About Me

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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

A New Year

It's the first day of 2015.

What a year 2014 was for us.

I won't speak at length for Pam, but between her frequent lectures about the Occult and Art, she managed to help create the Lean-In Collection at Getty Images. For that work, she was named one of Marie Claire's "20 Women Changing The Ratio" in their 20th Anniversary Edition and featured in the Washington Post and NPR and pretty much everywhere else. And that's just me keeping it brief. She flew all over the world and generally was just awesome, all the time, everywhere.

As for me, 2014 was a very special, strange, transformational one.

My brother Dan got married this year to his husband Joe - a new Freeman. Two of my best friends got married this year. New babies came into our expansive family here in Brooklyn. As I sit here in our apartment in something between South Slope and Park Slope and Gowanus and Greenwood Heights (and whatever Real Estate agents think up next) that's what makes me happiest. Time passes, and on most days, I sit up in bed scared to death that it's running out. Then, I have a moment of nostalgia and gratefulness that could not exist without the passage of time. So, come on, new ache and odd gray hair. You're worth it.

In terms of travel, I've been to St. Louis, Boston, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Utah this year. I think that's the full list. Oh wait. One more thing. Scotland. A two week adventure in Scotland with Pam and our dear friends and oft-times collaborators Robert and Moira. I hiked without complaint - a first - and sang a duet with Pam, for the benefit of drunken strangers and friends, at a bed and breakfast on the Isle of Skye. What could be better?

As for my playwriting work... I had my first collaboration with Djahari Clark and Desert Sin with Cloud Cuckooland, and I created a new audio piece called Lift Lift Lift. I also wrote a new play called The Starving Dress, when I was a part of a silent week of writing called The Writer's Army in late August. I'm in the midst of working on a new play, which opens in February, called The Listeners, with some of my favorite people. Plus, work on Traveling to Montpelier, a new play that takes place in the world of That Old Soft Shoe/Confess Your Bubble, and revisions of That Which Isn't. A good and productive year.

I also, of course, was invited to become a resident playwright at New Dramatists. I'm just ridiculously grateful and proud of that. The number of people that I need to hug and thank in my life, from New Dramatists alone, just went up by multiples of multiples. I just hope I can take full advantage of the opportunity I've been given.

In other just life news...did you hear there's more Star Wars coming out? My f*cking God. (He places his hand over his mouth and just thinks for a moment. Whispers, to God, maybe.) ...thank you...

Finally... this is a time of year that will forever make me miss my friend John Walsh, who died just before New Year's last year. John, I hope you're making them laugh somewhere.

I'm sure there's more to say, but I'm either too tired or too forgetful to mention it.

Happy New Year. Love and more love.





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