Bold Journey Magazine December 29, 2025
Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mark Sbani. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
When I start a painting, I have an idea of what it should look like. But I’m an amateur and can’t paint, so it turns out messy. Nothing like my original idea. So I look at my big ugly mistake and decide to either continue or give up. I’m stubborn, so I keep painting, I look for its personality. Not what I had in mind, exactly, but maybe something better. I apply this same technique to playwriting.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Craziest thing. My rat monologue, Mark Sbani Junior, premiered in two cities, Denver and New York City, on 08/02/25. Same play, same day. I was double-booked! Then it was presented at Lincoln Center in Manhattan on 08/23/25 and — extra cheese! — won “Best Performance.”
Mark Sbani Junior is a character study of a common house rat, who lives in constant fear of being stepped on. When he looks up, all he sees is the bottom of a shoe. One day, a soft-hearted human talks Mark Sbani Junior into plugging his rathole and crawling up to the roof. Mark Sbani Junior then looks down on the city for the first time and gets cheese-drunk. The harder the cheese, the drunker the rat.
Mark Sbani Junior first opened his beady eyes at 7:30PM, on 06/07/25, at the 2025 Denver Fringe Festival. A hairy little monodrama, “Mark Sbani Junior” startled the audience at first. A cry filled the theatre. “EEK! What’s behind the curtain? A rat. I’ve never seen one that big!” That’s ma boy. My rat baby, squeaking by. I’m bundling him off to the Jefferson Market Theatre next, in Greenwich Village in April, 2026. The rat is back!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
RESEARCH
I’m naturally hyper. I talk too much. My words get me in trouble and I write my way out. But you’re only as good as your dictionary. So if you’re stuck on a word, look it up. Don’t look for a similar word in the thesaurus. Understand what the word means before you use it in a sentence. I steal from the dictionary and Shakespeare, but who doesn’t? Right?
STAGECRAFT
A writer will hit ceilings as they grow. Intellectual ceilings, emotional ceilings, creative ceilings. Don’t stoop your head. No! Stand up tall and break through to the next level. Be an artist of great stature.
RHINO SKIN
A writer needs to develop thick skin for survival. Tissue-paper skin is no defense against rip-off artists, thuggish promoters and unfriendly critics. The pain of the rejection slip lessens with each receipt. Just because a producer rejects your latest play, doesn’t mean it’s non-art, invalid or low quality. It means you don’t fit their house style. They care about grosses. Money, money, money, money. You care about character and theme, how they interplay. Human behavior. Speechifying. Bigger ideas than what the box office made on a Sunday matinee.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
SHH…
It’s a Surprise Birthday Party for Colorado
WHERE:
Three Leaches Theatre
Date:
08/01/26
RSVP:
marksbani@hotmail.com
FRIENDS OF COLORADO!
You’re invited to a SURPRISE birthday party. It’s a SECRET show at the Three Leaches Theatre on August 1st, 2026. Again: 08/01/26. That date marks the 150th anniversary of Colorado becoming a state.
COLORADO MONOLOGUES
Any native, transplant or immigrant is invited to share in the celebration. One small request. Please bring a monologue instead of a present. Talk about your experience living in Colorado. What was a special year for you? Look into the state’s past. Spotlight a dark corner of the box we call home. Tell us something personal or borrow someone’s fame. Real-life or historical stories. Either will do. Your highest peak. Your lowest valley. Your boom-and-bust. Say a few words at the party. But don’t give it away. I want Colorado to be really surprised. You know nothing.
RSVP and get smashed with my 75 year old friend, who’s half as old as Colorado and twice as wild. One tough-ass Irish woman. She’s on the guest list. Add your name. Origin stories on how you came here, to our common home, to our squarish state. I’m seeking writer-performers with names like "Al," not “A.I.” (stick to binary code, literature is not for you).
Last spring, my one-act, Ten Stages of Love, was part of the Queens Short Play Festival. It’s a light satire of Disney. “The Little Mermaid,” retold. I’m giving Ariel a makeover. The plot unfolds like this: struck by Cupid’s arrows, Rocco and Shelly see each other and are interested. He’s a shipwrecked sailor and she’s a mermaid with a broken tail. Cupid likes pairing mermaids and sailors — he loves watching them mate. Mermaids are a fascinating part of nature. Even today, some doubt their very existence. But they are real. Shelly’s half-woman, half-fish, all wiggle. She’s currently on display in the Ten Stages of Love.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I sit on the board of a film production company called Edwin Entertainment, here in Denver. I’m curating their annual Gary Wideman Festival. Ten successive acts, starring singers, comedians, novelists, screenwriters, playwrights, multidisciplinary artists and freakshows. Some weird new Denver shit. Bring your kids. Venue: 3 Leaches Theatre.
Kinda Vague Publishing just released my books of plays. Pick up a copy at Mutiny Information Cafe, the Leech Pit, and other bookstores across Colorado. Or mail order it online at Time Capsule Framing. 0.0% A.I.-generated content. (I can always tell when a robot is talking). With original artwork and posters. All scenes are set in Denver — from the tearoom of the Brown Palace Hotel to a blind-alley behind Colfax Blvd. Only $12.99. I’m really, really excited about the barcode, because that’s the symbol of commerce. After years of taking pints of Guiness as a reward, it’s nice to finally monetize my creativity. Yes! I’m for sale! Buy me, I’ll change your life! Thank you, Kinda Vague Publishing. This book binds us together.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
My plays are my offspring. I was born exactly nine months to the day of my parent’s wedding, so I’m a love child. I’m childless myself, though, which made me artistically promiscuous. I’ll collaborate with anyone. Anyone willing to make a baby. A baby with traits from both parents but also a life of its own. With a funny little personality. Every once in a while, a child is so beautiful that one parent will fight for sole custody. So the other parent drags them to court and presents the contract. Because that’s some shady shit, man.
My one-act, Ghost of Union Station, was published in an anthology called Holiday Plays for Cultures Worldwide. I’m proud to be associated with these high quality, seasonal plays. Kinsman Avenue Publishing released it last month. It’s now available for purchase on Amazon. Copies also sold at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores, including Tattered Cover locally. I was chosen to be one of four panelists for the Holiday Plays for Cultures Worldwide book launch, which includes a reading of Ghost of Union Station.
My inspiration came from a true story. I was at Union Station, here in Denver, Colorado, before they remodeled it, with my friend and his new girlfriend. And they were just making out the whole time. So I felt like a third wheel and I wanted to give them some privacy (in Union Station, in the lobby). I guess I don’t like watching people kiss. Anyway, I wandered down the stairs and hopped over a dangling chain link, which divided two walls, and found myself in the basement, right? So I looked around and I only saw shadows. But I heard all these voices cackling. It sounded like drunkards arguing. But I didn’t see anyone. So I walked back upstairs and I spotted a security guard. And I asked him, “Who’s in the basement?” And he told me, “Nobody. Nobody goes down into the basement. It’s been restricted for fifty years. What are you talking about? You didn’t hear anything.” So who do I think it was? Mole people. It’s gotta be mole people. You know? But later on that night I had a dream that a ghost locked me in an old storage unit in the basement of Union Station. That’s where my idea came from.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I just read Barefoot in Athens — a 1951 Maxwell Anderson play about Socrates and his trial. I didn’t realize that Socrates had so many chances to avoid drinking the hemlock. All of Athens, including his judge and even his executioner — they all pleaded with Socrates to take the court’s deal. To stop speaking publicly against the government. The court offered Socrates and his family a palace to live in, but he refused to be silenced. The play was difficult to read because I already knew the ending. He doesn’t compromise. He doesn’t live to advanced old age like most philosophers. He drinks the hemlock, knowing he’ll become famous and his life will mean something. With one sip from a cup, he achieves immortality. Socratic irony. Made me think.
Ideas are everything. Ideas are like an iridescent opal, reflecting ten million complimentary colors. Directors interpret the idea, actors bring it into form. But a playwright’s mind is the ideas factory. Big ideas. Playwrights get the most respect because they own their intellectual property and licensing. A screenwriter can’t say that. Novelists, journalists. Only a playwright’s copyright is protected.
