David Caudle, Playwright

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Photo by Greg Lewis

DAVID CAUDLE is an alumnus of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, where he has developed several plays, including Downwrd Facing Debbie, Likeness, Leg Man, South Beach Rapture, Damsel and The Common Swallow, and most recently, the original musical Show People, with music composed by James Rubio. His play Visiting Hours was named Best New Play of 2012 by the Times-Picayune for its premiere production by Rising Shiners theater company in New Orleans. Currently residing in New York, Mr. Caudle is a Miami native who often sets his plays in his hometown, or premieres them there. In Development and Likeness premiered at New Theatre in Miami in October '09 and September of '07. The Sunken Living Room, now published by Samuel French, also premiered at New Theatre as a co-production with Southern Rep in April '06, followed by an acclaimed New Orleans production at Southern Rep in Jan. '07. To purchase The Sunken Living Room, click here. David's one-act, Feet of Clay, is published in Samuel French's 29th Edition of Festival Plays. To purchase Feet of Clay, click here. The short film version was directed by True Blood's Carrie Preston. Most recently, he has written the screen adaptation of Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Military, by retired US Army Major Jeffrey McGowan.

Contact

Please direct all professional inquiries to:

Agent, Ronald Gwiazda @ Abrams Artists Agency
Phone: (646) 486-4600, Email: Ron.Gwiazda@abramsartny.com

Manager, Cyrena Esposito @ Red Letter Entertainment
Phone: (212) 247-2375, Email: cyrena@redletterent.com

To be added to the mailing list, CLICK HERE.

REVIEWS ARE IN FOR DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE and VISITING HOURS!

Nytheaternow.com,

MIAMI NEW TIMES, Feb. 10, 2014. John Thomason

"a slow-burning, perceptive chamber drama about sacrifice and betrayal, honesty and self-delusion... In Caudle's worldview, self-interest trumps everything else, a conclusion that other playwrights, like Neil LaBute, have reached with caustic cynicism or world-weary hopelessness. But Caudle seems to be an inherent optimist, looking for even the slightest glimmer of hope or modicum of change in this tragic study of human foibles."

Visiting Hours at New Theatre: Gypsy Theatre Relaunches With Perceptive Drama

If it seems like New Theatre's latest production has an extra spring in its step — if the set design, lighting, and actors appear unusually dynamic — it might be because the peripatetic company has finally found a decent home.

More than decent, in fact. Since 2012, with the razing of its then-decade-old theater in Coral Gables, the company has had trouble finding a proper performance venue. For about a season and a half, it produced plays at Miami's Roxy Performing Arts Center, a former movie theater turned children's performing arts school, located in an unimpressive strip mall. After a while, neither of the Roxy's theaters seemed to work, so directors ended up carving new audience spaces on the stages themselves, behind the curtains. Last October, county officials cut New Theatre's Roxy experiment mercifully short after citing the venue for water and sewage problems. The company promptly packed up and presented its next scheduled production at Artistic Vibes, a warehouse space near the Falls.

And now, after the collapse of four permanent homes in its 27-year history, New Theatre has forged a deal with the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, a 2-year-old, strikingly modern arts colossus with Frank Gehry-style architecture. (The M Ensemble, another Miami-based gypsy theater of late, has also found a new home at SMDCAC.) Housed in one of the center's two boutique spaces — the 129-seat Lab Theater — New Theatre now enjoys the benefits of a large cultural institution's marketing largesse and, hopefully, its subscriber base.

One thing is certain: It picked a quality piece of a drama to relaunch its brand.Visiting Hours, a Florida premiere by Miami native David Caudle, is set affectionately in his childhood metropolis; keep an ear out for references to Coral Castle, CocoWalk, and Joe's Stone Crab.

It's here, in an autumnally colored guesthouse of a wealthy friend/relative, where Marian (Barbara Sloan) and her longtime partner, Beth (Madelin Marchant), return from a Saturday-morning doughnut run to find a stranger in their home. Her name is Shelly (Maria Corina Ramirez), a manipulative little runaway who may or may not have broken into the residence. But none of that matters: She has news about Marian's son Paul (Alex Alvarez), whom Marian hasn't seen in two years. He's in prison, which doesn't surprise Beth, but Shelly swears by his innocence, claiming an aggravated assault charge was blown out of proportion. And she could really use $2,000 for his bond, or something. Actually, make it $3,000. Did she mention she's going to have Paul's baby?

So begins a slow-burning, perceptive chamber drama about sacrifice and betrayal, honesty and self-delusion. In one way or another, Marian is using Beth, Shelly is using Paul, Paul is using Shelly and Beth and Marian, and Marian and Beth are using Nat (Kitt Marsh), the wealthy spinster from whom they're renting their supposedly rundown bungalow (Alyiece Moretto's set design looks plenty livable). In Caudle's worldview, self-interest trumps everything else, a conclusion that other playwrights, like Neil LaBute, have reached with caustic cynicism or world-weary hopelessness. But Caudle seems to be an inherent optimist, looking for even the slightest glimmer of hope or modicum of change in this tragic study of human foibles.

Under the direction of arguably South Florida's most skilled theater freelancer, Margaret Ledford, each actor plunges deep into his or her emotional well. The criminally underused Alvarez, who has proven he can be quirky and funny (GableStage's The Motherfucker With the Hat) as well as monstrous and harrowing (Promethean Theatre Company's The Unseen), gravitates mostly to the latter as Paul. His sheer size makes him an intimidating force when surrounded by slender women, and his Paul is a self-destructive loose cannon, a psychopath careening toward an early grave. It's a performance built equally on small gestures — sniffing like a cokehead after convincing his mother he's clean — and uncontrollable, animalistic maneuverings, like a bipolar Stanley Kowalski. He switches from rage to regret in a heartbeat while suggesting that both could be the work of an emotionless manipulator. When he's left to really explore his character, which is mostly in Act II, he seems positively possessed by him.

Ramirez, who imbued her character in New Theatre's excellent production ofHappy with the confidence of a master conductor, brings a little of that to Shelly, a young woman whose convincing stories and schizoid fits of attention-grabbing have an ulterior motive. She plays sexy and straggly at the same time, a devious dynamo whose presence in a room can warp its energy faster than a passing poltergeist.

Sloan and Marchant make for a believable couple, each one's yin playing off the other's yang. The former is a classic motherly archetype, forever hoping there's an angel somewhere hidden in the demon seed she brought into the world. She effectively turns on the water works a couple of times, but it's the small touches that resonate the most, like the few times she reaches for her son only to have her affections ignored or rebuffed. Marchant's Beth anchors the show as its most grounded character, but she's also its least expressive performance, and it teeters at times toward emotional disconnection; it doesn't help that she rushes through a number of her lines. She stuns, finally, in an arresting confrontation and its aftermath in the second act.

Marsh may be onstage the least, but she's terrific every moment she's on. She brings out Caudle's comic relief with a bayou rasp and a gin and tonic in hand, no matter how early in the morning it happens to be. She plays Nat with a drunkard's loudness and lack of self-awareness, like a bedraggled matriarch from, once again, the Tennessee Williams canon.

At this past Sunday's matinee, the only element lacking in this handsome production of an intelligent play was the number of butts in the seats. It's always difficult to relocate, and New Theatre has surely lost patrons with each location change. But the company has proven time and again that the show will always go on, even if it has to find an empty parking lot or a director's backyard. For its sake as well as for the strength of this theater community, let's hope New Theatre's U-Haul days are finally over.

MIAMI HERALD: Christine Dolen, Feb. 9, 2014

'Resonant.' 'A study in hard-wired familial dysfunction.' Christine Dolen

New Theatre explores a family’s dysfunction in David Caudle’s ‘Visiting Hours’

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN

CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Gloriously happy families aren’t as common as movies and television shows would have it. Most folks live in a shades-of-gray real world, one that comes with problems and complicated relationships. That’s the terrain David Caudle explores in his play Visiting Hours.

After a world premiere two years ago in New Orleans, Caudle’s set-in-Coral Gables drama is getting its South Florida debut. New Theatre, now presenting its work in the Lab Theater at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, earlier premiered the Miami-raised Caudle’s In Development, Likeness and The Sunken Living Room. Visiting Hours launches New Theatre’s stay in Cutler Bay, the company’s fifth home base since its founding in 1986.

Resonant yet deliberately slow to reveal its secrets, Visiting Hours centers on a devoted lesbian couple, Marian (Barbara Sloan) and Beth (Madelin Marchant). The two are living in a small garage apartment owned by Nat (Kitt Marsh), their friend and benefactor, an older lesbian with a fondness for gin and tonics. The reason for the couple’s diminished financial circumstances soon resurfaces: Paul (Alex Alvarez), Marian’s 30-year-old son, has been arrested on charges of aggravated assault and needs bail money.

Parents with a troubled “kid” will relate to Caudle’s drama, painfully so. Paul and his newest acquisition, a troubled young homeless woman named Shelly (Maria Corina Ramirez), change their stories more often than they change their backpack-rumpled clothing. The fissures in Marian and Beth’s relationship grow ever deeper as the younger couple keeps piling on the lies and Marian the enabler keeps making excuses for her son.

Directed by Margaret M. Ledford, Visiting Hoursplays out in a cramped apartment that is as ugly as Marian and Beth’s ongoing exploitation by Paul (Alyiece Moretto designed the odd set). The acting is strong, though on opening night some lines were blown or forgotten. Too, one more clarifying rewrite wouldn’t hurt Visiting Hours. The facts and history contained in the plot are sometimes more confusing than revelatory.

Sloan and Marchant are convincing and compelling as the couple who are deeply bonded despite their differences (Marian, for instance, finds solace in faith, but Beth is a skeptic), and they make you believe that the final test of the relationship could play out either way. Marsh is lascivious as Nat comes on to the much younger Shelly, amusing and sad as she grows ever more inebriated, poignant in her expression of loneliness.

But it’s Alvarez and Ramirez as the sneaky, raging young couple who prove both fascinating and frightening. Both of the younger actors walk the sociopath’s tightrope, radiating reason (Alvarez) and kookiness (Ramirez) until their masks fall away, and it becomes clear that no amount of a parent’s redemptive love is going to make any difference in their exploitative cruelty. And in its waning moments,Visiting Hours becomes a study in hard-wired familial dysfunction.

Read more here:http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/09/3923634/new-theatre-explores-a-familys.html#storylink=

FLORIDATHEATERONSTAGE.COM, Bill Hirschman, Feb. 9, 2014

'Intriguing' ... 'raises interesting questions after the final curtain about how “true” a relationship is that is based on lies, or whether they are essential to continuing relationships.'

Caudle’s Visiting Hours At New Theatre Asks Should You Lie To The People You Care About

Until the final scene, it’s not terribly clear what New Theatre’s intriguing Visiting Hours is about or what it’s trying to say – and then the ideas come at you so fast that it takes a while afterward to sort out what playwright David Caudle has been setting up all night.

A bit of clarity arrives in the heat of an argument when one half of a lesbian couple asks her partner, “Is love a consistent lie?” Caudle’s answer seems to be “yes” — we manipulate and tells lies to the people we love to preserve their peace of mind and the stability of the prized relationship itself.

Before that, it’s a bit difficult to suss out the unifying thread. Fortunately, the production led by director Margaret M. Ledford is consistently engaging and Caudle’s characters are absorbing enough to keep your attention.

Open-hearted Marian (Barbara Sloan) and wary Beth (Madelin Marchant) have been in a loving relationship for 20 years in Coral Gables, a reliable yin-and-yang of personalities and strengths. Together, they have raised a son, Paul (Alex Alvarez), the result of Marian’s disastrous marriage. Two years ago, Paul disappeared after the couple used the last of their credit lines to pay off his debts from addictive gambling. They have spent most weekends searching for him.

Today, Paul’s ditzoid girlfriend Shelly (Maria Corina Ramirez) shows up seeking bail because Paul has been arrested for attacking a landlord who took his deposit and refused to rent to him. Marian wants to run to his side, but Beth – protective of her lover – strongly presses for caution. It doesn’t help that Shelly is not just nuts, but a lying opportunistic user. Just as skeptical is the blowsy boozy Nat (Kitt Marsh), an older well-heeled lesbian who took the couple under her wing and gave them a garage apartment rent-free when Paul wiped out their savings.

Without consulting Beth, Marian puts up their car as collateral for a bond and springs her son. Paul has spun her a hard-luck story that doesn’t answer a lot of questions. Once he and Shelly crash in the apartment, he becomes alternately sullen and borderline violent – until it’s not so borderline anymore.

At one point, someone yells, ‘why is he this way?’ to which I yelled silently in my mind, ‘Yeah, why?’ We actually don’t get much of an answer other than he’s just a bad seed. But Caudle is more interested in Paul as a catalyst for the kind of deceptions that fuel long-term relationships. His presence reveals a raft of manipulations and lies and cover-ups among all of the characters, most of them benign and altruistic that provide the lubrication for the long-term relationships. That raises interesting questions after the final curtain about how “true” a relationship is that is based on lies, or whether they are essential to continuing relationships.

Caudle sets the play in Coral Gables and laces the script with lots of Florida references like Coral Castle and CocoWalk that will mean nothing to folks in Atlanta or Los Angeles, but give it a verisimilitude.

Ledford is one of the region’s best directors and she has worked hard to make this show land well with a competent cast.

Sloan, the New Theatre veteran with a dozen terrific performances on her resume, deserves credit for making Marian’s unconditional love of Paul nearly credible. Certainly Caudle’s creation reflects some parents’ blindness, but Paul’s callousness and cruelty makes Marian’s Pollyanna denial very close to implausible and only Sloan makes this work although you want to shake Marian for being such a pitiful dishrag.

Marchant effectively communicates that the no-nonsense Beth is cool-headed but that she is fiercely protective of Marian, who frankly needs protecting. Marchant’s Beth has seen too much emotional betrayal in the world outside not to be on guard.

In real life, Alvarez is an amiable guy and he’s got quite a range (the flamboyant cousin in GableStage’s The Motherf**ker With The Hat). But the husky muscular actor has been building a reputation for reliably portraying nasty, intimidating and violent characters. Paul adds to the list. Alvarez fearlessly accepts that Paul is an absolute heartless bastard. But there’s also a bit of charismatic likability that makes Paul’s eventual meltdown a bit jarring.

Playing quirky, mercurial and crazy is fun but also a difficult challenge; Ramirez pulls it off. Looking a lot like Penelope Cruz, Ramirez’s 20-something Shelly is not just a bit unhinged, but simultaneously an experienced hustler with a street pragmatism that knows no boundaries whatsoever. It contains echoes of the uninhibited girlfriend she portrayed for New Theatre in Robert Caisley’s Happy in 2012.

Marsh creates a hard-boiled exterior protecting a remarkably fragile ego as someone who starts drinking in the morning to get through the day. She’s got a nice topspin for sharp remarks such as “I like pleasure; it’s what it’s cracked up to be.”

Sam Deshauteurs’ lighting changed regularly as emotions ebbed and flowed, but actors often ended up in dark spots on the stage.

This is the first production in New Theatre’s new home in the Lab Theater at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, a new facility in Cutler Bay. The room gives the company the most space it has ever had in its history plus more equipment than ever before.

The space is lovely with plenty of parking (although on busy nights, you park across the street in the empty lot of a mall). The large glass structure facility is easy to find, two blocks west of exit 11 on the Turnpike. But it’s a long haul from New Theatre’s traditional audience

Play for Today: Downward Facing Debbie

MAY 19

Posted by Martin Denton

Geri-Nikole Love and Christopher Tierney in a scene from DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE | Andrew Block

Today’s Play is another one that has just opened at the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity: I LOVE that we are bringing scripts to our audience concurrently with some of the productions happening at this event in NYC’s East Village at the Paradise Factory Theater.

And I LOVE this play! It’s called Downward Facing Debbie and it’s written by David Caudle. Itplays at Planet Connections through June 7th, where it is directed (brilliantly–with wit and economy and real prowess) by Andrew Block, and presented by Project Y Theatre Company.

Has there been a play about yoga before? I can’t think of one. Most of Downward Facing Debbietranspires in the Yin Yang Studio, which is a very trendy yoga emporium in the Hamptons on Long Island. There is a fair amount of yoga in the piece, which will result in the fittest and most centered cast in New York City, one imagines; the ideas of yoga practice really pervade David’s play, in a smart and valuable way: this is a play about how you heal yourself, and about how honesty and focus and spiritual fitness are the tools toward finding one’s way.

Into an advanced, and rather exclusive, private yoga class one afternoon lopes our eponymous heroine, Debbie. She reveals in short order that her life is in serious disarray (I don’t want to give away details here), and Anduin and Li, the two women who run the studio, decide to let Debbie stay, even though she’s a yoga novice. The other three students in this class are Bob, a middle-aged entrepreneur with marital troubles; Claudia, a very wealthy and demanding woman of “a certain age” with serious self-esteem issues; and Tate, who is described in the script as “a blond god in his early 30s.” One of the things that Debbie needs to deal with is her feeling of abandonment by her family. Will yoga, and specifically these other yoga practitioners, be able to fill that gap?

The play proceeds humorously and big-heartedly, sorting out a variety of issues and potential couplings among these six characters. Everyone’s humanity–by which I mean their frailities and flaws AND their innate nobility and worthiness–is explored and appreciated. But not proven: the complicated nature of humanity is a given here, which is as it should be.

The writing is sharp and often very funny. Here’s a sample, which I picked more or less randomly, from early in the play:

ANDUIN: Do you know how many times you rolled your eyes today? Laughed at the poses. Sneered at the chants. If you can adjust your attitude, you’re a natural at this.
DEBBIE: I am?
LI: You’ve got incredible extension.
BOB: Me and Claudia can barely touch our toes.
CLAUDIA: Before yoga I couldn’t touch my knees. I had a back injury as a child. I’ve been plagued with horrible pain. Horrible! Anduin– and Li– have taught me to rise above the pain.
DEBBIE: You do great. I’m the one who keeps falling.
ANDUIN: Yoga’s about trying, not achieving.
TATE: Here, Debs. I’ll show ya somethin super easy.
LI: I got it, thanks. Feet together, hips aligned, palms forward. Shoulders relaxed. Relaxed.
CLAUDIA: They’re shoulders, not ear muffs. That’s what Li used to say to me. She’s correct, if a bit gruff.

I predict a long and healthy life for Downward Facing Debbie–the combination of yoga and wise humane comedy should serve to make this a play that lots and lots of companies all over the world will want to do. Check it out on Indie Theater Now.

For now, see it at Planet Connections, where it is being performed by a truly exemplary company that includes the hilarious Karen Stanion as Claudia, the wry and astonishingly limber Christopher Tierney as Tate, Jordy Lievers as Debbie, Geri-Nikole Love as Anduin, Esther Chen as Li, and Dan Patrick Brady as Bob. They all bring their characters to life quite brilliantly. And they execute the yoga choreography by Love, Tierney and Meital Bat Or with grace and precision–there’s a sequence in the center of the show that I promise you will enjoy watching.

This really does feel like one of those times when we’re seeing the making of a big hit unfolding. And I’m not just saying that because I published it–but I am darned proud that I did!

in Coral Gables and a serious trek from central Broward County (50 minutes off peak and 100 minutes during rush hour).

Play for Today: Downwardbie

MAY 19

Posted by Martin Denton

Geri-Nikole Love and Christopher Tierney in a scene from DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE | Andrew Block

The writing is sharp and often very funny. Here’s a sample, which I picked more or less randomly, from early in the play:

ANDUIN: Do you know how many times you rolled your eyes today? Laughed at the poses. Sneered at the chants. If you can adjust your attitude, you’re a natural at this.
DEBBIE: I am?
LI: You’ve got incredible extension.
BOB: Me and Claudia can barely touch our toes.
CLAUDIA: Before yoga I couldn’t touch my knees. I had a back injury as a child. I’ve been plagued with horrible pain. Horrible! Anduin– and Li– have taught me to rise above the pain.
DEBBIE: You do great. I’m the one who keeps falling.
ANDUIN: Yoga’s about trying, not achieving.
TATE: Here, Debs. I’ll show ya somethin super easy.
LI: I got it, thanks. Feet together, hips aligned, palms forward. Shoulders relaxed. Relaxed.
CLAUDIA: They’re shoulders, not ear muffs. That’s what Li used to say to me. She’s correct, if a bit gruff.

This really does feel like one of those times when we’re seeing the making of a big hit unfolding. And I’m not just saying that because I published it–but I am darned proud that I did!

News

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! Starting off the year with a publication of LIKENESS in the very fine online literary quarterly, BLACKBIRD. They have accompanied the play with this wonderful introduction:

"David Caudle’s Likeness transports us to a Revolutionary War-era Boston and does so with economy, taking place over the span of a single night, confined to the cramped, dimly-lit space of a barn. Edmund Farraday, a young artist, is commissioned to paint the daughter of a wealthy, tyrannical landowner, who asks him, in no few words, to misrepresent her for the family’s financial benefit. The play begins as a focused examination on the basic questions at the core of every artist, but the dynamics soon evolve as the world outside the barn bleeds in and the turbulent politics of the time become tangled with Farraday’s aesthetic angst.

By the end, the artist, standing back to regard his one-night, single-layered painting, admires the result: “There is no planning, no contrivance, but all immediacy, and honest response.” In Caudle’s work, too, we are struck by “the depth . . . in the visceral understanding of the subject.” His subjects—the prideful artist, the haughty, bratty model, her devoted governess, the ironfisted father, and the simple farmhand forced to act as prison-guard—progress through the night with nothing but immediate, honest reactions to their situation, but somehow the depth beneath them, the world outside them, and the extension of their time into our own are all fully felt. Caudle says he “revised Likeness during the Occupy movement to examine our society’s resemblance to that which we fought to reject in 1776.” This play casts it warm candlelight on the problems that have plagued America since its conception, and they will not leave us soon."

VISITING HOURS in Writer's Block Festival to benefit the ACTORS FUND!

At the HOWL! Happening Gallery.

Mon, Sept. 26 - 7 PM

Directed by TONY TORN. With VALERI MUDEK, KIM SYKES, KAILI VERNOFF.

Visiting Hours was a Weissberger Nominee, Premiere Stages Finalist, with critically praised productions at New Theatre in Miami and Rising Shiners in New Orleans where it was named best new play of the year by the Times-Picayune. About a Lesbian couple whose adult son is jailed for an assault. Developed in the Downstage Miami program, at Premiere Stages and at the Apt. 929 Theatre Company. Please come out and support Lower East Side artists via the Actors Fund! If you know the play or the gallery or are otherwise inclined, feel free to spread the word! Order TICKETS HERE!

COMING UP APRIL 5!

BITSY and RAFF will be read to a wonderful group of students as part of Dr. Gary Wellbrock's Broadway Books series. Charming actor Scott Cohen will read the story, which was so beautifully illustrated by his lovely wife, Anastasia Traina, and written by yours truly. We are all truly honored to be a part of this wonderful series!

FIRST ANNUAL BROADWAYCON!

As a featured guest playwright, I will be signing copies of THE SUNKEN LIVING ROOM at the Drama Book Shop's booth on Saturday, JAN 23rd from NOON to 1 PM. Come on out and pick up a copy and say hi! The Drama Book Shop has compiled an amazing list of writers. Go to their website to read all about it! For more info on the whole festival in general and all the fabulous events and celebrity guests, go to broadwaycon.com

LIKENESS at FEDERAL HALL

HOWL!Arts and FEDERAL HALL/National Park Service present a FREE public reading of
LIKENESS by David Caudle

Friday, OCT. 23At 2:00 PM

Directed by Joseph R Sicari
Featuring Nick Lehane, Erin Wilhelmi, Ned Van Zandt, Kathryn Kates, Angela Howell

In the ROTUNDA,

at FEDERAL HALL

26 Wall StreetNew York, NY

FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, but please RSVP to admin@davidcaudle.org to help us keep track of numbers.……..

The STAMP ACT was passed at Federal Hall in 1765 amid cries of “taxation without representation.” Performed in the very same room 250 years later, LIKENESS explores the impact of this historical turning point on one family.
SYNOPSIS: Amid Colonial outcry over the Stamp Act, a wealthy Loyalist commissions an idealistic young artist to paint an idealized portrait of his teenaged daughter in order to lure his major British investor into an enterprise-(and potentially life)-saving marriage.
LIKENESS was originally written and developed at The New Harmony Project and further developed in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. The play premiered at Miami's New Theatre directed by Ricky J Martinez.
"...another brilliant piece of writing from David Caudle, who turned to the turbulent times of Revolutionary War Boston to explore idealism versus reality. ...a tale about family, economic class consciousness, and, of course, the honesty of an artist..."Ron Levitt, Entertainment News and Views.

OLD NEWS...............

DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE -- A Comedy of Manners, Morals and Compromising Positions:

PREMIERING in the Planet Connections Festivity. At the Paradise Factory, 64 E 4 Street in Manhattan. THREE PERFORMANCES LEFT as of today, May 29th!

"...the makings of a big hit unfolding..." Martin Denton, nytheaternow. com (click link to read FULL REVIEW! or scroll down the left hand column here.)

Directed by Andrew Block. With Dan Patrick Brady, Esther Chen, Jordy Lievers, Geri-Nikole Love, Karen Stanion and Christopher Tierney! Stage Manager Donald Etheridge. Costumes by Tamara Kopko. Lighting and Sound by Scott Fetterman. Yoga Consultant: Meital Bat Or.

Downward Facing Debbie runs 90 minutes with no intermission.

SHOWS REMAINING
Monday, June 2 at 4:00 PM
Thursday, June 5 at 6:00 PM
Saturday, June 7 at 7:00 PM

Tickets: $18 General Admission, $10 for Film/Music Participants, FREE for Theatre Festivity Participants. Click here to reserve your seats!

_______________________

VISITING HOURS had its Florida Premiere at Miami's New Theatre, from February 7th - March 2nd 2014. This was the inaugural production in New Theatre's exciting new home, the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center! Directed by Margaret Ledford, with Alex Alvarez, Maria Corina, Madelin Marchant, Kitt Marsh, Barbara Sloan.

'Resonant.' 'A study in hard-wired familial dysfunction.' Christine Dolen, Miami Herald

"immensely engaging...Caudle examines the boundaries of love and acceptance, and the sometimes manipulative competition that filial love can create with the love of spouses….Caudle creates painfully real circumstances, as well as characters toward whom the audience feels genuine empathy. He also deftly captures the difficulty of placing limitations on love, when to tell the kind lie rather than the cruel truth, and the agony of wondering “What did I do wrong?”" Theodore P. Mahne, Times-Picayune

My new children's book, BITSY AND RAFF is in the process of being illustrated by wonderful watercolorist Anastasia Traina. Please visit our Bitsy and Raff Facebook page, or our website at www.bitsyandraff.com to watch the progress of this anti-bullying story celebrating friendship and inclusion, for kids of all ages! You can also read and see more at the page for our indiegogo campaign, which ended in December but garnered us wonderfully generous support to bring the book to life! http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitsy-the-heaviest-butterfly-and-raff-the-tenderest-reed-a-new-picture-book/x/1099389

DAMSEL will be presented in TACT's New TACTics New Play

festival. Two chances to catch it, Weds. and Thurs. June 26 and 27, at 7 pm. (90 minutes no intermission. ) Preshow receptions at 6:30

Director Scott Alan Evans. With Carla Duren, Kelly McAndrew, Finnerty Steeves, and Jeff Talbott.

DAMSEL: When a fire erupts next door, Susan and her teenage daughter are forced to evacuate their apartment. Randall, Susan's coworker, comes to the rescue, but his pregnant wife Kathy is suspicious. What is Susan really after? Why is her husband so eager to come to her aid? Who really is the DAMSEL in distress? The answers are not what you think in this finely observed psychological drama.

at: TACT Studio, 900 Broadway, Ste 905

RSVP: newTACTics@tactnyc.org, with "newTACTics Festival
tickets" in the subject line, and include your first and last name,
date of the performance you wish to attend, and the number of seats you
require in the message.

The ACTORS FUND and ZIEGFELD SOCIETY co-present A 90 minute selection of Scene and Song from my two new musicals, with a terrific cast at Lang Recital Hall at Hunter College on Saturday, April 27 at 1 pm.

For full info, read on below, or click this link to the Actors Fund's invitation.
http://us1.forward-to-friend.com/forward/show?u=234ce1c2cb9dd91f3d45d51c9&id=b9db58a2b6

SATURDAY, APRIL 27 at 1 PM

The Actors Fund and Ziegfeld Society
present
A Selection Of Scenes and Songs
from:

SHOW PEOPLE
by David Caudle (book and lyrics) and James Rubio (music)
In 1881, NYU student Harrison Fiske vies for the heart of a chorus
girl, and champions theatre folk in a society that disrespects and
underpays them, founding THE ACTORS FUND in the process.
(Anna Sosenko Grant Recipient, originally written and developed in the
Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages.)

and

HERE TODAY
by KAY SWIFT, PAUL JAMES and DAVID CAUDLE
Inspired by the memoir, “The Memory of All That,” by KATHARINE WEBER
Beautiful composer Kay Swift and her banker/lyricist husband
collaborate on a new Musical despite the deepening Depression, Kay’s
open affair with George Gershwin and an unscrupulous psychoanalyst who
has his own designs on Kay. (With original music from Swift and James’
1930 Broadway hit, “Fine and Dandy,” including its title tune and the
Swift/James standard, “Can’t We Be Friends?”)

Director: MICHELLE BOSSY (Associate Artistic Director, Primary Stages)
Emcee: TOM PELPHREY (End of The Rainbow, Guiding Light)

Musical Directors: AARON GANDY and MICHAEL ROTH

Cast includes: MICHAEL DELEGET, MAGGIE DONNELLY, CASEY GARVIN, ANNIE GOLDEN, JESSICA GROVE´, IAN HERSEY, CATHERINE JONES, JUSTIN ANTHONY LONG, ANDREW
SAMONSKY, HARRIET SMITH, SARAH SOKOLOVIC, TINA STAFFORD
and ALEX MICHAEL STOLL.

Accompanist: CHRIS COOLEY Stage Manager: DONALD ETHERIDGE

SATURDAY, APRIL 27 at 1 PM at Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College, enter
on 69th Street between Park Avenue and Lexington.

Please RSVP by Wednesday, April 24, 2013 to events@actorsfund.org.

Mission: The Actors Fund is a national human services organization that
helps all professionals in performing arts & entertainment. The Fund is
a safety net, providing programs and services for those who are in
need, crisis or transition.

Heading to the excellent Point Park University Conservatory of Performing Arts in Pittsburgh in February to develop a new play with students and guest director, Playwright Tammy Ryan. LEG MAN, about the brilliant but tragic inventor of Nylon, is a S.T.A.G.E. Finalist play developed in Primary Stages' Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group. Readings of the play before and after the workshop, on Feb. 11th and 17th.

MIAMI 1-ACTS at NEW THEATRE

16 Playwrights, 16 Directors, and over 45 Cast and Crew! One-Act plays to benefit New Theatre, a champion of New Plays in South Florida. The evening includes my one-act, THE WORLD OUTSIDE, directed by Kim Ehly, with Rich Denis and Jessica Welch! Check it out or consider a contribution to support their great work! For detailed info, click the link above.

_________________________

HURRICANE SANDY postponed, but now set for Sunday, Jan. 6

DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE- a comedy about a troubled woman desperately seeking mind and body alignment- will be presented by Project Y Theatre Company in their HOLY COW! Reading Series.

Sunday, JAN. 6th at 7 PM

O'Brien's Irish Pub, 134 W. 46 St. in their upstairs "Sin Bin" space.

Directed by Michael Padden. With Harris Doran, James Georgiades, Kathryn Layng and Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, Kellie Overbey and one TBA!

Come out and support a terrific theatre company! It's free and promises to be a great read with a phenomenal cast.

LIKENESS is now published on the hot site, IndieTheaterNow.com. Click here to read the play and information about its first productions!

KEEPING A-BREAST at Miami's New Theatre thru Sept. 16! An evening of short plays and monologues celebrating the female breast during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. "David Caudle’s Motorboat, about a woman with a double mastectomy who lands in hot water after refusing to don a bikini top on a boat ride with neighbors and family, might have been the strongest piece in the evening." Christine Dolen, Miami Herald CLICK HERE for tickets and info!

WRITE OUT FRONT: A fabulous event I'm taking part in. I will be writing new words literally right in the front window of the DRAMA BOOK SHOP. There will be playwrights at all hours, but if you'd like to see me, come by between 5 and 7 pm on Thursday, August 16th! I'll be joined in the window by actress Erin Wilhelmi and director Josh Hecht for some table work on a new scene! READ MORE ABOUT THE EVENT and consider donating to the cause!

EATING THEATRE returns to CRANKY'S CAFE! (less than 10 minutes from Times Square on the # 7 train!)

Abigail Zealey Bess and Erica Silberman present an evening of Live Actors and Lively Creole Food!!!

SAT. and SUN., Aug. 18 & 19!
TWO SHOWS SATURDAY

FIRST SEATING: 6.45 pm for 7.30 pm SHOW
SECOND SEATING: 8.45 pm for 9.15 pm SHOW

ONE SHOW SUNDAY
6:45 SEATING FOR 7:30 pm SHOW

PLAY MENU:

Musical aperitif: Chris Belden

Course 1: a playlet by David Caudle Directed by Jamie Richards with Stuart Luth and Leah Walsh!

Course 2: aplay by Erica Silberman Directed by Abigail Zealey Bess.

Tickets $15.00 cash at the door + 2 Drink Minimum or dinner
Beer, wine, prosecco and deliciously priced Cranky's Cocktails

For Reservations:
Call Cranky’s and ask for Mina: Tel 347.738.4921
OR
Send your reservation to Eatingtheatre@gmail.com
Please leave your name, number of guests, date & time of show and telephone number

Location:
Cranky’s Cafe
48-19 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, NY 11101
http://www.crankyscafe.com/

Take the 7 train: Cranky's is a 2 minute walk from Vernon Blvd/Jackson Ave (1st stop out of Manhattan!)
or
Take the G train to 21st Street

check out the details on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/249636675139655/

AVAILABLE TO READ ONLINE: The Common Swallow and The Short Fall, in Martin and Rochelle Denton's online play library, www.indietheaternow.com. Check the plays out, and don't stop there! Peruse this amazing collection of new work!

MARCH 29- APRIL 21, 2012

reservations: 508-488-1460 or visit www.midcitytheatre.com.

Hot new New Orleans company RISING SHINERS presents the World Premiere of

VISITING HOURS

"Powerful" - Theodore Mahne, Times-Picayune.

READ THE REVIEWS.

Mid-City Theatre

3540 Toulouse Street

Ann Mahoney Kadar directs a powerhouse cast: Becky Allen, Becki Davis, Tari Hohn, Jessie Terrebonne and Nick Thompson.

TO SUPPORT this PRODUCTION and this fantastic new company, whose production of The Weir was named the best of 2011 in New Orleans, follow this link to their fundraising campaign at www.rockethub.com.

ALL DONATIONS TAX DEDUCTIBLE - The production is sponsored by Fractured Atlas!

OLD NEWS

DECEMBER 1-11, 2011:

TICKETS NOW ON SALE! for

METROPOLIS OPERA PROJECT's

world premiere production of:

ONE HOT KITCHEN

an ELECTRONICA OPERA (90 minute, no intermission) by Kristin Hevner Wyatt and Daniel Wyatt, with Libretto by David Caudle, based on his play.

Produced by Metropolis Opera Project.

Directed by Norm Johnson.

Music Director Christopher Wilson

Featuring incredible vocal talent:

Wendi Bergamini, Katherine Cardin, Paris Carney, Greer Davis, Michael Deleget, Karla Faggard, Thomas Hendrickson, Brian Long, Caroline Selia, Alex Krasser, Parker Pogue, Alexandra Reed, Caroline Selia, Erica Steinhagen, Jonathan Tuzo Steve Uliana and Dan Zakarija.

For information, visit www.metropolisoperaproject.org .

Read an interview about OHK from Micheline Auger of Theaterspeak!

OTHER NEWS:

SHOW PEOPLE (book and lyrics by Caudle, music by James Rubio) has received a grant from the Anna Sosenko Trust for further development.

Sept. 27-October 3, 2011. The World Premiere of THE COMMON SWALLOW at the Town Hall in Provincetown, Mass. Starring Justin Campbell, Annie Golden, Angela C. Howell, Sean Maddox, Ethan Paulini, and Sunie Pope. Directed by Susan Grilli of Counter Productions. READ Steve Desroche's article in Provincetown Magazine, and Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll's article in the Cape Cod Times.

October 1o, 2011 at 8 PM. New full-length comedy, DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE will have a staged reading at Theatre 80 on Saint Marks, directed by Josh Hecht. Cast TBA. As part of the programming of the HOWL Festival.

June 3-18, 2011: World Premiere of The Short Fall by the Toy Box Theatre Company in NYC, directed by David Michael Holmes. Featuring Ron Bopst, Ryan Colwell, Kally Duling, Dori Legg, Ryan Reilly and Karen Stanion. At the Choicirciati Cultural Center
64. E. 4th St.

Read LESLIE BRAMM'S REVIEW of THE SHORT FALL on nytheatre.com.

May 24, 2011. 3 pM at Primary Stages, 307 W. 38 Street, 15th Floor. Primary Stages Fresh Ink Reading Series: Reading of SHOW PEOPLE, Book and Lyrics by David Caudle, Music by James Rubio. (Click Link for info and reservations) Directed by Primary Stages Associate Artistic Director Michelle Bossy. With a terrific cast including Becca Ayers, Catherin Curtin, Tara Giordano, Annie Golden, Zachary James, Cristin Hubbard Miller, Brian Miskell, Aaron Serotsky, Anna Stone.

February 26 & 27 2011: The Common Swallow to have a staged reading at Cape Rep in Massachusetts, co-produced by Paulini-Howell Productions. Featuring Annie Golden and Angela Howell.

December 2010: XOXMas: AnElectronica Opera. Performs at Triad Theatre. Composer: Kristin Hevner; Libretto: David Caudle. Director: Margaret Lebron; Soprano: Caroline Selia; Baritone: Christopher Job.

October 2010: New Harmony Project Finalist screenplay LOVE A NURSE will have a reading Sunday, October 10th at 7 PM at the Torn Page Salon in New York City. Cast: Macleod Andrews, Brian Miskell, Laura Ramadei, Joan Shepard, Evan Thompson, Angelica Torn, and Jeremy Webb. For more info and to reserve a seat, rsvp to: david@davidcaudle.org

THE COMMON SWALLOW will have a staged reading directed by Jon Van Middlesworth in The Blank Theatre Company's Living Room Series Monday, October 25th at 8pm at:

2nd Stage Theatre
6500 Santa Monica Blvd. (at Wilcox)
Hollywood CA 90038
Reservations & Information: 323.661.9827

Suggested Donations Start at $8

Casting TBA.

September 2010: THE SUNKEN LIVING ROOM will be presented as part of the HOWL! Festival in September, at Theatre 80, on St. Marks Place. Performances Sept. 14, 25 and 26 at 8 PM.

"a moving period drama about emotional abandonment. The solid performances by all the actors really make a witty and deep piece work on many levels." Case Aiken, nytheatre.com

All proceeds benefit the Howl! Help Fund, a health care initiative for Lower East Side artists and performers, administered by The Actors' Fund. Directed by renowned Italian director, Enrico Lamanna. For more information on the play and the production, visit: thesunkenlivingroom.com

.August 2010: SOUTH BEACH RAPTURE (formerly The Second House) will be going up in FringeNYC 2010, at Dixon Place. Directed by Michelle Bossy, associate artistic director of Primary Stages. (The play was developed at Primary in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group.) Cast: Amelia Jean Alvarez, Bobby Moreno and John G. Preston. The production is sponsored by Fractured Atlas. To see more information about the play, or how to make a tax-deductible contribution, click on the link.SOUTH BEACH RAPTURE.

LEG MAN, a new play about the inventor of Nylon, has been named one of four finalists for the STAGE International competition.

'Resonant.' 'A study in hard-wired familial dysfunction.' Christine Dolen, Miami Herald

Produced By: Project Y
Written by: David Caudle
Directed by: Andrew Block

Ditched and disoriented, Debbie dives headlong into yoga to deal with her damage. Seeking spiritual enlightenment with the colorful members of an exclusive Hamptons studio, she soon spots cracks in the stunning facade of unity. If her spiritual doctors cannot heal themselves, will their latest patient have a permanent relapse?

Venue: Downstairs Theater, Paradise Factory

Schedule:
Friday, May 16 at 7:00PM
Saturday, May 17 at 9:00PM
Friday, May 23 at 5:00PM
Monday, June 2 at 4:00PM
Thursday, June 5 at 6:00PM
Saturday, June 7 at 7:00PM
Downward Facing Debbie runs 90 minutes with no intermission.

Produced By: Project Y
Written by: David Caudle
Directed by: Andrew Block

Venue: Downstairs Theater, Paradise Factory

Schedule:
Friday, May 16 at 7:00PM
Saturday, May 17 at 9:00PM
Friday, May 23 at 5:00PM
Monday, June 2 at 4:00PM
Thursday, June 5 at 6:00PM
Saturday, June 7 at 7:00PM

Schedule:
Friday, May 16 at 7:00PM
Saturday, May 17 at 9:00PM
Friday, May 23 at 5:00PM
Monday, June 2 at 4:00PM
Thursday, June 5 at 6:00PM

Project Y Theatre & Planet Connections Festivity present:

DOWNWARD FACING DEBBIE
by David Caudle
Directed by Andrew Block

A Comedy of Manners, Morals, and Compromising Positions. Namaste.

Starring: Dan Patrick Brady*, Esther Chen, Jordy Lievers*, Geri-Nikole Love, Karen Stanion*, and Christopher Tierney*

Ditched and disoriented, Debbie dives headlong into yoga to deal with her damage. Seeking spiritual enlightenment with the colorful members of an exclusive Hamptons studio, she soon spots cracks in the stunning facade of unity. If her spiritual doctors cannot heal themselves, will their latest patient have a permanent relapse?

Produced by Project Y: http://www.projectytheatre.org/2014/04/downward-facing-debbie-planet-connections-festival/
Stage Manager: Donald Etheridge
Production Design: Scott Fetterman
Costume Designer: Tammy Kopko
Yoga Consultant: Meital Ba Or

Schedule:
Friday, May 16 at 7:00PM
Saturday, May 17 at 9:00PM
Friday, May 23 at 5:00PM
Monday, June 2 at 4:00PM
Thursday, June 5 at 6:00PM
Saturday, June 7 at 7:00PM

Tickets: $18

How To Purchase Tickets:
Online: http://planetconnections.org/downward-facing-debbing/
Phone: 866-811-4111 (toll-free)

Paradise Factory
64 E. 4th St
NYC

HOWL!Arts and FEDERAL HALL present a FREE public reading of

LIKENESS by David Caudle
Friday, OCT. 23
At 2:00 PM

Directed by Joseph R Sicari

Featuring
Nick Lehane, Erin Wilhelmi, Ned Van Zandt, Kathryn Kates, Angela Howell

In the ROTUNDA,
FEDERAL HALL
26 Wall Street
New York, NY

Although the reading is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, please RSVP to this Event to help us keep track of numbers.
……..
The STAMP ACT was passed at Federal Hall in 1765 amid cries of “taxation without representation.” Performed in the very same room 250 years later, LIKENESS explores the impact of this historical turning point on one family.

SYNOPSIS: Amid Colonial outcry over the Stamp Act, a wealthy Loyalist commissions an idealistic young artist to paint an idealized portrait of his teenaged daughter in order to lure his major British investor into an enterprise-(and potentially life)-saving marriage.

LIKENESS was originally written and developed at The New Harmony Project and further developed in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. The play premiered at Miami's New Theatre directed by Ricky J Martinez.

"...another brilliant piece of writing from David Caudle, who turned to the turbulent times of Revolutionary War Boston to explore idealism versus reality. ...a tale about family, economic class consciousness, and, of course, the honesty of an artist..."
Ron Levitt, Entertainment News and Views.

Dear friends, Happy New Year!!

If you're in NYC this coming weekend, you should check out the first annual BroadwayCon! I am so honored to have been included in an amazing line-up of writers at the Drama Book Shop booth-- signing copies of my play The Sunken Living Room on Saturday, Jan 23rd, from Noon to 1 pm. I follow Edwin Sanchez, am joined by Ben Hodges, and succeeded at the table by the amazing Lisa Kron. I would love to see you there. At the New York Hilton Midtown on 53rd and 6th Avenue. Wishing you all a wonderful 2016! all the best -- David

http://www.samuelfrench.com/breakingcharacter/?p=4443

and full info for the whole festival at:

BroadwayCon 2016

'm excited to announce that VISITING HOURS will be read on SEPTEMBER 26 as part of a wonderful festival at the HOWL! Happening Gallery (called best gallery in NYC by Michael Musto in Paper Magazine) Very lucky to have Tony Torn directing. All proceeds from the festival go directly to the ACTORS FUND for the benefit of Lower East Side artists maintaining a rich cultural tradition in NYC with little access to health care and other services. It's a ways away, but tickets are already on sale at the link below.

David Caudle’s Likeness transports us to a Revolutionary War-era Boston and does so with economy, taking place over the span of a single night, confined to the cramped, dimly-lit space of a barn. Edmund Farraday, a young artist, is commissioned to paint the daughter of a wealthy, tyrannical landowner, who asks him, in no few words, to misrepresent her for the family’s financial benefit. The play begins as a focused examination on the basic questions at the core of every artist, but the dynamics soon evolve as the world outside the barn bleeds in and the turbulent politics of the time become tangled with Farraday’s aesthetic angst.

david@davidcaudle.org