We haven’t even had our first reading of the revamped Treehouse Readings series, but I’m already so in love with it. We’re looking at the idea of “home” this spring, and we have three new plays by three exciting and engaging playwrights on the slate for you this spring – starting with Chicago’s own Brian Golden and his play Burying Miss America. We’re going to have our first rehearsal next week – and I cannot wait to dig into this text with Brian and the great actors who’ll be bringing Jean and her brother Boxer to life for us.  Also?  It’s set in Nebraska and deals with the tension that often arises between leaving home and pursuing your life.  So of course I love this play.

And then we go into March and Greg Romero’s haunting Dandelion Momma. Let me tell you, when I talk about loving “blueprint” plays – plays that show you an empty lot and ask you what you’d like to build on it – this goes beyond that. I feel like I have a patch of fertile ground and get to decide what kind of things I’d like to plant and harvest from it. Greg’s making his home in Philadelphia, but I think he might get to come play with us for a bit while we rehearse this reading.

April brings us a double feature that I’m totally jazzed about: Idris Goodwin’s play How We Got On and director Steve Wilson. Hip hop and history and the struggles of finding authenticity in yourself and the suburbs are beautifully woven together in this piece. Idris was part of an “In the Spotlight” series for us in our early days, and Steve is a favorite as well – we’re so lucky to get both of them back under our roof and I’m eager to see what they’ll cook up working together.

But even before we bring you the first of this revamped series, we’re setting our sights on what comes next. I was thrilled by the submissions we received for this first revamped call, and am giddy about the plays we’ve chosen. And now we get to open the doors once again and explore another theme. We’ll be selecting six scripts to make up our Treehouse series for the 2011-2012 season, and we’ll choose one of those six plays for full production in – get this – 2012-2013.

Science.

After tossing around big picture ideas that were capturing our attention as a company and as individuals, we settled on the idea of “critical mass.” I was intrigued by the way that this term at first makes me think of science and catastrophe (and then it makes me think of the monthly cycling event here in Chicago) and how upon further reflection the depth and breadth of this idea is so much greater.

We experience critical mass in moments when the inevitable begins to take shape, when what was starts to drift toward what is and what will be. We create critical mass when individuals come together to initiate that moment of change, that momentum – and to maintain it. It’s a turning point, a tipping point, the moment in which we begin or ways we find to carry on. We find critical mass in moments of collectiveness and reflectiveness, in the moment of choice, of change, of free-fall before we take flight.

So – that’s what we’re going to explore in the Treehouse staring this fall and running through next spring. If you’re a playwright and you have a script you’d like to submit (that’s had at least one public reading but not a full production) here’s what you need to do:

Send the play (in PDF format, please) to our rock star Literary Manager, Josh Sobel at write@newleaftheatre.org.

Along with the play send us a one page cover letter that tells us:

We’ll be taking submissions now through the end of March and can’t wait to hear from you. And we can’t wait to see you in the Treehouse the last Wednesday of the month February, March, and April.