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Audrey Cefaly

@audreycefaly

AUTHOR: How To Playwright https://audreycefaly.substack.com/ I tell "ache" stories. Maytag Virgin, The Gulf, Alabaster, The Last Wide Open, The Garment www.audreycefaly.com

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17.11.2024
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Latest posts by Audrey Cefaly @audreycefaly

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Art and the Apocalypse (Again) by Jacqueline Goldfinger Moving through Dangerous Times with Heart and Hope

This week I’m thrilled to share a guest essay from award-winning playwright, librettist, and poet Jacqueline Goldfinger. BONUS: Check out her new TikTok channel www.tiktok.com/@all.things....
audreycefaly.substack.com/p/art-and-th...

28.10.2025 17:50 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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If These Goats Could Talk The Scene That Changed Everything

Here's a craft article on taking risks and talking goats. #AlabamaGoatPlay #Alabaster #writingtips #thursdayinspiration #craft #newplay #amwriting audreycefaly.substack.com/p/if-these-g...

26.06.2025 22:05 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Not Just Dialogue The Secret Sound Structure of Great Plays

The real estate traveled between the moment a loop is opened and the moment it’s closed is where the listener’s attention sharpens. Memory imprints more clearly. Investment deepens.

20.06.2025 14:42 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Everyone: β€œChekhov is subtle.”
Also Chekhov: β€œI shot a seagull and gave it to you. Here it is.”
Sir???

13.06.2025 12:31 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Your Plot Is Not the Point Why Silence Moves the Play

Most plays aren’t about what happens.
They’re about what can’t.
What can’t be said.
What can’t be undone.
What can’t be forgiven.
Start there.
audreycefaly.substack.com/p/your-plot-...

12.06.2025 14:02 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

β€œNo stone unturned. No maggot lonely.” Harold Pinter on Beckett

08.06.2025 00:21 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

In the quiet after a play, or the breath held between brushstrokes, we catch a glimpse of the eternal. Not in the grandness of it all, but in the tender reach. The reaching is the point. The world forgets. Art remembers. And through it, maybe, we remember each other.

07.06.2025 23:27 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Art is how we mark the walls of time. A gesture. A sound. A story told by firelight or spotlight or the flicker of a screen. It doesn’t preserve us so much as prove we were hereβ€”that we saw, that we felt, that we tried to name the shape of being alive.

07.06.2025 23:27 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Playwriting the Pressure: How Atmosphere Shapes Dramatic Action On barometric shifts, emotional weather, and the truth between the lines

Sometimes we are so busy writing the lines that we forget the biggest thing of all: What the room is doing to the people in it. audreycefaly.substack.com/p/playwritin... #playwriting #craft #amwriting #writingtips #writinghacks #subtext

05.06.2025 02:49 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Why My Rom-Com Maytag Virgin Is a Safe Bet for Theaters in Troubling Times Sweet Home Alabama meets Taming of the Shrew!

Just made a one-sheet for artistic directors and literary managers and… wow. This play has been places! Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since I directed the world premiere for the Inaugural Women’s Voices Festival. Grateful. Gobsmacked. Still going. #maytagvirgin

04.06.2025 00:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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How to Layer Grief Without Sentimentality a note for playwrights who hate cheap tears

I don’t trust plays that beg you to cry. I don’t trust characters who β€œgrieve” in tidy monologues about how much they miss someone. I don’t trust weepy music or lighting cues that whisper, now feel this. But reader: I used to.

27.05.2025 06:01 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Writing From the Middle of the Wreckage on memoir, dissociation, and dresses that cut

If you’ve ever written your way into a truth you didn’t know was waiting… this one’s for you. audreycefaly.substack.com/p/writing-fr... #playwriting #memoir #twins #amwriting #mondaymotivation

12.05.2025 15:58 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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How Is Live Theater Still Alive? - Freakonomics How Is Live Theater Still Alive? - Freakonomics

β€œHow Is Live Theater Still Alive?It has become fiendishly expensive to produce, and has more competition than ever. And yet the believers still believe. Why? And does the world really want a new musical about … Abraham Lincoln?! (Part one of a three-part series.)” freakonomics.com/podcast/how-...

28.04.2025 19:18 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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My Top 10 Playwriting Hacks Or how to get things done, like actually done.

My top 10 playwriting hacks. Happy writing! open.substack.com/pub/audreyce...

25.04.2025 14:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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What Makes a Stage Play Theatrical? The real secret to leveling up your playwriting game.

Theater makers give their "beyond the textbook" take on what makes a stage play theatrical. #playwriting #newplay #amwriting #writingtips audreycefaly.substack.com/p/what-makes...

18.04.2025 01:05 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Theatre at a crossroads - Arts Professional This month marks the 20th episode of Devoted & Disgruntled, an annual convention bringing together those who care about the future of theatre. Erica Whyman reflects on how much has changed over the tw...

"Now we face our greatest test. Running theatre companies is harder than ever, but not only because we have at least 30% less funding than two decades ago. Not only because arts subjects in schools and universities were systematically depopulated..." www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea...

17.04.2025 11:15 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Submit: Keegan Theatre Boiler Room Series, Deadline 4/15/25 2025 Boiler Room Series Playwright Submissions

Subscribe to my free Substack for more updates like these.

02.04.2025 15:02 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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01.04.2025 17:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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31.03.2025 12:11 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Be the c*nt we need in the world. β€οΈπŸ–•

24.03.2025 02:24 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I can see you have a miserable situation. 😍

24.03.2025 02:22 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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ht Michelle LaCroix for posting this over on Substack.

23.03.2025 19:27 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Can confirm.

23.03.2025 19:24 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Playwright Audrey Cefaly & Actor Carolyn Messina (Alabaster): Podcast Episode Β· DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley Β· 03/20/2025 Β· 1h 21m

Had a blast recording this podcast with @dennishensley.bsky.social Hensley and my writing partner, #CarolynMessina. TOPICS: #AlabamaGoatPlay (aka #Alabaster), writing trauma, comedy, and what it was like getting published by #SamuelFrench. Have a listen! #playwriting #amwriting #dramaturgy

20.03.2025 20:30 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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15.03.2025 23:54 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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www.pridesquatch.org

14.03.2025 23:30 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

My husband and I started a thing. Join us! #pridesquatch

14.03.2025 10:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The final mission is the total subjugation of children to parental control with no recourse for their right to information or an open future

04.03.2025 04:51 πŸ‘ 92 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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04.03.2025 11:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Craft Discussion With Playwright Audrey Cefaly All topics playwriting with Producer/Actor/Director James Elden of Playwright's Spotlight
04.03.2025 10:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0