"Beer Theory" in SF Theater Pub's Pint-Sized Plays Festival

I'm back! Miss me? I have had an incredibly busy month or so: family reunion, Europe trip, several birthday celebrations (including my own), friends and family coming to visit, and, last week, the opening of my latest play! This is "Beer Theory," a 10-minute play included in San Francisco Theater Pub's Pint-Sized Plays Festival.

I love Theater Pub and their annual Pint-Sized Festival -- they produced my play "Drinking for Two" in 2010, my first production in San Francisco. This year, Pint-Sized is bigger and better than ever: ten plays, six performances, live piano music, a dancing bear, a talking beer, corporate sponsorship from Good Vibrations, and a reappearance of the audience-favorite Llama character. Last week the show even went on tour to the Plough and the Stars on Clement Street -- I am thrilled that we got some theater west of Van Ness Avenue and also thrilled that, at six performances, this is the longest run any play of mine has ever had.

As for "Beer Theory," I can think of no better way to describe it than the tag line that producer Julia Heitner devised: "Boy Meets Girl. Apollonian Meets Dionysian." It's a meet-cute play with a twist, and, more than any play I've written, it gets at what it's like to be inside my head. It's inspired by A Visit from the Goon Squad and the Magnetic Fields concert and Sexual Personae and my own neurotic/over-thinking tendencies and a lot of other stuff besides. It's also my attempt to get over my fear of writing direct-address monologues!

"Beer Theory" has been sensitively directed by Katja Rivera and stars Rachel Ferensowicz (who once again proves that she is one of the most charming actresses in San Francisco) and Geoff Nolan (who plays one kind of romantic lead in my play and a very different one in "Circling," another of the Pint-Sized offerings).

Pint-Sized has received a lot of great publicity. Theater Pub did email interviews with me and with Katja. Lily Janiak profiled the festival in SF Weekly and gave us a nice review on her blog. Megan Cohen blogged about the audience reaction to her dancing-bear play, and that play made a new fan out of Rachel Bublitz. And we got some very mysterious and unexpected publicity from SF Daily Secret!

In short: you should come to one of the three remaining performances! Our brief foray into the Inner Richmond is over, but we'll be at Cafe Royale in the Tendernob on July 23, 30 and 31. Don't miss it!

Photo: Actors Rachel Ferensowicz and Geoff Nolan (with an innocent bystander in the middle) in "Beer Theory."