Joe Praml is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He studied playwrighting under Professor Charles Nolte and theatre under Professor Arthur Ballet, who nominated him for the Sam S. Shubert Foundation Fellowship in Playwrighting at the UofM Graduate School of Theatre. He was awarded the McKnight Foundation Humanities Award for Shorter Drama for three one-acts, The Pearl, The Trick and The Moneyman. Two of his one-acts were produced by The Theatre in the Round Players, Minneapolis, MN. He wrote a column about modern jazz for the Twin Cities Jazz Society.
Joe is also a Long-service Member of British Equity, SAG/AFTRA, Dramatists Guild of America, the International James Joyce Foundation, and the Dylan Thomas Society.
After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Joe moved to London, England. Within a year, Joe's one-act The Trick was produced by Sam Walters at the Orange Tree, Richmond, near London, and he became a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square. He wrote for London's Time Out magazine.
Joe was stage manager for a nation-wide provincial theatrical tour of Colin Bennett's play Soon directed by Mike Laye. Joe worked as an actor and singer with comedian Alexei Sayle in the touring theatrical cabaret About Poor Bert Brecht with poetry of Bertolt Brecht and music of Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, directed by Cliff Cocker.
Joe was a neighbor of the English documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine, and his wife Pat Hartley, one of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls and ex-girlfriend of Jimmi Hendrix. Joe wrote the script for their unfinished documentary about the attempted assassination of George Wallace by Arthur H. Bremer which is listed in their papers at Hollis for Archival Discovery at Harvard University.
Director William Alexander saw Joe in About Poor Bert Brecht and cast him in Under The Clock at the Royal Court Theatre where he acted alongside his neighbor Pat Hartley. William Alexander also cast Joe as Carl in the Edinburgh Festival production of Last of the Knucklemen by John Powers.
Joe’s stage play Jason was produced at the Little Theatre in London by Jean Pritchard Productions, directed by David Myles, Assistant Director at the National Theatre; among the actors were Diane Bull, Ian Bamforth, Sid Huggett. An added bonus was that Joe’s sons Greg and Eric were visiting him at the time.
Director Roland Rees of Foco Novo cast Joe as The Sheriff in its stage production of Bernard Pomerance’s Quantrill in Lawrence, ICA Theatre, The Mall, London with David Schofield as Quantrill, Ron Cook as Jesse James, Don Fellows and Eugene Lipinski.
Two of Joe’s favorite acting stories are about working with Alec Guinness in BBC-TV’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, and with James Cagney in Milos Forman’s Ragtime:
Joe found out about Smiley's People while he was in Glasgow, Scotland at the King's Theatre playing the role of Keefer in Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny Court Martial starring Iain Cuthbertson. There was a joke going around London that the three best acting companies in the UK were the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare, and the cast of Smiley's People.
When BBC-TV was shooting scenes of Smiley's People in Switzerland, the cast and crew stayed in a hotel on Lake Brienz, Switzerland. After filming, the cast and crew gathered there. On two evenings, Alec Guinness and Joe talked late into the night, two insomniacs, two stage actors, drinking Bloody Marys, talking about Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, how Alec Guinness got himself into his characters. http://www.joepraml.com/smileys-people.html
Milos Forman cast Joe as a policeman in Ragtime. Joe was in a scene with James Cagney who was older by then and walked with a walker. As usual it took a while to set up shots. With all the cables taped to the floor, it was easier for Cagney to sit rather than return to his dressing room so Joe was able to sit and talk to him. Joe found him very pleasant.
In Joe’s scene with James Cagney, he had to run up to Cagney and give him bad news. Cagney got up and barked at him with such ferocity and force Joe was taken aback. This wasn’t an old man Joe saw in front of him. This was the forceful Cagney of old. Joe stammered “I forgot my lines.” Cagney laughed, then Milos Forman laughed. It broke the ice and they redid the scene.
Just before Joe moved to Los Angeles, the National Theatre offered him the role of Big Jule as an understudy in Richard Eyre’s 1982 revival of Guys and Dolls - a professional achievement for an American working in London.
When Joe first moved to Los Angeles from London he worked as an actor in TV and film including such movies as Fletch, and on TV such as Hardcastle and McCormick and Matlock. Joe enjoyed his role as The Watchman in Chevy Chase’s Fletch. When Chevy Chase found out Joe’s contract was as a day player, Chase made sure he had extra shooting days so he would get more pay and more residuals in the long run.
Joe got involved with Los Angeles theatre as a stage director. He directed an Equity-waiver production of Anton Chekhov’s The Boor for the St. Ambrose Genesius Society. He joined the original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard shortly after it was created and founded by Brian Heron who also founded the Irish Arts Center in New York. Joe was appointed acting Stiúrthóir (Leader) of the Center for a short time while the Center was being reorganized.
While at the original Center, Joe directed an Equity-waiver production of playwright Mary O'Malley's Once A Catholic and won the Drama-Logue Critics Award For Direction. Two of his actors also won Drama-Logue Awards, as did Mary O'Malley, the author.
Joe participated in the original Center's Bloomsday readings of James Joyce’s Ulysses, including the first one, directed by Fionnula Flanagan.
As a director, Joe was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Centennial Memorial Commendation by City of Los Angeles signed by Mayor Tom Bradley for directing Equity-waiver productions of Eugene O’Neill sea plays Bound East For Cardiff and The Long Voyage Home at the original Celtic Arts Center, the only O’Neill plays produced in LA during O’Neill’s centenary. His actors presented him with a shillelagh, an ancient Irish symbol stating that he was their leader.
Los Angeles Times
Stage Beat
By RAY LOYND
‘Two From the Sea’
Eugene O’Neill’s early sea plays throb with atmosphere, and the Celtic Arts Center
evocatively catches the tough camaraderie in the one-acts “Bound East for Cardiff”
and “The Long Voyage Home.”
Director Joe Praml draws excellent ensemble performances from his casts (particularly
Tom Noga in both plays, Robert O’Carroll’s dying seaman Yank in “Cardiff,” and
Sonja Green-Fortag and Joan Mullin as the saloon slatterns in “Voyage”).
“Bound East for Cardiff” (O’Neill’s first staged play, by the fabled Provincetown Players
in 1916) looms as a murky “Lower Depths” in Dart Conrad’s set design. The actors’ rough
brogues are authentic and comprehensible. The tramp steamer’s rhythmic, thudding “
ka-lunk-ka-lunk” fill the pale darkness of the seamen’s hole (credit lighting and sound
designer Peter Strauss).
The aura of squalor is not as textured in the curtain-closer, “The Long Voyage Home,” which
offers a Swedish lunk (Bill A. Jones) about to be shanghaied from a waterfront dive. The
acting and staging, however, maintain this solid salute to O’Neill’s centennial.
For the original Center's contribution to the Los Angeles Fringe Festival, Joe created, compiled and directed readers in Celtic Visions and Dreams: An Evening of the Poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
For a while, Joe got away from the entertainment world and became involved as a tenants' rights activist. He is on the Board of Directors of Coalition for Economic Survival, the leading tenants' rights organization in the LA area. He was a key person in the development of CES’ Tenants' Rights Clinic, where tenants come for free legal advice. He was on the Los Angeles Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee, out of which came the Los Angeles Systematic Code Enforcement Program, that requires slumlords to live up to building codes and keep their buildings in repair, which has become a model for cities across the country. He received a Certificate of Commendation from the City Council of West Hollywood in recognition of his work as a long-time Counselor at the Clinic. In 2004, LAWeekly in "Best of LA" issue cited Joe as "Best Way to Keep Your Landlord Honest" and described his work at CES' Tenants' Rights Clinic. He is a former Rent Stabilization Commissioner for the City of West Hollywood.
Joe helped develop the new Celtic Arts Center's annual Dylan Thomas Celebration. In the first one in 2007, he read A Child's Christmas in Wales and the next two he read and directed Center members in reading the poetry of Dylan Thomas at the Raven Playhouse. Since then he has been reading his own Dylan Thomas tributes each November at various venues, and is a member of the Dylan Thomas Society.
Joe returned again to the theatre as a director and directed an Equity-waiver production of Irish playwright Hugh Leonard's political black comedy, The Au Pair Man, for the Celtic Arts Center at the Raven Playhouse in the North Hollywood Arts District.
During 2014, Joe created, compiled, and directed a one-hour radio program of the poetry of Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. On August 24, 2014, it aired on KPFK 90.7 FM Pacifica Radio Los Angeles.
For many years Mr. Praml has done readings and compilations of the classic canon of poetry and literature at theatres and libraries. His mission is to encourage people to read and enjoy especially the works of James Joyce and Dylan Thomas. Every year during the Dylan Thomas Festival, he reads the poetry of Dylan Thomas, and selections from the play for voices, Under Milk Wood. During June, Joe does Bloomsday readings of selections from James Joyce’s Ulysses. During December, he reads his own adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and The Mouse King and Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales. He continues as writer of fiction and nonfiction, including his autobiographical novel JFC!, and as a playwright, and screen writer. His screenplays, ...And The Horseman's Name Was Death, and Kidsplay, are on www.blcklist.com.
Joe can be reached through his agent, Linn Sand Agency at lsandagency@sbcglobal.net.
Joe Praml's Poetry Compilations and Readings (See Home page re Upcoming/Recent Readings):
- Poetry of Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Created, read and directed a one-hour radio program, Keeping Going: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney for KPFK 90.7 FM Radio Los Angeles, August 2014; and Westwood Branch Library, Los Angeles, CA, Dec. 3, 2013.
- "Poems of Love and Spring Awakening" celebrating Valentine's Day (Joe's compilation of poetry of W.H. Yeats, Song of Solomon, Lord Byron, Eavan Boland, June Jordan, William Shakespeare, I Corinthians 13, Edward Lear, Sylvia Plath, Robert Burns and others), Westwood Branch Library and Brentwood Branch Library, February 14, 2012 and February 9, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYq3Taa1YoQ
- "Poetry of Wales and the Welsh," including poetry of R.S. Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Gillian Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Ruth Bidgood, Idris Davies, and others, Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival, National Day of Wales, Barnsdall Art Park, Hollywood, CA, September 2011, March 2012 and March 2013.
- "Celtic Visions & Dreams, Poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales," Westwood Branch Library and Brentwood Branch Library, November 3, 2011 and March 17, 2012. Also Los Angeles City College; and the Los Angeles Poetry Festival at Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard.
- "Heirs of Brighid: The Poetry of Ireland Classic and Modern," including poetry of Patrick Pearse, F.R. Higgins, Spike Milligan, Thomas Moore, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, William Butler Yeats, and others, Irish Fair and Celtic Music Festival, Pomona, CA, in March 2011, March 2012 and March 2013.
- "Robert Burns, Gateway to Romanticism" as part of the annual worldwide celebration of Burns’ poetry and birthday, Venice Library, January 2015; Palms Rancho Park Library, January 2016; Westwood Library, January 14, 2012. Also read poems as part of Burns' Night Suppers at St. Martins Church, January 2008, January 2009, January 2010 and January 2011.
Dylan Thomas Poetry Readings as part of the annual worldwide Dylan Thomas Festival:
- Compiled and read and directed others readers in evenings of the poetry of Dylan Thomas, Westwood Branch Library, Nov. 3, 2011 and Nov. 29, 2012; Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, Venice, CA, November 4, 2012; UnUrban Coffee House, Santa Monica, CA, Dec. 18, 2013. http://youtu.be/1I5k56J5230.
- Read "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas at: Celtic Arts Center, December 2007. Raven Theatre, North Hollywood Arts District, December 2008, December 2009, and November 2010 and December 2010. Brentwood Library, December 2010. St. Ambrose Church, December 2009, December 2010, and December 2011. Blessed Sacrament Church, December 2011. Mary Magdalene Church, December 2011. Pacific Palisades Library, December 2011. Will and Ariel Durant Library, December 2011. (2007 reading on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqYiLRMM18
--Solo reading of Dylan Thomas' play for voices, Under Milk Wood: https://www.discoverdylanthomas.com/portfolio-items/joe-praml-reads-milk-wood-los-angeles-california
The Nutcracker and The Mouse King:
- Joe's adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and The Mouse King" at: Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District, December 2010. Pacific Palisades Library, December 2011. Will and Ariel Durant Library, December 2011. Westwood Branch Library, December 2012. West Hollywood Library, December 2012; Donald Bruce Kaufman Brentwood Library; December 2015 .
Bloomsday Readings from James Joyce's Ulysses:
- Read scenes from James Joyce's Ulysses directed by Fionnula Flanagan, original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Blvd. O'Brien's Pub, June 2007, June 2008. Magic and Imagination Bookstore, Glendale, CA, June 2009 and June 2010. Silver Lake Library, June 2011. Pacific Palisades Library, June 2011. Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA, June 14, 2012. Part of ensemble of readers of ‘Hammer Presents: Bloomsday,’ at the Billy Wilder Theatre at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, June 16, 2012.
Stage Director:
As a stage director in Los Angeles, Joe Praml won a Hollywood Drama-Logue Award for Direction of Equity-waiver production of Mary O’Malley’s Once a Catholic at the original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard. As a director, he was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Centennial Memorial Commendation by the City of Los Angeles for directing Equity-waiver production of two Eugene O’Neill Sea Plays, Bound East for Cardiff and Long Voyage Home also at the Center and for being the only theatre to produce O'Neill plays during his centenary. (See Reviews: Directing: O'Malley's Once A Catholic; and O'Neill's Sea Plays.)
Compiled, directed, cast and read "Keeping Going, Poetry of Seamus Heaney," one-hour radio program of the poetry of the Irish poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature; broadcast on KPFK 90.7 FM Radio on August 24, 2014.
During May-June 2011, Joe directed an Equity-waiver production of Irish playwright Hugh Leonard’s The Au Pair Man at the Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District. (See Reviews - Directing: Leonard's The Au Pair Man.)
Compiled and directed ensemble of readers in evenings of the poetry of Dylan Thomas, Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District, November 2008, December 2009 and December 2010. Directed ensemble of readers reading scenes from James Joyce's Ulysses, at Magic and Imagination Bookstore, Glendale, CA, June 2009 and June 2010. Directed ensemble of readers in evenings of poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales for the Los Angeles Poetry Festival at the Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA.
Joe is also a Long-service Member of British Equity, SAG/AFTRA, Dramatists Guild of America, the International James Joyce Foundation, and the Dylan Thomas Society.
After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Joe moved to London, England. Within a year, Joe's one-act The Trick was produced by Sam Walters at the Orange Tree, Richmond, near London, and he became a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square. He wrote for London's Time Out magazine.
Joe was stage manager for a nation-wide provincial theatrical tour of Colin Bennett's play Soon directed by Mike Laye. Joe worked as an actor and singer with comedian Alexei Sayle in the touring theatrical cabaret About Poor Bert Brecht with poetry of Bertolt Brecht and music of Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, directed by Cliff Cocker.
Joe was a neighbor of the English documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine, and his wife Pat Hartley, one of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls and ex-girlfriend of Jimmi Hendrix. Joe wrote the script for their unfinished documentary about the attempted assassination of George Wallace by Arthur H. Bremer which is listed in their papers at Hollis for Archival Discovery at Harvard University.
Director William Alexander saw Joe in About Poor Bert Brecht and cast him in Under The Clock at the Royal Court Theatre where he acted alongside his neighbor Pat Hartley. William Alexander also cast Joe as Carl in the Edinburgh Festival production of Last of the Knucklemen by John Powers.
Joe’s stage play Jason was produced at the Little Theatre in London by Jean Pritchard Productions, directed by David Myles, Assistant Director at the National Theatre; among the actors were Diane Bull, Ian Bamforth, Sid Huggett. An added bonus was that Joe’s sons Greg and Eric were visiting him at the time.
Director Roland Rees of Foco Novo cast Joe as The Sheriff in its stage production of Bernard Pomerance’s Quantrill in Lawrence, ICA Theatre, The Mall, London with David Schofield as Quantrill, Ron Cook as Jesse James, Don Fellows and Eugene Lipinski.
Two of Joe’s favorite acting stories are about working with Alec Guinness in BBC-TV’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, and with James Cagney in Milos Forman’s Ragtime:
Joe found out about Smiley's People while he was in Glasgow, Scotland at the King's Theatre playing the role of Keefer in Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny Court Martial starring Iain Cuthbertson. There was a joke going around London that the three best acting companies in the UK were the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare, and the cast of Smiley's People.
When BBC-TV was shooting scenes of Smiley's People in Switzerland, the cast and crew stayed in a hotel on Lake Brienz, Switzerland. After filming, the cast and crew gathered there. On two evenings, Alec Guinness and Joe talked late into the night, two insomniacs, two stage actors, drinking Bloody Marys, talking about Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, how Alec Guinness got himself into his characters. http://www.joepraml.com/smileys-people.html
Milos Forman cast Joe as a policeman in Ragtime. Joe was in a scene with James Cagney who was older by then and walked with a walker. As usual it took a while to set up shots. With all the cables taped to the floor, it was easier for Cagney to sit rather than return to his dressing room so Joe was able to sit and talk to him. Joe found him very pleasant.
In Joe’s scene with James Cagney, he had to run up to Cagney and give him bad news. Cagney got up and barked at him with such ferocity and force Joe was taken aback. This wasn’t an old man Joe saw in front of him. This was the forceful Cagney of old. Joe stammered “I forgot my lines.” Cagney laughed, then Milos Forman laughed. It broke the ice and they redid the scene.
Just before Joe moved to Los Angeles, the National Theatre offered him the role of Big Jule as an understudy in Richard Eyre’s 1982 revival of Guys and Dolls - a professional achievement for an American working in London.
When Joe first moved to Los Angeles from London he worked as an actor in TV and film including such movies as Fletch, and on TV such as Hardcastle and McCormick and Matlock. Joe enjoyed his role as The Watchman in Chevy Chase’s Fletch. When Chevy Chase found out Joe’s contract was as a day player, Chase made sure he had extra shooting days so he would get more pay and more residuals in the long run.
Joe got involved with Los Angeles theatre as a stage director. He directed an Equity-waiver production of Anton Chekhov’s The Boor for the St. Ambrose Genesius Society. He joined the original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard shortly after it was created and founded by Brian Heron who also founded the Irish Arts Center in New York. Joe was appointed acting Stiúrthóir (Leader) of the Center for a short time while the Center was being reorganized.
While at the original Center, Joe directed an Equity-waiver production of playwright Mary O'Malley's Once A Catholic and won the Drama-Logue Critics Award For Direction. Two of his actors also won Drama-Logue Awards, as did Mary O'Malley, the author.
Joe participated in the original Center's Bloomsday readings of James Joyce’s Ulysses, including the first one, directed by Fionnula Flanagan.
As a director, Joe was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Centennial Memorial Commendation by City of Los Angeles signed by Mayor Tom Bradley for directing Equity-waiver productions of Eugene O’Neill sea plays Bound East For Cardiff and The Long Voyage Home at the original Celtic Arts Center, the only O’Neill plays produced in LA during O’Neill’s centenary. His actors presented him with a shillelagh, an ancient Irish symbol stating that he was their leader.
Los Angeles Times
Stage Beat
By RAY LOYND
‘Two From the Sea’
Eugene O’Neill’s early sea plays throb with atmosphere, and the Celtic Arts Center
evocatively catches the tough camaraderie in the one-acts “Bound East for Cardiff”
and “The Long Voyage Home.”
Director Joe Praml draws excellent ensemble performances from his casts (particularly
Tom Noga in both plays, Robert O’Carroll’s dying seaman Yank in “Cardiff,” and
Sonja Green-Fortag and Joan Mullin as the saloon slatterns in “Voyage”).
“Bound East for Cardiff” (O’Neill’s first staged play, by the fabled Provincetown Players
in 1916) looms as a murky “Lower Depths” in Dart Conrad’s set design. The actors’ rough
brogues are authentic and comprehensible. The tramp steamer’s rhythmic, thudding “
ka-lunk-ka-lunk” fill the pale darkness of the seamen’s hole (credit lighting and sound
designer Peter Strauss).
The aura of squalor is not as textured in the curtain-closer, “The Long Voyage Home,” which
offers a Swedish lunk (Bill A. Jones) about to be shanghaied from a waterfront dive. The
acting and staging, however, maintain this solid salute to O’Neill’s centennial.
For the original Center's contribution to the Los Angeles Fringe Festival, Joe created, compiled and directed readers in Celtic Visions and Dreams: An Evening of the Poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
For a while, Joe got away from the entertainment world and became involved as a tenants' rights activist. He is on the Board of Directors of Coalition for Economic Survival, the leading tenants' rights organization in the LA area. He was a key person in the development of CES’ Tenants' Rights Clinic, where tenants come for free legal advice. He was on the Los Angeles Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee, out of which came the Los Angeles Systematic Code Enforcement Program, that requires slumlords to live up to building codes and keep their buildings in repair, which has become a model for cities across the country. He received a Certificate of Commendation from the City Council of West Hollywood in recognition of his work as a long-time Counselor at the Clinic. In 2004, LAWeekly in "Best of LA" issue cited Joe as "Best Way to Keep Your Landlord Honest" and described his work at CES' Tenants' Rights Clinic. He is a former Rent Stabilization Commissioner for the City of West Hollywood.
Joe helped develop the new Celtic Arts Center's annual Dylan Thomas Celebration. In the first one in 2007, he read A Child's Christmas in Wales and the next two he read and directed Center members in reading the poetry of Dylan Thomas at the Raven Playhouse. Since then he has been reading his own Dylan Thomas tributes each November at various venues, and is a member of the Dylan Thomas Society.
Joe returned again to the theatre as a director and directed an Equity-waiver production of Irish playwright Hugh Leonard's political black comedy, The Au Pair Man, for the Celtic Arts Center at the Raven Playhouse in the North Hollywood Arts District.
During 2014, Joe created, compiled, and directed a one-hour radio program of the poetry of Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. On August 24, 2014, it aired on KPFK 90.7 FM Pacifica Radio Los Angeles.
For many years Mr. Praml has done readings and compilations of the classic canon of poetry and literature at theatres and libraries. His mission is to encourage people to read and enjoy especially the works of James Joyce and Dylan Thomas. Every year during the Dylan Thomas Festival, he reads the poetry of Dylan Thomas, and selections from the play for voices, Under Milk Wood. During June, Joe does Bloomsday readings of selections from James Joyce’s Ulysses. During December, he reads his own adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and The Mouse King and Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales. He continues as writer of fiction and nonfiction, including his autobiographical novel JFC!, and as a playwright, and screen writer. His screenplays, ...And The Horseman's Name Was Death, and Kidsplay, are on www.blcklist.com.
Joe can be reached through his agent, Linn Sand Agency at lsandagency@sbcglobal.net.
Joe Praml's Poetry Compilations and Readings (See Home page re Upcoming/Recent Readings):
- Poetry of Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Created, read and directed a one-hour radio program, Keeping Going: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney for KPFK 90.7 FM Radio Los Angeles, August 2014; and Westwood Branch Library, Los Angeles, CA, Dec. 3, 2013.
- "Poems of Love and Spring Awakening" celebrating Valentine's Day (Joe's compilation of poetry of W.H. Yeats, Song of Solomon, Lord Byron, Eavan Boland, June Jordan, William Shakespeare, I Corinthians 13, Edward Lear, Sylvia Plath, Robert Burns and others), Westwood Branch Library and Brentwood Branch Library, February 14, 2012 and February 9, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYq3Taa1YoQ
- "Poetry of Wales and the Welsh," including poetry of R.S. Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Gillian Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Ruth Bidgood, Idris Davies, and others, Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival, National Day of Wales, Barnsdall Art Park, Hollywood, CA, September 2011, March 2012 and March 2013.
- "Celtic Visions & Dreams, Poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales," Westwood Branch Library and Brentwood Branch Library, November 3, 2011 and March 17, 2012. Also Los Angeles City College; and the Los Angeles Poetry Festival at Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard.
- "Heirs of Brighid: The Poetry of Ireland Classic and Modern," including poetry of Patrick Pearse, F.R. Higgins, Spike Milligan, Thomas Moore, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, William Butler Yeats, and others, Irish Fair and Celtic Music Festival, Pomona, CA, in March 2011, March 2012 and March 2013.
- "Robert Burns, Gateway to Romanticism" as part of the annual worldwide celebration of Burns’ poetry and birthday, Venice Library, January 2015; Palms Rancho Park Library, January 2016; Westwood Library, January 14, 2012. Also read poems as part of Burns' Night Suppers at St. Martins Church, January 2008, January 2009, January 2010 and January 2011.
Dylan Thomas Poetry Readings as part of the annual worldwide Dylan Thomas Festival:
- Compiled and read and directed others readers in evenings of the poetry of Dylan Thomas, Westwood Branch Library, Nov. 3, 2011 and Nov. 29, 2012; Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, Venice, CA, November 4, 2012; UnUrban Coffee House, Santa Monica, CA, Dec. 18, 2013. http://youtu.be/1I5k56J5230.
- Read "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas at: Celtic Arts Center, December 2007. Raven Theatre, North Hollywood Arts District, December 2008, December 2009, and November 2010 and December 2010. Brentwood Library, December 2010. St. Ambrose Church, December 2009, December 2010, and December 2011. Blessed Sacrament Church, December 2011. Mary Magdalene Church, December 2011. Pacific Palisades Library, December 2011. Will and Ariel Durant Library, December 2011. (2007 reading on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqYiLRMM18
--Solo reading of Dylan Thomas' play for voices, Under Milk Wood: https://www.discoverdylanthomas.com/portfolio-items/joe-praml-reads-milk-wood-los-angeles-california
The Nutcracker and The Mouse King:
- Joe's adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and The Mouse King" at: Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District, December 2010. Pacific Palisades Library, December 2011. Will and Ariel Durant Library, December 2011. Westwood Branch Library, December 2012. West Hollywood Library, December 2012; Donald Bruce Kaufman Brentwood Library; December 2015 .
Bloomsday Readings from James Joyce's Ulysses:
- Read scenes from James Joyce's Ulysses directed by Fionnula Flanagan, original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Blvd. O'Brien's Pub, June 2007, June 2008. Magic and Imagination Bookstore, Glendale, CA, June 2009 and June 2010. Silver Lake Library, June 2011. Pacific Palisades Library, June 2011. Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA, June 14, 2012. Part of ensemble of readers of ‘Hammer Presents: Bloomsday,’ at the Billy Wilder Theatre at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, June 16, 2012.
Stage Director:
As a stage director in Los Angeles, Joe Praml won a Hollywood Drama-Logue Award for Direction of Equity-waiver production of Mary O’Malley’s Once a Catholic at the original Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard. As a director, he was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Centennial Memorial Commendation by the City of Los Angeles for directing Equity-waiver production of two Eugene O’Neill Sea Plays, Bound East for Cardiff and Long Voyage Home also at the Center and for being the only theatre to produce O'Neill plays during his centenary. (See Reviews: Directing: O'Malley's Once A Catholic; and O'Neill's Sea Plays.)
Compiled, directed, cast and read "Keeping Going, Poetry of Seamus Heaney," one-hour radio program of the poetry of the Irish poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature; broadcast on KPFK 90.7 FM Radio on August 24, 2014.
During May-June 2011, Joe directed an Equity-waiver production of Irish playwright Hugh Leonard’s The Au Pair Man at the Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District. (See Reviews - Directing: Leonard's The Au Pair Man.)
Compiled and directed ensemble of readers in evenings of the poetry of Dylan Thomas, Raven Playhouse, North Hollywood Arts District, November 2008, December 2009 and December 2010. Directed ensemble of readers reading scenes from James Joyce's Ulysses, at Magic and Imagination Bookstore, Glendale, CA, June 2009 and June 2010. Directed ensemble of readers in evenings of poetry of Ireland, Scotland and Wales for the Los Angeles Poetry Festival at the Celtic Arts Center on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA.