DANIEL JOHN KELLEY

It’s official: I’m one of four playwrights accepted into the second year of Tina Howe’s playwriting MFA at Hunter College. The deposit is paid, the GRE is taken, and I start in September!

The other three folks I’m going with are: Rob Cardazone, Kristen Palmer, and Lindsey Ferrentino. We all met over a non-lunch and several pitchers of sangria with Tina Howe in lower manhattan, and they all seem like excellently smart and talented folk. I’m looking forward to our journey together…

In fact, I went this past week to see the readings by the current MFA students, and was incredibly impressed by the work going on there- a great variety of passionate original voices, with ambition, imagination, pathos and humor.

My favorite piece was one by current student Johnna Adams- it was a searing 90 minute drama that takes place in a parent teacher conference *spoiler alert!* after a 5th grader commits suicide. Really, really strong piece. My favorite thing about it was that- though it’s super unambitious in terms of putting it up- it dug deep into these characters, and didn’t sacrifice anything in terms of scope of imagination. It is incredibly HUMANLY ambitious, true, and brutal. Producers, if you’re looking for a play, may I suggest this one? No, really, do it.

So…the bar is certainly set, and I’m gonna have bring my A game- or perhaps even a game above that, if such a thing is possible- but that’s kind of the point, right?

Onwards!