Written
47,400 words
I know, so close to 50,000. I could have done it too, easy. But, looking at how far ahead I am for the year, it seemed like madness to do more particularly on a month I was...

Tips for performing a fantasy play and making magic & special effects on a school budget

I did a guest post for the Playscripts blog on Friday calledFrugal Fantasy: Making Magic on a Less Than Fantastical Budgetfilled with tips for making magical effects happen on the stage even if you’re working on a school or community theatre budget. It’s filled with examples from both The Love of Three Oranges and The Green Bird so head on over and check it out. Both plays are also available to book for any productions you’ve got planned in the upcoming school year so check them out!… Read mo...

Find Masks in Bullying, Ink. a brand new anthology from YouthPLAYS

My new short play, Masks, deals with bullying and I’m pleased to announce that it’s been included in the brand newanthology on that topic from YouthPLAYS called…

(Not an official logo or image in any way, just something I threw together in five seconds for this blog post.)

This collection features 14 short plays on bullying that can be mixed, matched and performed in any order to make a full length production or taken individually for use in the classroom, assemblies, drama or forensics comp...

Pre-approved cuts and content edits for schools doing The Green Bird

One of the challenges of an adaptation of The Green Bird is that I have to serve two masters (obligatory commedia reference!) which means that the sort of risque joke a commedia troupe or community theatre can do might be too much for a school. To that end, I’m compiling a list of the raciest parts of the script below with pre-approved cuts and modifications for schools in need of a tamer alternative. There’s also some suggestions for cutting for length below as well.

You’ve pre-emptively got...

High school friendly script for Carlo Gozzi’s The Green Bird available now from Playscripts!

If you were inspired by the visual spectacle of Julie Taymor’s award winning Broadway production of Carlo Gozzi’sThe Green Bird back in 2000 and wanted to perform it with your students, you were pretty much out of luck… until now! For the first time, there’s a brand new, modernized adaptation of The Green Bird that stays true to the spirit of the original without all the racism, misogyny and creepy AF incest that was stopping you from doing the original in a school setting. From the author of...

July 2016: Leveling up!

I normally jump right into the numbers but this is anunusualmonth and, as such, requires a specialintroduction. (I really want to use a GIF of Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride intro herebecause it would be perfectbut I can’t find one.) But July 2016 was special to me in a big way and I want to explain exactly why.

I know I can write. This may come as a surprise to those of you that follow me on Twitter where I’m saying the opposite just about every day but that’s just m...

Last chance for the original edition of The Green Bird before it goes out of print

The Green Bird is going out of print very soon as it moves over to Playscripts so if you want your copy of the original edition with the pretty green feather cover, you’ve got to act quickly! The books will be listed for sale for mere days more before I have to pull them so don’t delay!

To get the eBook, which is the most current revision of the play and half the cost the eBook will be when it moves to Playscripts, you can visit any of the retailers below:

For the printed acting edition, you...

In which Jane Austen has been giving me some trouble but we’ve sorted it out

As I eluded to in this post, Jane Austen and I have been having some issues.

This play I'm writing has a part when Jane Austen beats the crap out of Mark Twain, that's how you know it's quality literature. #amwriting

— Hillary DePiano (@HillaryDePiano) June 18, 2016

First I wrote this weird SciFi-flavoredparody of Pride and Prejudicethat culminated in a battle to the death between Jane Austen and Mark Twain. Iloved this play which was really funny and great and… absolutely way too long for w...

Vardiello, a modern commedia style fairy tale short play by Hillary DePiano

Now that my month of writing insanity is coming to a close, it’s time to start showing you the results of all my labors. I wrote A LOT of plays in the last few weeks and I’m pleased to finally share them with you!First up isVardiello,a modern, commedia style adaptation the 17th century Italian fairy tale by Giambattista Basile in his Tale of Tales.

While the majority of my commedia-style adaptations run long with massive casts, this play is short (only runs about 10-15 minutes) and can be don...