Aug 3, 2026 · 57 min · 10 segments
Tom Mullen and Maria Messias Mendes co-wrote *One Night at the Blackbird* which Goes Up in August 2026, at the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. What does it take to start a playwriting career at…
Tom MullenGuestIsolde TrachtenbergHost
Maria Messias MendesGuest
It's a big question I mean in the arts in general how accurate things need to be that are based on real people and I believe that as artists our job is to follow truth not accuracy.
Today's episode brings together two writers who took very different roads to the same haunted jazz-filled stage.
Thomas Mullen spent a lifetime as a newspaper man before starting his playwriting career at 59.
You might remember if you're a long-time listener, he's been on the show before.
Maria Macias Mendez writes female-led stories about intimacy and survival that have appeared in Street Cake, Tint, and The Cavendish Chronicle.
Together, they wrote the show One Night at the Blackbird, premiering this August at the Broadway-bound Play Theater Festival in Manhattan's Theater District.
It's back in Manhattan after a little bit away, It's a great theater festival.
I'm very excited to go see a bunch of the shows and tickets for a run this short will not last.
You need to go if you're in New York City or going to be in New York City this August.
Stay with us because their story about reinvention, collaboration and creative courage might be exactly the push you need to start your own creative journey.
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It's a big question I mean in the arts in general how accurate things need to be that are based on real people and I believe that as artists our job is to follow truth not accuracy.
Today's episode brings together two writers who took very different roads to the same haunted jazz-filled stage.
Thomas Mullen spent a lifetime as a newspaper man before starting his playwriting career at 59.
You might remember if you're a long-time listener, he's been on the show before.
Maria Macias Mendez writes female-led stories about intimacy and survival that have appeared in Street Cake, Tint, and The Cavendish Chronicle.
Together, they wrote the show One Night at the Blackbird, premiering this August at the Broadway-bound Play Theater Festival in Manhattan's Theater District.
It's back in Manhattan after a little bit away, It's a great theater festival.
I'm very excited to go see a bunch of the shows and tickets for a run this short will not last.
You need to go if you're in New York City or going to be in New York City this August.
Stay with us because their story about reinvention, collaboration and creative courage might be exactly the push you need to start your own creative journey.