My wife Rehana and I just finished co-writing one of the 24 Hour Musicals, which is an evening of four 15-minute musicals, all written, composed, rehearsed, and performed in a single day.

We got paired up with the fantastically talented composer Sam Willmott, and the three of us stayed up all night Sunday to serve up a delicious serving of skin-of-your teeth musical theater.

At 9pm Sunday we met up with the company and met all the actors.
At 11pm we drew for a cast and got to work.
By 7am the next day we'd written a brand-new short musical.

Rehana and I have co-written several times before, but never NEVER under such high-pressure, sleepless conditions. 

WHAT was going to happen??

It all had me feeling a little like this...

Fortunately, our love and our dramaturgy remained strong. Sam was an insanely generous presence, and everyone around us generally kicked ass. (The video above is brought to you by the fact that Julie Reiber mentioned she'd never done a cartwheel onstage, so we found a way to work that into our book. The cast was so amazing and collaborative that they all decided to get in on the action.)

Here's a before-and-after pic of our overnight writing session...

Rehana and I will be co-writing a musical for the 24 Hour Musicals. It goes up Monday April 29th. Check out more info about the project here.

Bike America will be produced by Ma-Yi Theater in NYC Sept-Oct. Check back here for more details soon...

Studio 42's putting on their 2nd annual SmackDown. I'm gonna jump in the ring with some awesome fellow writers to see who's written the most unproducible play.

Little do they know I've been practicing unproducibility for YEARS now.

Check out Studio 42's website here: http://www.stu42.com/

Blog interview about Bike America in Atlanta. Check it out! Next stop Bike America in NYC with Ma-Yi theater coming Sept 2013.  

We're running 'til Feb 24 at the Alliance

Hello NYC family. Please see my work?

Sunday 12/9 @ 3pm - Reading of a brand new play!

Collin
with Louis Liberatore, Grantham Coleman, Jason Liebman, and Ali Ahn 
a Ma-Yi Labfest reading
the Bruce Mitchell Room
520 Eighth Avenue, 3rd Floor
Free!

David is a successful New York casting director and Collin is a hot young star on the rise. The attraction is chemical, but the combination is potentially deadly. A love letter to the theater where the highs and lows of romance echo the highs and lows of a life on the stage.

Thursday 12/13 @ 7pm - Reading of Stockton, winner of the Aracaworks Graduate Playwriting Award!

Stockton
directed by Lucie Tiberghien
an AracaWorks reading
The Studio at Theater 511
511 West 54th Street (betw 10th and 11th Ave)
Free! Reserve seating at www.aracaworks.com

Meet Fitz, EB, and Marie: three of the most fun, least motivated girls you'll ever see. They live in Stockton, California: birthplace of the art world darling Kara Walker and the graffitist Neck Face, home to an ok-but-not-great farmers’ market, and also the largest city in America ever to declare bankruptcy. Watch Fitz being haunted by Kara Walker’s maniacal talking silhouette! Watch EB reform the Stockton school system! Watch Marie follow Neck Face down a trail of graffiti that ends in wet paint…

Sunday 12/16 @ 8pm - Orphans of the Nightingale of the Desert: a Bollywood Spectacular... a benefit for Ma-Yi Writers Lab

Orphans of the Nightingale of the Desert: a Bollywood Spectacular
A benefit performance for the Ma-Yi Writers Lab
One night only! Sunday 12/16 at 8pm
at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 W. 42nd Street

Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest collective of Asian-American playwrights in the country, brings you their collective response to the recent casting controversies over The Nightingale, Orphan of Zhao, Pippin: a Bollywood Spectacular, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. (If you don't know, look 'em up!) This will be a benefit performance to support Lab activities, performed in association with several members from AAPAC (Asian-American Performers Action Coalition).

Where some have channeled their energies into panels, or letters, or blogs, the Lab is responding the best way they know how: an evening of minimally-rehearsed on-book satirical shorts. And we're doing it on the set of Golden Child, written by none other than the Godfather of Asian-American Theater David Henry Hwang.

With special thanks to David Henry Hwang and the Pershing Square Signature Center... featuring plays and opinions in no way associated with David Henry Hwang or the Pershing Square Signature Center.

Tickets are just $5! (Or donate more if you value what we do.)
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/919589

BIKE AMERICA
(a Juilliard workshop)
by Mike Lew
directed by Hal Brooks
featuring: Fiona Cheung, Tom Datnow, Adam Farabee, Michael Shaw, Jeremy Tardy, Natasha Warner, & Kerry Warren

Penny is damaged. She doesn’t know who she is or her place in the world. So she drops everything to go on a cross-country bike trip from Boston to Santa Barbara. Along the way she befriends a crew of fellow adventurers, from the lesbian couple who’ve decided to get a marriage license in every state to the mysterious Man with the Van who transports their belongings. Set in iconic towns from the deep North down to the deep South (and the highways between), Bike America captures the restlessness of a Millennial generation that will go to any length to find a place that always seems just out of reach.

Winner of the Kendeda Grad Playwriting Competition! World premiere upcoming at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta...

Performances:
Fri 9/7 @ 8pm
Sat 9/8 @ 9pm
Sun 9/9 @ 2pm & 7pm

Juilliard. 144 West 66th St betw. Broadway and Amsterdam. Room 301.

For reservations, call 212-799-5000 x 654 and leave a message.

Can't make it??
See a reading with the Playwrights Foundation!
Mon Oct 1 @ 7:30pm. Stanford University.
Tues Oct 2 @ 7pm. San Francisco.
For more info go to the Playwrights Foundation website.

Or see a reading at the Lark (NYC) as part of the Kendeda Festival.
Week of 10/22 - 10/26
More info TBA; check back for updates.

-Mike

Guest item today. Check out the artwork on my wife Rehana Lew Mirza's new play "Lonely Leela." And check out the play why don't you? Puppet/video/live staging of a living, breathing "Alice in Wonderland" internet. Sept 5-8, 2012 ONLY. More info at www.desipina.org.

Hop on your bikes.

My play Bike America will be workshopped at the Kennedy Center in D.C. next week as part of the MFA Playwrights' Workshop. Directed by Freddie Ashley, Artistic Director of Actor's Express.

Then a workshop production at Juilliard in September directed by Hal Brooks, Artistic Director of the Cape Cod Theatre Project.

The Kennedy Center one's private, the Juilliard one's public. More details on the Juilliard one forthcoming...