No pressure or anything: 17 year-old playwright is "one of the greatest of the next generation"

From The Washington Post:

Placing outrageous expectations on a young playwright by labelling her a "prodigy" (as this Washington Post profile does) and "one of the greatest of the playwrights of the next generation" (as the director of her first play does) strikes me as just about the worst thing you could do to any developing artist. No wonder 17 year-old Phoebe Rusch walks away when the adults start talking crazy. It seems to me that, when it comes to developing and introducing young writers, Britain's Royal Court Theatre has a better method.

 

Israel Horovitz retires (but not, we hope, from writing)

From the Wakefield Observer (Massachusetts):

Playwright Israel (Line, Park My Car in Harvard Yard) Horovitz steps down from the helm of the Gloucester Stage Company, the company he founded after moving to the Massachusetts resort town 27 years ago . "If I was going to be there," he remembers, "there should be a theatre."

 

Back to the city for Australian playwright

From The Australian:

Life in the country didn't work out for Joanna Murray-Smith, but with her plays on stages around the world and two new productions forthcoming in Melbourne, things are looking up.