Over the next few months, I’ll be working on a new, fancy site, which will feature audio and video from my work as a playwright, a new (and improved) blog, and updated news on my doings as a writer.

Until then, you can:

- Find me on Twitter @draytasia

- Check out my Singapore blog, Drayton in Singapore.

- Check out photos from the past year on Flickr.

I’m spending part of the summer updating all of these sites and putting up new content.

Eyebeam just launched their new and super awesome website today.  (Please read that hyperlink in the appropriate snotty, 80’s kid tone of voice.)  As part of the re-launch, I’m now on the Staff page, with my rabbit ear photo and my new (and super awesome?) bio:

Drayton Hiers is a writer, director and designer fascinated by transience, urban decay and things that are pretty.  He is a co-founder of Zebra Crossing, a Brooklyn based theatre company; co-creator of the Video Womb, which premiered at Eyebeam Underground; and has toured with the rock band The Suite Unraveling, providing an array of shiny robots and blinking lights.  His secret dream is to be a punk rock Anton Chekhov.  Or to go into space.

I’m not kidding about the space thing, by the way.  If you have a friend at NASA, hook me up.

Something strange has happened.  Being rejected by Yale has made me feel better about myself, rather than worse.  I can’t explain this.

Which is actually true.  In some ways, applying to graduate school is like going to the Olympics.  Some people win the gold medal, and other are just happy to hang out at the Olympic Village and have the chance to compete.  So far I haven’t made it into any of my schools, but I’ve spent the last four months working very intensely on my writing and on my sense of myself as a writer.  Aside from simply producing content - a very good new play, which I’ve realized is part of a tryptich about (what else?) failure - I’ve had the chance to clarify for myself what I do, why I do it, and that I’m going to keep doing it.

Some people win a gold medal, others are just happy to be at the party.

And then yesterday, a friend told me that I’d made it onto The Daily Beast, which I have to admit is one of my favorite websites.  They ran a bunch of recent Tweets about college and grad school rejects, with the accompanying text: As the college rejection letters pour in, Twitter boards are lighting up, proving brevity can be the soul of agony, too.

Some of us are taking the rejection better than others.  You can read all of the Tweets here.  I love the guy who gets turned down by Waterloo, but gets into Harvard.  What, like that’s hard?

Here is some video from the event. We spoke to a guy from the BBC Digital Planet who really enjoyed the project, but since it was so incredibly visual, it didn’t really work for radio.  As a side note - doing an interview for radio is ridiculously hard.  You have to explain everything, and do it in easy to understand sound bites.  Maddening.

Instant Party from christina kral on Vimeo.

So after a lot of hard work and some restless nights, Video Womb was unveiled this past Saturday at Eyebeam’s MIXER underground. David Jimison and his crew put a lot of energy and creativity into this one-of-a-kind event, and the result was spectacular: a giant maze, rat tunnels, dancing lizards, glam rock bands and art, art everywhere.  Gothamist raved about it, saying ”the enthusiasm was contagious, evoking the spirit of the old Rubulad parties when they started in pre-gentrified South Williamsburg”.

Photos and more from underground and Video Womb are coming, but for now, take a peek at these:

Many of these photos were taken by John Huntington. Thanks John!

Find out at Underground, November 8 at Eyebeam.