Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
Allyson Currin: I have been in DC since 1990. I came here after a stint teaching drama in Switzerland because all of my friends from grad school were getting theatre work here. I had always wanted a smaller city for my career, but the main reason I stayed was that I got theatre work! I've worked in theatre pretty nonstop for my nearly 22 years here. I've been able to stay creatively fulfilled, but also have been able to have a family and a family-friendly lifestyle. JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? AC: When I first got to town, and for several years after that, The Playwrights Forum was great, just for networking, getting feedback, inspiring creative work and getting readings on their feet. When Charter was producing, I was heavily involved with them, but now they've morphed into First Draft (I'm this season's Resident Playwright with them). I'm currently involved with DC Area Playwrights and have really enjoyed the solidifying of the playwriting community here in DC. JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Intersections Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? AC: I've done two shows in the Fringe - one of which I produced myself, the other of which another group produced. It's great for what it is, but it ended up costing me a lot of money. I've also done commissioned work for the Source Festival and was administratively very much a part of it back in the 90's. I LOVE Ken Cen's Page-to-Stage and have had something in it pretty much every year since it started. Great energy in that particular project! JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? AC: My early years in DC I worked in PR and fundraising for Source Theatre Company. I'm also an actor, and have acted steadily since first getting into town (Olney, Signature, Studio, WSC, WSG, American Century Theatre, etc.) but we all know THAT doesn't pay the bills. By the mid-90's, I had switched to education as a day job, teaching here and there in a pretty scattershot fashion (Imagination Stage, PG Community College, etc.) until in one slam-dunk year I started to teach playwriting at THREE colleges all at once - St. Mary's, Goucher, and George Washington University. Once the dust settled, I was part of the "regular part-time" theatre faculty at GWU, where I've been for the past 14 years. It's a great job for a theatre person - if I'm not acting or writing or in rehearsal for something, getting to talk about nothing but theatre in the classroom is a pretty delightful alternative. I have always been a nighttime writer, so having a daytime job hasn't really cut into my creative time. (Raising my kids does, though!) JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? AC: I have had 21 of my plays produced in DC. (I'm including operettas and multi-media pieces in this number) Of those 21, 10 were my original scripts (I'm including an upcoming premiere in the 2012-13 season), 4 were commissioned plays or musicals, and 7 were multi-media pieces, operettas or other short commissioned works. There have been workshop and festival productions in addition, as well as work in other cities, but I'm only counting world premieres in DC. I have self-produced (I'm not counting festivals here either) three times, although each time I had a committed team of collaborators alongside me. It's a tough way to do business, but also very satisfying, particularly if there is nothing theatrical on the horizon with an established theatre. But you work HARD. I would definitely do it again, though - only with collaborators. JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? AC: I wouldn't say no to many of them! I love Rorschach's aesthetic, admire Woolly's, and have never been produced by either. Round House - never been produced there - or Theatre J. I like the mid-size houses and the little black boxes. JL: DC audiences are ... AC: ...HAVE changed a lot in my twenty-odd years here in town. They are SO much more respectful of new work than they used to be. They've really been educated about the process of developing new plays and are energetic and appreciative of what it takes to get new work on its feet. They are also hungry for "good stories, well told" and respond generously (I'm speaking of both applause and money here) when they get them. I love DC audiences. They've been very good to me. JL: DC actors, designers and directors are ... AC: Okay, that's like asking me to pick a favorite child! The DC theatre community was, is, and I'm sure will continue to be, pretty freaking amazing! It is a giving, generous community that really knows how to stick together. I am an actor, so of course I LOVE actors! I just adore writing a role specifically for one of my friends to play - it helps me to specify a character's voice. Designers: we need more! I love to work with them - actually get excited by their insights and processes and creative problem-solving - but there just aren't enough of them, especially for lower-budget projects. As for directors...of course I have a bias for directors who really have a genius for new work and I have a nice long list of directors I have worked with, or want to work with soon. Some directors just don't thrive in the land of new play development - which is fine, they excel in other types of theatre direction - but a strong dramaturgical streak is something I obviously seek in a director. JL: DC critics are ... AC: ...finally, I THINK, starting to understand that DC is a real theatrical powerhouse. Historically, there has been a faint undercurrent of "DC isn't New York City" running through a lot of criticism, a prejudice jettisoned ages ago by the artistic community. It seems to me that the critics are finally latching on to the idea of DC as a legitimate and powerful artistic community that has true gravitas. It's hard to talk about critics without talking about bloggers, though, and I think there is a huge difference between criticism and opinion. There's no shortage of opinion out there, which is NOT the same thing as classical criticism. I probably sound like a complete luddite here, but I would love for there to be a clearer understanding out there of the difference between the two. JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity ? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? AC: Ugh. Gender parity is such a hot and troublesome topic right now. As a seasoned female professional, I can certainly attest to the fact that I have felt that my gender was a bit of a roadblock now and then. I've watched my male peers move faster than I have career-wise. And, of course, I'm in the classic position of raising my children by myself (since my husband's death seven years ago), and trying to squeeze in a career as well - not an easy task. But overall, I can't complain about the career I've had. To date, I've been luckier than most, and definitely feel that I am writing at the top of my game. The reality in DC seems to be that certain theatres are open and sensitive to the gender parity questions, and other theatres less so. (Whether or not it has to do with their individual missions, or the alternative ways they seek to employ female artists, I wouldn't speculate.) The bottom line is that male playwrights are produced more often. That is just mathematical fact, which of course I find enormously frustrating. The discussion of the issue always helps, but talkin' ain't doin'! As to race: DC's creative community has been, in my experience, pretty sensitive, consistent and responsible when it comes to exploring issues of race. More sensitive, consistent and responsible than it is when exploring issues of gender, actually. The onstage dialogue about race has gotten more thoughtful, complex, respectful and layered. At least when I look at the evolution of that dialogue over my two decades here. JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? AC: Connect with other playwrights. First and foremost. Build a network and do whatever it takes to get your work seen. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? AC: I am working on several new plays, as always, including CAESAR AND DADA and one of those is a new commissioned musical for Signature Theatre (with composer-lyricist-all-around-fabulous-guy Matt Conner). I will be First Draft's Resident Playwright this coming season, so that means at least one staged reading of something brand new next season. I am working with Cincinnati Playhouse on some commissioned work as well. The Actors Salon is taking some of my plays to NYC for workshops in the fall. I'm also gearing up to make the switch from Vice Chair to Chair of National Playwriting Program (Region 2) of the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival. THAT keeps me hopping. Plus, I'm still teaching at GWU and running its New Play Festival in the spring semester. (I'm tired just typing that. But work is good!) Also, visit my website: www.allysoncurrin.com
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Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
Rebecca Gingrich-Jones: I've lived in DC for eight years now - can't believe it's been that long! I came here fresh out of undergrad without much direction, but knowing DC had a good women's rugby team that I could play for. It took me a while to get back into playwriting once I moved here, but then I quit teaching in 2008 to get an MFA at Catholic University. I graduated last year and have continued finding and making opportunities for myself in the area, so it seems like a good place to stay and make my art. JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? RGJ: I found a lot of support in my workshop classes at CUA, and liked the structure of sharing new pages every week. That's something I've missed since graduating, but on the other hand, sometimes I also need time to write in isolation. When the work is very new I can sometimes get too influenced by outside critiques - I try to find the balance where I trust the work and am also ready to hear how it sounds to others. JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? RGJ: And, now we have the DC Queer Theatre Festival too! Matt Ripa, Alan Balch and I co-produced the first annual festival with the DC Center this year in May (featuring new work by DC-area playwrights) and we'll be bringing it back in 2013 and beyond. As far as other festivals, I've had good - and challenging - experiences at the Capital Fringe Festival, and mostly think it's a great opportunity for producing new work. I've also had readings at Page-to-Stage and appreciate being able to hear new work in front of an audience. JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? RGJ: This year I was very honored to receive a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council that has allowed me to write essentially full time for several months. Now it's time to find another day job, and I'd be glad for any leads! This spring I was a teaching artist with Wobble Rocket Productions in Alexandria - I enjoy educating the next generation of theater artists, and being able to get paid for work related to my profession. JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? RGJ: I've had four plays produced in the area: The Furies was commissioned by Active Cultures for their Sportaculture festival, She Said/She Said was produced at CUA as my thesis, The Teacher's Lounge was my first play in the Fringe Festival, and I co-produced Singing Eggs and Spermless Babies (with music by Ben Shallenberger) at the Fringe Festival. It was a lot of work being a producer, and playwright, and in that case acting in the play as well! I think my big takeaway from that experience was to enjoy myself despite the stress and challenges - that's why I'm a playwright, for the love of writing and theater, so it doesn't make sense to get too freaked out. JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? RGJ: I love the work at Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Forum - there are too many to choose! I like theaters that make new plays a priority. Classics are great, but even as an audience member I love watching plays that speak to where we are as a culture and human beings in the 21st century. JL: DC audiences are ... RGJ: Diverse and smart, and I think hungry for new plays. JL: DC actors, designers and directors are ... RGJ: Fun to work with. We have lots of talent in DC and I want to see theaters continue to take advantage of that, without always looking to New York. JL: DC critics are ... RGJ: Getting better about championing new work. JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity ? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? RGJ: I don't think enough has been done to achieve race and gender parity at most theaters. If a theater doesn't consciously make parity a priority, then the status quo, which still favors white men, will continue to prevail. JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? RGJ: Get involved with the DC-Area Playwrights Group, which Gwydion Suilebhan and I founded last year! Join the online discussions on the Facebook group and meet up for the events that get planned throughout the year. And for any artists anywhere, develop and deepen your spiritual practice to give you strength when you start to doubt your talent or ability to "make it." JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? RGJ: I'm working on the first draft of a new comedy, and I have a production or two in the pipeline that I'll be announcing soon on my website, rgingrichjones.com. Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
D.W. Gregory: I have lived in the D.C. area for about 20 years now, coming here in the early 90s with my then-husband, who was offered a job at USA Today. After we separated I stayed on to complete an MFA program at Catholic University. Except for a year residency at a New Jersey theatre, I have been here ever since. JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? DWG: I'm a former member of Woolly's Playground, now defunct, and I am a founding member of the Playwrights Gymnasium, a process-oriented playwrights' workshop. Our focus in the gym is on development of craft through directed exercises. I started it in 2004 with Paul Donnelly. We were both tired of workshops that involved bringing in 20 pages for critique. That kind of approach can motivate you to write, but I think it has its limits, particularly if the discussion is not well moderated. We wanted a format that would force us to break out of our comfort zones and take a more dispassionate approach to our work, to identify weaknesses in our writing and fight past any impulse to take a critique personally. So exercises and writing prompts seemed to help make that happen. JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Intersections Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? DWG: Early on, the gym produced an evening of short plays in the first Capital Fringe Festival -- though it was a sellout show--we actually made money---in my opinion it was not a particularly good showcase for our work. Just a lot of things went wrong and we were not really ready to put it up, but we did anyway, and after that I decided that if I produced again I would focus only on one play at a time and that it would be mine! So the next project I did was a fringe show in Philadelphia that did very well -- critically and financially. It was named a "show you can't miss" by Philadelphia Weekly and I went on to develop it into a full-length, which is now slated for three productions in 2012-13. The Philadelphia Fringe is a harder festival to work with because you have to find your own venue and they offer a lot less support than the Capital Fringe. But both festivals are real frenzies of production, and cutting through the clutter and attracting an audience is a tough job. JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? DWG: I'm a reporter for Bloomberg -- by day I write about tax policy, by night I fantasize about having time to write other things. My writing/work balance is pretty damn poor, so I end up being a binge writer -- I start a play and the only way to finish it is to work round the clock like an insane woman for a month or two at a time, then take a month off and clean the house. JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? DWG: See above. My productions in D.C. have been scant, largely limited to 10-minute plays and the thesis play I produced at Catholic U. I did work with Imagination Stage for a couple of years writing original plays for their acting students -- two of which went on to be published and receive productions around the country. Most of my work though is produced outside of D.C. I am a resident playwright at NJ Rep, an Equity theatre in Monmouth County, NJ. They've produced two of my world premieres and I am working on another project for them. JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? DWG: Need you ask? I'd love to see something go up at Theatre J just because Ari is such a gutsy producer and it would be fanastic to work with him. Most of my stuff, in my opinion is rather deceptive. It seems like safe suburban fare, but it's a lot more challenging and it is, at bottom, kind of subversive. You get past the exterior package and dig in and you discover its posing some unsettling questions. For that reaosn, I think a lot of my work would do really well at Round House. I have some large ensemble pieces that would be suitable for Forum Theatre. And of course, who would not fantasize about a production--of anything--at Arena Stage? JL: DC audiences are ... DWG: Rather conservative, as a whole. There is so much competition for their time and attention -- and I don't think audiences here are especially adventurous -- though perhaps that is changing. JL: DC actors, designers and directors are .. DWG: As good as you'll find anywhere. New York, Chicago -- they don't really have the edge on DC when it comes to talent -- but they do have money. JL: DC critics are ... DWG: Hard to categorize ... I think Peter Marks is the real deal -- a critic whose work overall will enlighten you. A lot of people write reviews, but how many of them are real critics, who can put a work in context and evaluate it from a strong basis of understanding? That's Peter, for sure. And Nelson Pressley, who in my opinion is a pretty generous critic; I think he makes a real effort to be supportive of smaller companies. Really what a lot of artists need is attention -- and a good critic can do an immense service simply by shining a light on a new or emerging company. JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity ? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? DWG: I have no idea, really -- my impression is that there is more attention to giving voice to African American and Latino writers than to female writers, but that's not necessarily an informed impression. I don't know that my ability to get work on stages here is in any way affected by this issue -- I can't get attention in general, so it's not peculiar to DC. JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? DWG: Go somewhere else. If you are just starting out, if you have a choice of where to live -- Philadelphia is a much more livable city with a lively theatre scene. Chicago has a real network of support -- including Chicago Dramatists, where you can take classes, workshops -- and the theatre scene there is vast compared to D.C. Or try Minneapolis -- a lot of new working being produced, and the Playwrights Center is an incredible resource. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? DWG: I am now online at my blog, dwgregory.com/blog. You can look for updates there. In the near term -- my new drama SALVATION ROAD opens at New York University Oct. 26, followed by a production at Walden Theatre in Louisville, Ky., in November, and a production at Seton Hill University in April. And there may be an interesting development to talk about soon, though not at liberty to say at the moment. Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
Laura Zam: I’ve worked as a playwright in DC since I got here in 2001. After grad school at Brown, I was either going to stay in Providence or move to California. I even got a job in Berkeley that summer to see if I could set things up there as I love the Bay Area. However, on my way driving there (a yummy post-grad road trip), smack dab in the middle of the U.S., I got a call from an old friend, offering me a job at Arena Stage. The job was to be part of the Living Stage Company, a social-issue theater ensemble that creates devised work. I was offered the position of company member, dramaturg and assistant director. A full full-time job making theater? When do I pack? At Arena, I stayed for three seasons, eventually becoming Director of Education and Director of Southwest Community Programs. During that time, I was writing on the side, but it was difficult for me to balance this double life: I need to write in the morning; otherwise, it doesn’t happen. So I left Arena so I could start writing again. And I have! What’s kept me here is the community of smart, talented, worldly people. And also love. I met my husband here and we have set up a perfect DC life that is urban yet calm. JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? LZ: I was a member of the Ernie Joselovitz’s Playwrights Forum and also Playground Playwrights, which was housed at Woolley Mammoth. I found both these groups very helpful. More recently, I’ve had very intense collaborations with directors, artistic directors, and dramaturgs. This has replaced a writing group for me¾for these projects anyway¾because I don’t want too many opinions very early in the development process. In addition to these groups, I’m also an active member of DC-Area Playwrights, which is not a writing group: it’s a formalized (digital and in-person) community of playwrights and other theater folk. It’s an amazing way to be connected to other playwrights in town! JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Intersections Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? LZ: I’ve put shows up in Fringe since it’s inaugural year in 2005, six of those have been one-person plays and one performance was a series of monologues written and performed by my solo performance students. I love Fringe, but I think it works best if it fits into a larger framework of development. For me, I use it to mount a piece for the first time. Then these pieces go on tour for many years afterward. I can work out kinks during Fringe and, hopefully, get good reviews (I’ve been pretty luck – spit, spit). All of this helps me get gigs afterward. So it’s a great investment of time and money. As for the other festivals, I participated once in Page-to-Stage and enjoyed it; I’d definitely do it again if I felt it helped my developmental process. For the first time, I’ll be participating in the Intersections Festival (March, 2013). I’m not sure what the future of this piece will be, but I’m sure I’ll find one. I’m all about the future! JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? LZ: I make my living from a combination of writing (articles and essays), performing (touring one-person plays), and teaching. The latter mostly consists of my Solo Performance Lab and a workshop called How to Make a Living in the Arts, which is what you think it is. I also do some private coaching in both these areas. As an extension of my teaching, I work with traumatized populations, using the arts (storytelling and performance) to foster healing. For example, this fall I’m teaching a workshop at a healing retreat for female military veterans at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. All of these endeavors comprise my career. In other words, I don’t see myself solely as a writer. So I don’t have to balance a day job. I do have to balance this career triad though, and this mostly comes down to scheduling. Essentially, I write all morning and then use the afternoons for everything else, including rehearsals, emails, phone calls, and sometimes teaching. Classes are held in the evening or on a Saturday. If I need more writing time, I cut into my afternoon activities. On my tombstone I’d like it to read: “She had complete control over her day and therefore she was happy.” JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? LZ: I’ve had six full productions in DC, and I’m about to have my seventh. Four of these were self-produced. In addition, since I tour my work, I frequently work with presenting organizations; in these instances, I sort of collaborate on producing. What I’ve learned from all these experiences is that it’s critical for a playwright to know how to get her work on the stage—from soup to nuts. Once a playwright does this, even once, she understands that she can always bring her work in front of an audience. There’s’ no need to wait for gatekeepers to validate or empower you. This DIY mentality is pervasive in all the arts right now. So if an artist not thinking this way, she is missing out on a lot of opportunities. She might even be missing the boat. Also, when I’m not producing I tend to be involved in all aspects of production anyway because I have an agenda: I’m going to do something with this play after the run. This is not to say I don’t love having a theater provide marketing, tech, directors, etc. I treasure this collaboration and support, but even in these instances, I want to make sure my vision is driving the production process. I never sit back and just let “them” take care of it. Self-producing has taught me that I can orchestrate things from all production angles. I have found that theaters appreciate this input as they are often understaffed. And who cares about your play more than you? JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? LZ: Well, right now I’m working with Theater J, who commissioned my newest play MARRIED SEX, and they’re producing a workshop presentation of it on September 23. This collaboration has been a dream come true. Shirley Serotsky is directing, along with Batya Feldman. Ari (Roth) has been essential in helping me shape this material. Based on this experience, I am interested in continuing to work with Theater J. I’d also love to work at Studio and to put something up in the Cradle (at Arena). JL: DC audiences are ... LZ: ... smart, sophisticated, and very worldly. They also like to have fun: I adore the silliness that comes out during Fringe¾from the artists but also the audience laughing their silly heads off. JL: DC actors, designers and directors are ... LZ: ... full of talent. And more keep arriving! Keep moving here, people! JL: DC critics ... LZ: For the most part, they are really interested in the health of the DC theater community. Along these lines, I have found them generous and constructive. I have especially found this to be true of the professional critics in town. I always read my reviews and take them to heart because I feel like most critics want me to succeed. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but that’s my impression. JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity ? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? LZ: I’ve thought a lot about the lack of non-white voices on the stage. In a city that’s predominantly black, that seems very odd. That said, I know some theaters are, more and more, addressing this lack of representation. In terms of how it affects me: undeniably, I benefit from this White privilege. There’s no getting around that. So I try to voice my opinion about this as much as I can. This is very international city. I’d love to see more plays by people from all over the world, all races. When it comes to gender parity though, I have to say that it’s not something that I’ve really thought about until recently when statistics started going around regarding DC theater seasons and how many women vs. men were being produced. I think it’s ironic that most theater-goers are female (some say upwards of 70%); yet the overwhelming majority of produced plays were written by men. This seems ridiculous, so I’m in favor of changing this status quo and I’m involved in the conversation, but I’m also…careful when it comes to issues of injustice and women. I suppose I want to participate in a movement that feels constructive and empowering¾as opposed to something that paints women as victims. Making a connection to the previous question about self-producing, I can’t help but feel that women have exactly the same opportunity as men to do this, to take things into their own hands. So, for me, the answer lies more in continuing to produce my own work than in putting a tremendous amount of energy into changing theater seasons in town. I guess I’m not a radical. Or, I’m a different kind of radical. JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? LZ: Come out to any DC-Area event! Go see plays and introduce yourself to the theater artists. Join a writing group, especially if you are relatively new to your craft or need help with development. Find a director (or two) that loves your work. Cultivate a relationship with other theater people you admire. Put something up in Fringe or some other place where you can self-produce. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? LZ: You can always catch me at LauraZam.com. In fact, I’m in the process of upgrading my site, but the old one works just fine for now. I’ll have a workshop presentation of MARRIED SEX on September 23 (5 pm) at Theater J. Here’s the link. After that, the play will be produced Off-Broadway next year. (I’m the lead producer on this production; self-producing in DC has taught me how to self-produce in NY as well!) I’ll be turning this play into a book this year also. As for teaching, I’ve got my Omega workshop and also My Solo Performance Lab starts on Sept 24. It’s a 6-week class in creating a solo show (a Level Two class immediately follows). Check it out here. I’ll be teaching How to Make a Living in the Arts as a course at George Mason University in the spring. Prior to this, I’m offering a one-day workshop for anyone on November 10. Here’s that link. On a final note, many thanks to Jackie Lawton for this fabulous opportunity. So glad to have great soul mates like her in town! Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
Kathleen Akerley: I've been a DC-area resident since I was 2; had my first play produced (in the original Source Festival) in 1999 then didn't write for several years. I started participating as a writer in eXtreme eXchange in 2006; produced my own play Theories of the Sun in 2008 and have been writing steadily ever since. I've stayed because my progress has been overlapping; that is, whenever I was developing something that might have taken me out of the area to explore I was doing it on a foundation of something else supportive and steady. But I am currently giving some thought to leaving. JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? KA: I'm a member of a playwriting collective called Lizard Claw that has been incredibly useful to me but very few of the members are local. JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Intersection Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? KA: I collaborated with Scot MacKenzie and Dan Istrate on a CapFringe piece (and have also directed a CapFringe piece, by NY-based playwright Callie Kimball); I had a one-act in the original Source Festival (Banquo's Dead, Jim) had a 10-minute play (Feet) in the new Source Festival as well as worked on one of their artistic mash-ups (. . . listening) as well as wrote for their 24-hour new play arm (1,952 Miles); and I was once granted a slot in the Mead Lab program (that I did not, ultimately, use -- but that was as a director, not a playwright). The Source work has been the most writerly, so if I don't discuss the others that's not a tactful omission! I am all praise for the Source Festival: even in change of leadership the goals seem to have remained to include as many local artists in as many ways as possible. I had some frustrations with some of the processes, but no more than would be likely on any new play project. JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? KA: I work part-time in an office job that is incredibly flexible -- they even let me take leave without pay for a month to go direct a play in Belfast. I also make a little money over a year from freelance directing, acting and teaching. I just finished my training to be a massage therapist and hope to be certified by October: I am very lucky in this regard that I have maintained for years employment that is steady but not consuming and hence I can build writing time into my schedule. JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? KA: Counting festivals etc. and NOT counting readings (my take on 'produced'), 16. Four were self-produced -- all at my own company Longacre Lea. I think I may be guilty of never learning from experience! I can't think of an answer to the final part of this question. JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? KA: Not to be evasive but this answer really depends on which of my plays is a the forefront of my mind. I've currently got several in that waiting-to-cohere mode of being semi-outlined and with half-written scenes on the back of an envelope blah blah: if I imagine any of them being staged the one that makes sense at Theater Alliance doesn't make as much sense at Forum, the Woolly is odd at WSC and vice versa, and so on. A particular one of these it would have been my drop-dead dream to get into the hands of Joy Zinoman, because of her unmatched capacity for the beat work of human details in degrading circumstances: this is why you have to get plays written because otherwise people retire and there goes that fantasy. JL: DC audiences are ... KA: uh. 'Cake or death?' JL: DC actors, designers and directors are .. KA: 'So my choices are . . . "or death?"' JL: DC critics are ... KA: OK, as to this question and the two preceding questions [grin]: maybe I don't learn from experience because I am artistically insular and egomaniacal, maybe I am a self-producing a(uteur)-hole, but if I have a good point it's that I don't over-generalize about classes of people. There's a critic in this town who could easily switch to directing and have the respect of everyone he cast, another who many of us read only because battling an apoplectic fit can be funny when you do it with friends. And so on as to audience, actors, designers, directors, playwrights . . . JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity ? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? KA: Yeah, I'm not qualified to answer this one because of the schism in my brain that causes me never to see myself as part of a socio-political whole. JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? KA: I don't have any DC based advice: I have the networking/business skills of a concussed vole. If my general advice to anyone is at all pertinent to them, I'd go for the old Bene Gesserit maxim: Exposition is the mind-killer. Exposition is the little-death that brings total obliteration. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? KA: My play Goldfish Thinking is up right now at the Callan Theatre, until 9 September. To learn more about Longacre Lea, follow this link: www.longacrelea.org Jacqueline Lawton: How long have you lived and worked as a playwright in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
Jennifer L. Nelson: I came to Washington in 1972 to work with the Living Stage Theatre Company (LSTC), which was the community outreach program of Arena Stage. LSTC was completely improvisational and devoted to the mission of making art that would make a difference in the lives of children and adults, who had been left out of the middle class vision of America. I had done a little playwriting in grad school (before I dropped out), but had no real intention of becoming a playwright. In truth, I was much more focused on using theatre to save the world than on any personal theatre-related goals. Ah, youth! Over the years, LSTC became interested in preserving some of our best improvised scenes and I became the designated scripter. Eventually, I began writing short plays that were completely of my own devising, customized for LSTC’s social mission and cast. Since then, I have left DC twice (first to NYC, then to LA) and each time came back for personal and professional reasons. It’s been a good place for me. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote “wherever you go, there you are.” JL: Have you ever been a member of a DC area playwrights writing group? If so, did you find it useful? Would you recommend that other playwrights join them? JLN: I have not been part of any playwrights’ writing group. I used to be a poet and I was part of a poet’s group for a while which was insightful. I was more involved with the local women’s poetry community than I have ever been with the playwrighting community. Go figure. JL: In DC, we have the Capital Fringe Festival, the Intersections Festival, the Source Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, the Black Theater Festival, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. We also have the Mead Lab at Flashpoint Theater Lab Program. Have you participated in any of these? If so, can you speak about your experience? JLN: I have had two plays read in the Page-to Stage Festival. It is a good opportunity to hear one’s script in front of an objective audience, but there does not ipso facto guarantee you’ll have an audience other than your friends. My play 24, 7, 365 was produced by Theater of the First Amendment and featured as part of the Intersections Festival. Once I became a small theatre producer, much of my focus turned to directing and supporting/developing the work of other writers. I produced plays that went to the Black Theatre Festival and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. I’m very proud of my record of producing work of young writers. After the production of my play that got the Helen Hayes MacArthur Award (Torn From the Headlines) most my artistic energies were outer-directed and my own work took a waaaay back seat. JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your writing? JLN: I am currently Director of Special Programs at Ford’s Theatre. Before that, I was Producing Artistic Director of African Continuum Theatre (ACTCo). I also am a freelance director and have been an adjunct professor at American University, George Washington University, Georgetown University and (upcoming) University of Maryland College Park. I do not teach playwriting. JL: How many plays have you had produced in the DC area? Were any of these plays self-produced? If so, where and what did you learn from that experience? JLN: I’ve never had a full length play produced anywhere else. Torn from the Headlines was “semi-self” produced. It was a co-pro of an earlier version of African Continuum and Everyday Theatre, a now defunct social outreach arts organization where I was then employed. Then Hubert & Charlie was produced through what later became African Continuum. What did I learn? Don’t self produce if you can help it. Of course, it can be done, but the writer is better served if there is a trusted, supportive and objective eye. There is so much more to producing than putting your script into actors’ hands. JL: If you could be produced at any theatre in DC, which would it be and why? JLN: ... I prefer not to have those fantasies. JL: DC audiences are ... JLN: ...responsive to diversity on stage. JL: DC actors, designers and directors are ... JLN: …smart, talented, ambitious, multi-generational, creative. JL: DC critics are ... JLN: ...a necessary adjunct to The Way Things Are. JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages? JLN: In my long career here, the theatre community has made huge steps in terms of inclusion of ethnic diversity on stages especially in terms of actors. A prime example is how August Wilson’s popularity opened a door in so-called mainstream theatres for plays about the African American stories. Not surprisingly, most of Wilson’s characters are male. Big steps followed by smaller steps. The DC theatre community is not too different from the national theatre community in this. Issues of race and gender are mostly addressed on stage in vehicles that are profitable for the theatres. For example, when a high profile playwright or actor is attached to a piece of work, it will jump to the top of the desirability chart. If a play is a big hit in New York, the larger regionals will pile on to bring that play to their communities. The playwrights may or may not be brilliant, but what is really at stake is theatres’ bottom line. They’d be foolish not to pick plays that have the most likelihood of selling tickets. Of course, there are exceptions to this: theatres that were willing to take risks based on their own values. We’re seeing some really wonderful and daring new work in smaller theatres that don’t have as much at risk. Unfortunately, they also don’t pay as big royalties. It would be convenient to blame the relative invisibility of my own work on race and gender bias but who knows? JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based playwright or a playwright who has just moved to D.C.? JLN: Write what’s in your heart and don’t pin your identity on what anybody else thinks. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we keep up with your work? JLN: I’m interested in writing about baseball and slavery. I don’t know what's next. You can visit my website: jenniferlnelson.net Welcome to the Women Playwrights of DC Series! Over the next week or so, you'll be introduced to a wide range of women playwrights, who are as diverse and varied in experience as they are in writing styles and approaches to play making. Among these women are playwrights at the beginning their artistic journeys, courageously discovering their voices; "emerging" playwrights working hard to hone their craft and making names for themselves in the D.C. area and beyond; and long established playwrights who've achieved great success and high acclaim. There are traditional playwrights, solo performers, key members of performances ensembles, and "Hold on, wait a minute, you think I'm a what?". They use language, image, prayer, dance, sound, memory, landscape, food, and space to create beautiful, passionate, powerful, haunting, and important stories that capture the human experience. Each of these women are helping to shape the landscape of American Theatre with their artistic vision, creativity and dedication to theatre. Again, my hope is that these interviews will serve Christine and others who are making their way as playwrights in the Nation's Capital, and perhaps beyond. But, if there are any artistic directors out there looking for bright, talented, funny, and prolific women playwrights to include in their seasons, here you go! KATHLEEN AKERLEY Kathleen Akerley is the artistic director of Longacre Lea, a small, professional theater company founded in 1998 and devoted to creating physical productions of cerebral works with an emphasis on absurdism and magical realism. As a freelance director she has also worked with Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Solas Nua, Rorschach Theatre, Theater Alliance, Forum Theatre, WSC Avant Bard and Studio Second Stage; as a playwright she has worked with Sideshow Theatre (Chicago), eXtreme eXchange, Source Festival, The Hope Operas, had several plays commissioned by Round House Theatre's Heyday Players, adapted Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the stage in 2010 and had readings of her plays Only Angels at Theatre J's 5x5 series and The Hungry Dry at Boston Center for the Arts; as an actor she has worked with Catalyst Theatre, Theater Alliance, WSC Avant Bard, Washington Stage Guild and Olney Theatre. She is a recipient of the Mary Goldwater Theater Lobby Award for acting and directing, and a member of the playwriting collective Lizard Claw. BARI BIERN Bari Biern is a playwright/lyricist whose first musical, A Dance Against Darkness: Living with AIDS (with composer Roy Barber) was nominated for Helen Hayes Awards as Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Resident Musical. She also wrote the lyrics for Riddle Me a Prince, The Miracle of Watts, and the critically-acclaimed In Series production of The Marriage of Figaro: Las Vegas Version. Also in 2010, the Playwright’s Forum presented Bari’s adaptations of Henry James’ The Real Thing and The Marriages at the John F. Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. In 2011, She wrote the book and lyrics of pocket versions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte for WAM2, a co-production of the In Series and the Washington Ballet. Recently, she contributed lyrics to Imagination Stage’s Helen Hayes-recommended production of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Her lyrics are also featured in the Capitol Steps’ Take the Money and Run for President. Bari has been performing with the Steps since 1993. RENEE CALARCO Renee Calarco lives and works in Washington, DC. Her play SHORT ORDER STORIES received the 2007 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Other plays include THE RELIGION THING (2012 Helen Hayes Recommended), KEEPERS OF THE WESTERN DOOR, THE MATING OF ANGELA WEISS, BLEED, and IF YOU GIVE A CAT A CUPCAKE (commissioned by Adventure Theatre in 2011). Her 10-minute play WARRIORS was published by One Act Play Depot in 2010. Other short plays include SEMPER FIDELIS, POUNDS AWEIGH, and FIRST STOP: NIAGARA FALLS. Renee is an artistic associate with First Draft/Charter Theater, the program coordinator for Naked Ladies Lunch, and a proud member of both DC Area Playwrights and The Dramatists Guild of America. She teaches playwriting at George Washington University and improvisational comedy at The Theatre Lab, and is a licensed professional tour guide. www.reneecalarco.com ALLYSON CURRIN Allyson Currin is an award-winning playwright of over twenty plays. Previous world premieres of her work include: Hercules in Russia (Doorway Arts Ensemble, 2012); The Dancing Princesses (Imagination Stage, with composter/lyricist Christopher Youstra, DC Theatre Scene’s 2010 Pick for Best Family Show); and Treadwell: Bright and Dark (The American Century Theatre, 2010; DC Capital Fringe, 2011). She has written original librettos for several opera companies including “musica aperta” and The In-Series, and has written original work for The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Strathmore Arts Center and The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Her multi-media collaborations have been spotlighted in Source Theatre’s Washington Theatre Festival. She has several new plays in development, including the comedies The Colony, Caesar and Dada, The White Trash Grail Play, and a new musical (with composer-lyricist Matt Conner) commissioned by Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre. She is the Playwright-in-Residence for the 2012-13 Season with First Draft at Charter Theatre. As an actor she has appeared at Olney Theatre, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Source Theatre Company, Washington Shakespeare Company, Catalyst Theatre, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, Theatre J, The American Century Theater, Charter Theatre and Round House, in addition to her work in television and film. She is Vice Chair of The Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival National Playwriting Program (Region 2), and she teaches in the Theatre and Dance Department at The George Washington University. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, The Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity Association. THEMBI DUNCAN A native of the D.C. area, Thembi Duncan has performed as an actor in the region for over a decade. Her most extensive experience is in stage work, with productions at numerous area venues including The Studio Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Imagination Stage, and Round House Theatre. As an emerging playwright, she’s penned Gridiron: Adventures from the Sidelines, for the Active Cultures 2011 Sportaculture Play Festival; Champagne, a 15-minute commission for the Brave Soul Collective; and an adaptation of the Japanese folktale Urashima Taro for Arlington’s Stage Door Productions. She’s currently developing Mon Chaton, her first full-length play, and a cross-gender adaptation of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. Ms. Duncan also works as the Lead Teaching Artist at historic Ford's Theatre. KITTY FELDE Kitty Felde won the 2009 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation of a trio of Nikolai Gogol short stories called GOGOL PROJECT, a commission from the Rogue Artists Ensemble. The LA Times said Felde "deftly balances flights of whimsy and depths of darkness." She also won the Open Book/Fireside Theatre Playwriting Competition for her one-woman show ALICE: an evening with the tart-tongued daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, which sold out performances at the 2011 Capitol Fringe Festival – “critic’s pick” by The Washington Post.Felde has written a melodrama set in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast (SHANGHAI HEART), a musical comedy about the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (BUM’S RUSH), and a one-act about a radio cowboy whose show is moving to television, but without him: he doesn’t look like his voice (MAN WITH NO SHADOW.) Her courtroom drama A PATCH OF EARTH, winner of the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition, was inspired by her work covering the war crimes tribunals. It’s published by the University of Wisconsin Press in The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia. Her newest play THE LUCKIEST GIRL is the story of a young African-American girl’s obsession with the politically incorrect holiday figure Zwarte Piet. Felde co-founded Theatre of NOTE, wrote for TV’s What’s Happening Now, and directed a playwriting program for at-risk youth. She currently serves as a judge for the Helen Hayes Awards. Felde grew up in Compton, the eldest of seven children. REBECCA GINGRICH-JONES Rebecca Gingrich-Jones is a 2012 recipient of an Individual Artist Award in Playwriting from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her plays have been produced or developed at the Capital Fringe Festival, Active Cultures, Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival, American College Theater Festival, Theater J, Manhattan Rep, First Draft, DC Queer Theatre Festival, Beltway Drama Series, Young Playwrights Inc., Bread & Water, MadLab, Raconteur, and Catholic University, where she received an MFA in Playwriting. Her play She Said/She Said received an Honorable Mention for the 2011 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award. Rebecca has taught acting and playwriting at Wobble Rocket Stage in Alexandria, Virginia, and Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She is a co-founder of the DC-Area Playwrights Group and the DC Queer Theatre Festival, and a member of the Playwrights’ Center and the Dramatists Guild. D.W. GREGORY A resident playwright at New Jersey Rep, D.W. Gregory writes in a variety of styles and genres, from the historical epic RADIUM GIRLS to the psychological thriller OCTOBER 1962. The Rep’s production of her impressionistic family drama THE GOOD DAUGHTER earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2003, and her comedy MOLUMBY’S MILLION, produced by Iron Age Theatre, was nominated for Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2011. In addition, Gregory’s work has been presented or developed at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, the Lark, the Young Vic, the New Harmony Project, ShenanArts, Round House Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others, and has been supported through grants from the National New Play Network, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland Arts Council, the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her work in youth theatre began with a commission by Imagination Stage to write five plays for its Speak Out on Stage Program, including PENNY CANDY, MIRACLE IN MUDVILLE, and SECRET LIVES OF TOADS. In 2011, her drama SALVATION ROAD received the American Alliance for Theatre in Education’s Playwrights in Our Schools award and her short play WHAT GOES AROUND appeared in Dramatic Publishing’s BULLY PLAYS anthology. She is currently at work on a commission from NJ Rep for a new musical for young audiences adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. DENISE HART Tenured Howard University Associate Professor of theatre, Denise J. Hart is an accomplished and award winning actress, director and playwright. In addition to teaching at Howard University, she has taught at American University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Howard University (BFA in Acting) and also holds an MFA in Playwriting from Sarah Lawrence College. She currently serves as the Area Coordinator of Playwriting in the Department of Theatre Arts. She has written and self-produced 16 children's musicals and most recently collaborated with Darius Smith on “The Mysterious Case of Classroom #459.” She is the author of the adult plays Nothing to Lose, Sistah Girl, Masquerade Parade, Ring the Bell, My Soul is a Witness and This Joy (a former finalist in both The Lark and the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights competition). Her Directing credits include: Secret Mist of Blue, Melancholy of Barbarians, The Exile & the American, Day of Absence (finalist in the 2008 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival), Zooman and the Sign, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Her acting credits include the recurring role as the beloved character "Miss Anna" on HBO'S The Wire, African Continuum Theatre Co., Wolly Mammoth Theatre, and The Theatre Alliance. Ms. Hart is also the founder and Executive Director of The Performing Arts Training Studio, located in Washington DC. Denise is also a Creativity Coach, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, The Dramatist Guild, The Playwrights Forum, and Theatre for Young Audiences. She proudly serves on the boards of The DC Black Theatre Festival, Takoma Theatre Conservancy and DC Art Studios. PAIGE HERNANDEZ Paige is a multifaceted artist, who is known for her innovative fusion of poetry, hip hop, dance and education. As a master teaching artist, Paige has taught throughout the country, to all ages, in all disciplines. To date, she has reached over 10, 000 students, from Pre-K through college, in over 100 residencies, workshops and performances. She has been recognized in many organizations including the Wolftrap Foundation for Early Learning and Arena Stage where she was awarded the Thomas Fichandler award for exceptional promise in theater education. Paige was also named a “classroom hero” by the Huffington Post. As an actress, Paige has performed on many stages including DC: Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, The Kennedy Center , Fulton Theatre(PA), Ohio Theatre (NY), Manship Theatre(LA), Paramount Theatre (TX) and many others. As a critically acclaimed dancer, Paige's choreography has been seen all over the country and recently in The Kennedy Center’s American Scrapbook and Knuffle Bunny. As a hip hop education advocate, Paige has shaped various educational workshops, including Props for Hip Hop at Arena Stage and Keep it Moving, at Wolftrap. Both workshops help teachers to understand the fundamentals of hip hop while incorporating the culture into their curriculum. With her company B-FLY ENTERTAINMENT, Paige has toured her children’s show Havana Hop and her one woman show, Paige in Full: A B-girl’s Visual Mixtape throughout the country. www.paigehernandez.com www.paigeinfull.com CALEEN SINNETTE JENNINGS Caleen Sinnette Jennings is professor of theater at American University in Washington, D.C. She teaches acting, voice and speech, acting Shakespeare, playwriting and academic courses in theater. Jennings was a 2007 finalist for the O'Neill Playwright's Conference, and she is a two-time Helen Hayes nominee for Outstanding New Play. In 2002, she received the Heidman Award from Actor's Theatre of Louisville for her play Classyass. In 1999 she received a $10,000 grant from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays for her play Inns & Outs. Her play Playing Juliet/Casting Othello was produced at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre in 1998. In 2000, her children's play Free Like Br'er Rabbit was produced for the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices festival. Her two short plays Pecos Bill and The People Could Fly are featured in Walking the Winds, which premiered at the Kennedy Center and toured nationally with Kennedy Center's Programs for Children and Youth. Jennings received her bachelor's degree in drama from Bennington College and her M.F.A. in acting from the N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts. She has been a faculty member of the Folger Shakespeare Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institute since 1994. She moderates panels, does workshops and presentations for cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian, Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Ford's Theatre, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Shakespeare Theatre. In 2003, she received American University's 2003 Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award. That same year, she won the award for Outstanding Teaching of Playwriting from the Play Writing Forum of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. NICOLE JOST Nicole Jost is a playwright, teaching artist, producer and director. Her play The Terror Fantastic was read as part of the inaugural DC Queer Theatre Festival, and featured in The Inkwell’s “Evening of Inklings” in April 2012. She has worked locally with The Inkwell, dog & pony dc, Forum Theatre, City Artistic Partnerships, Madcap Players and Roundhouse Theatre. In 2011, she was recognized by The Washingtonian as one of ten “Women to Watch.” She is the Associate Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, the only professional theater in Washington, DC dedicated entirely to arts education. KRISTEN LEPINE Kristen Lepine is a playwright in residence and company member at the award winning The HUB Theatre, which has commissioned three plays to date: Foolish Fire, Leto Legend, and Dire Wolves. Foolish Fire took top honors at the 9th Annual Firehouse Theatre Festival of New American Plays. Leto Legend is currently being further developed with Pinky Swear Productions, and Dire Wolves continues its development with the HUB Theatre and will participate in the 2012 Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival. Kristen was commissioned by AccokeekCreek Theatreco to write Laundry Blows, which was presented in the 2011 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. Additionally, her works have been staged at various Mid-Atlantic venues including Active Cultures, The Firehouse Theatre, The HUB Theatre, Inkwell, Georgia College and State University, Pinky Swear Productions, The Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She is the former coordinator of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s local playwriting forum, PlayGround. Kristen has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Humboldt State University, and she currently teaches Dramatic Literature and Introduction to Theatre at the University of Mary Washington. LIZ MAESTRI Liz’s plays include OWL MOON (Taffety Punk Theatre Company, Page-to-Stage Festival); SOMERSAULTING (Page-to-Stage Festival, The Artists’ Bloc Downtown Series); TINDERBOX (Forum Theatre ReActs); FALLBEIL (Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Sweatlodge); and multi-disciplinary collaborations THE PRESSURE COOKER for the 2012 Source Festival and THE RAIN for E.M.P. Collective’s Genesis project. Liz was a founding core member of The Anthropologists, a physical-theater ensemble in NYC, where she collaborated on devised works The Potato Play, One Million Forgotten Moments, The Columbus Project, and Falling. She studied playwriting with the 24 With 5 Collective at New Dramatists, and received her B.A. in Theatre from the University of Maryland. Liz is the recipient of a 2011 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Award, and is a member of The Playwrights’ Center and the Dramatists’ Guild. www.lizmaestri.com HEATHER MCDONALD Heather McDonald’s plays include An Almost Holy Picture, When Grace Comes In, Dream of a Common Language, Available Light, The Rivers and Ravines, Faulkner’s Bicycle, The Two Marys, Rain and Darkness and, upcoming, The Suppressed-Desire Ball (developed at Sundance Ucross Writers Retreat). Her work has been produced on Broadway and Off and at such theatres as The Roundabout Theatre, Arena Stage, The McCarter Theatre, Center Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Indiana Rep, California Shakespeare Theatre, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville – Humana Festival of New Plays, The La Jolla Playhouse and internationally in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and Mexico. Her most recent work, STAY, is the result of a two-year collaboration with choreographer Susan Shields. Ms. McDonald wrote the libretto for the opera, “The End of the Affair,” adapted from the novel by Graham Greene. She and composer Jake Heggie (“Dead Man Walking”) were commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and the opera premiered at HGO and went on to have several more productions. She has also directed many productions, most recently Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,” a steampunk version of “The Elephant Man,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” by Martin McDonogh and the world premiere of “Two-Bit Taj Mahal” by Paul D’Andrea. The production she directed of “Dream of a Common Language” was nominated for eight Helen Hayes Awards (including Best Direction) and won four Helen Hayes Awards including Outstanding Resident Production. Her work has been honored with a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, three NEA Playwriting Fellowships, The First Prize Kesselring Award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She has written and sold two screenplays “Rocket 88” and “Walking After Midnight” and is at work on a new project for television, “GOLD.” She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is Professor of Theater at George Mason University. DANIELLE MOHLMAN Danielle Mohlman holds an MA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College. Recent credits include Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams (Field Trip Theatre) and The Crow (Artists’ Bloc) at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival. Other credits include Stopgap at the Capital Fringe Festival and The Bed at DC SWAN Day. In 2012, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities awarded Danielle a Larry Neal Writers’ Award for Dramatic Writing. She is a co-moderator of DC-Area Playwrights and Artistic Director of Field Trip Theatre. JENNIFER L. NELSON Jennifer L Nelson is currently Director of Special Programming at Ford’s Theatre. Prior to this appointment she was the founding Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company, Washington D.C.’s only professional black theatre company. During that eleven year tenure, she produced twenty plays, multiple readings and other events. Ms. Nelson is a commended playwright and published poet. Her musical play Torn from the Headlines was awarded the 1996 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Most Outstanding New Play. Her three-minute telephone play Somebody Call 911 was commissioned by and featured at the 2001 Humana Festival at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Her latest full-length play 24, 7, 365 was produced by Theatre of the First Amendment. Her full-length musical Hubert & Charlie was honored by the 2003 Larry Neal Writers’ Awards and was subsequently produced by the African Continuum Theatre. She has received several commissions to write issue-oriented plays for young audiences, most recently by Ford’s Theatre to bring to life historical character Elizabeth Keckly (2011 Washington Post Helen Hayes Theatre Award). She has also been commissioned to write short plays for the Theatre Lab; Active Cultures/Sportaculture Festival; the Cultures-in-Motion Program of the National Portrait Gallery; the Education Department of the Corcoran Gallery; the Kennedy Center Program for Families; and Round House Theatre’s HeyDay Players. She is a three-time grantee of the DC Commission on the Arts Individual Artist program, and a recipient of the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. As a director, her recent productions include Raisin in the Sun at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore; Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s Theatre; The Whipping Man at Theatre J. Upcoming productions include: 9 Circles for Forum Theatre and Top Dog/Underdog for Everyman Theatre. HELEN PAFUMI Helen Pafumi is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Hub Theatre. Her original plays Merry, Happy...What? and co adaptation Wonderful Life (Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play) have been produced by The Hub and Clara's Little Questions, was first read at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage Festival. In addition to her role at The Hub, Helen works as an actor in many DC area theatres, including Theatre J, Folger Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Forum Theatre, Theatre Alliance, Rorschach Theatre, Keegan Theatre, Didactic Theatre, The Inkwell, the Source Festival, the Beckett Centenary Festival, Vpstart Crow, and Madcap Players. She has appeared in numerous independent films and commercials. Helen also does dialect coaching for George Mason University’s theatre program and privately teaches acting and public speaking. She is the recipient of the Puffin Foundation Award and the Washington Canadian Partnership Award. Helen holds a BA in Theatre from Virginia Tech. MARNI PENNING Marni Penning is a northern Virginia native and co-founder of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, for whom she has performed over 35 roles in 10 seasons, including Juliet, Kate, Rosalind, Beatrice, and Hamlet. In 10 years in New York, she appeared on Saturday Night Live (burning a Martha Stewart cookbook on live national television), Guiding Light, All My Children, Law & Order: SVU, The Sopranos, Mona Lisa Smile, onstage in the beat poetry rock musical Subway Train and for The Production Company, with whom she is a founding company member. Marni has performed steadily on New York stages for the past ten years as well as appearing in several short films; regionally, favorite roles include Peg in Six Years (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival), Luciana in Comedy of Errors and Catherine in Lorenzaccio (Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC), Jane in The Unmentionables, Ashley in After Ashley and Mom in Big Death and Little Death (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), Helen in Machinal (American Century Theater), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (Georgia Shakespeare), Adriana in Comedy of Errors (Folger Shakespeare Theatre and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Mrs. Manningham in Gaslight (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Sarah in The Lover (Rep Stage), Myra and Myrna in The Mineola Twins (Human Race Theatre, OH) and Shelby in Steel Magnolias (Wayside Theatre, VA). She is the author of Carol's Christmas, which was produced by Pinky Swear Productions in 2011. NATSU ONODA POWER Natsu Onoda Power is a writer, director, and designer. Her original works include Astro Boy and the God of Comics (The Studio 2ndStage), The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Madness and Civilization, The T Party, Trees and Ghosts, Swimmy and Other Stories (Georgetown University), Revenge of the Poisoned Ladies (Capital Fringe Festival 2008), Performance of Sleep in One Long Act Without Intermission, Are you my negative space?, and SCIENCE (FICTION) (Live Action Cartoonists). Directing credits include The Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (by Young Jean Lee, The Studio 2ndStage). Recent design credits include Big Love (The Hub Theatre, scenery), bobrauschenbergamerica, Mad Forest (Forum Theatre, scenery), Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Synetic Theatre, costume and scenery). Natsu is the author of God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post World War II Manga (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), which explores the 54-year career of a Japanese Cartoonist Osamu Tezuka. Her current ongoing research projects include food/food justice and performance, ethnography of DC transgender community, and racial representations in comics and graphic novels. She is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Theater and Performance Studies at Georgetown University. MARY RESING The artistic director and co-founder of Active Cultures, Mary has a consistent track record from producing and supporting high quality professional theatre. In the D.C. area, she collaborated on Source’s Washington Theatre Festival for ten years and led the new play development effort at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for eight years. Her freelance work as a director and dramaturg includes productions and workshops at Source Theatre Company, New Playwrights, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage in Connecticut, Empty Space in Seattle, New Dramatists in New York City, Theatre of the First Amendment in Fairfax and Arena Stage in DC. She has worked with the playwrights David Lindsay Abaire, Carlos Murilla, David Bucci, Craig Wright, Michael John Garces, Mark Medoff, Jennifer Nelson, Oni Faida Lampley, Neena Beeber, Gwydion Suilbhan, and Anna Zielger, among others, on successful world premiere productions. Mary was a US Fulbright Scholar to Armenia. She has taught theatre at the University of Maryland, Georgetown University and Catholic University. She has a B.A. from Spring Hill College in Alabama, an M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. JUANITA ROCKWELL Juanita Rockwel is a writer and director specializing in the development of new work and new forms at such venues as The Ontological, Mabou Mines/Suite, Culture Project, Blue Heron, Bushwick Starr (NYC); Theatre of the First Amendment, Banished? Productions, Source, Capital Fringe, DCAC, Everyman, Theatre Project, Iron Crow, Single Carrot (DC/Balto); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Arts Center, Jorgenson Theatre, Church Barn Farm (CT); City Theatre (P’burgh); Gas & Electric Arts (Phila); Teatro Municipal (São Paolo, BR); Teatro Abya Yala (San José, CR); RS9 (Budapest); and on National Public Radio. Produced writing includes Between Trains, What’s a Little Death (plays w/songs); The World is Round, Waterwalk (operas); Cave in the Sky (puppets/multimedia); The Circle (audioplay); Lunar Pantoum (dance-theatre); Across the Void, Packing/Pecking, Language Monkey, Quantum Soup, A Table in Hell (short plays); Immortal: The Gilgamesh Variations (multi-playwright adaptation) and Playing Dead (translation w/Yury Urnov from Bros. Presnyakov). As Artistic Director of Hartford’s Company One Theater for six years, Juanita directed dozens of early premieres for stage and radio by Paula Vogel, Suzan-Lori Parks, Rachel Sheinkin, Erik Ehn and Donna diNovelli, as well as her own work. She is a Fulbright Scholar and was recently invited to serve a second term as Fulbright Ambassador. Her artist residencies include Ko Festival of Performance, O’Neill Center’s National Theatre Institute, and the Visual Playwriting Conference (Gallaudet University). She has recceived NEA awards with Gas & Electric Arts and Company One Theater, as well as grants and awards from a variety of states, cities and private foundations including a MD State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Playwriting. Juanita is a proud member of both the Society of Directors and Choreographers and the Dramatists Guild. KRISTY SIMMONS Kristy Simmons is a playwright from the D.C. area. In 2009, she had an in house reading of her One Act play Greg's Anatomy by Calliope Theatre. She is a co-writer of Filter, a multimedia performance and street theatre piece featured in the 2012 Source Theatre Festival. She has directed a 10-minute play for DC-SWAN Day at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, and has served for many years as a reader for Inkwell Theatre. This Fall she will serve as Assistant Director for Spooky Action Theatre's production of Reckless. MARY HALL SURFACE Mary Hall Surface is a playwright and director specializing in theatre for families and multi-disciplinary collaborations. A DC theatre community member since 1989, her producers include Round House Theatre, Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, the National Gallery of Art and over 15 productions at the Kennedy Center. Internationally her work has been featured in productions and festivals in Germany, Canada, Japan, Peru, France, Taiwan, Sweden and Ireland. Nominated for four Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play and five Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Direction, she received the 2002 award for her musical, Perseus Bayou. She is the artistic director of INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. She received the Charlotte Chorpenning Award, presented by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for an Outstanding Body of Work as a Playwright, May 2006. She was a finalist for the 2011 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Service to the Arts. CARMEN C. WONG Carmen C. Wong is the founding Artistic Director and agent provocateur of banished? productions, an avant-pop performance collective that plays with narrative while creating immersive art experiences. Her projects have been fueled by awards such as the Creative Communities Fund (2012), TCG Global Connections (2011) and the DCCAH's Young Artist Award (2010). Current projects and concepts include the devised dance collage Into the Dollhouse; a sensory gastro-art-performative series that has spun Tactile Taste of Helsinki / Tactile Dinner Morsels / Tactile Dinner Car / A Tactile Dinner; the ballades mechaniques installation series of story-telling machines, and the banished? footsteps series of alternative art audiowalks. Carmen first got her start in interdisciplinary performance in Berlin, working on Constanza Macras’ & Dorky Park’s “Back to the Present” in 2003. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of CityBlossoms, an urban gardening organization, and is on the Board of Governors for Theatre Washington which runs the annual Helen Hayes awards in Washington, DC. When not busy making works that defy easy categorization, she secretly enjoys picking up languages just to make untranslatable puns. KAREN ZACHARIAS Karen Zacarías award-winning plays include THE BOOK CLUB PLAY, LEGACY OF LIGHT, MARIELA IN THE DESERT, THE SINS OF SOR JUANA, the adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS, and the adaptation of Helen Thorpe’s nonfiction book on immigration JUST LIKE US. Her TYA musical s with composer Debbie Wicks la Puma include EINSTEIN IS A DUMMY, LOOKING FOR ROBERTO CLEMENTE, JANE OF THE JUNGLE, CINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS, FERDINAND THE BULL, and FRIDA LIBRE. Her plays have been produced at The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, The Goodman, Round House Theater, The Denver Center, Alliance Theater, Imagination Stage, GALA, Berkshire Theater Festival, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, San Jose Rep, and more. Her awards include: 2010 Steinberg Citation-Best New Play, National Francesca Primus Prize, New Voices Award, National Latino Play Award, Finalist Susan Blackburn, Helen Hayes for Outstanding New Play. Karen is a playwright-in-residence at Arena Stage and teaches at Georgetown University. She is the founder of Young Playwrights’ Theater, an award winning theater company that teaches playwriting in local public schools. LAURA ZAM Laura Zam is an award-winning writer, performer, and educator. To date, she has created seven one-person plays, which she has performed Off-Broadway, internationally, and across the US. Her newest solo piece, Married Sex, was commissioned by Theater J and will have a workshop production there in September before being produced Off-Broadway (2013). Through her touring play Collaterally Damaged, Laura raises money for contemporary genocide survivors. Laura has published extensively, including plays, monologues, essays, and articles. Also an arts educator specializing in healing, she has worked with trauma survivors all over the world, including teens from the Middle East, wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and survivors of sexual abuse. Recently, she was invited to present at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Drawing from this healing work, Laura helps artists overcome obstacles so they may make a living doing what they love. She has a B.A. in Theatre from Brooklyn College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Brown University. Laura has taught at Brown University, UC Berkeley and George Mason University, among others. For more information, visit www.LauraZam.com. A month or so ago, a wonderful friend, internationally acclaimed playwright, Christine Evans, moved to D.C. from Boston. If you don't already know her work, you should. She's here working as an assistant professor in the Theater and Performance Studies Program at Georgetown University and will be teaching Play Analysis and Real Things Onstage: Theaters of War and Witness. We first met in 2006 at the NoPassport Theatre Conference in New York. She's been a lovely presence in my life ever since. I'm thrilled that she's here and can hardly wait to experience the impact of her work in this community! Upon her arrival, she and I began speaking about Life as a Playwright in D.C. As beneficial as I think these conversations have been, my experience is just one perspective and doesn't come close to answering the question in a larger sense. So, I reached out to several women playwrights in the area and asked them to share their experiences here. I'm focusing on women playwrights, because we need to be heralded, championed and showcased as much and as often as possible. Interestingly, these interviews became even more relevant and timely when I learned about Theater J's Women's Voices Project and was reminded that the number of plays written by women playwrights being produced in the D.C. area this season is still rather low. If you're interested, you can peruse the D.C. area Theater Directory and while you're at it, buy some tickets! While there’s certainly room to grow and areas to improve in terms of racial and gender parity, I can't help but dance, celebrate and rejoice in the fact that D.C. area audiences have a plethora of exciting, rich, diverse, and compelling theatre from which to choose this season! Now, the fact that the world premiere of my play, The Hampton Years, is one of the plays being produced this season is extraordinary! Folks, let’s face it, outside of my family, friends, colleagues, students, summer campers, mailman and a few folks at my gym, no one knows who I am! It’s wonderful that Theater J believed enough in me, my voice and vision, and this play to produce it. Huzzah! Of course, it’s my hope that next season--and in the many seasons to come--we’ll see the number of plays written by women, playwrights of color, and local playwrights being produced on the D.C. area stages not only increase, but sky rocket through the roof! And here’s the thing, while it may take longer to shift the pendulum than we'd like, I believe it will happen. I believe it, because there are so many smart, savvy, and determined theatre artists, audiences, patrons, critics, and institutions who are invested in making it happen. It will get better! In the meantime, I'm just going to keep writing plays and plugging away at this blog! Alright, in my next post, you'll meet the amazing, brilliant, talented, funny, and prolific Women Playwrights of D.C. being featured in this series. I'm so excited! So, stay tuned! TCG's 2012 Young Leader of Color, J.J. El-Far, responds to Drew Barker's question on diversity and inclusion. "How do institutions and artists negotiate between sincere attempts at 'bridge-building' and creating productive 'multicultural' explorations without falling into the potential traps of audience pandering or cliché?" Finer Points of Distinction: Communities of CrossoverWell, here are my thoughts. I think this is a worthwhile inquiry. Certainly there is much to be gained in the compare/contrast method of cross-cultural or inter-cultural work. However, I think when we enter into these scenarios as "representatives" of a certain culture, it can be limiting at times because we assume the widest possible definition in order to include the most people. These broad cultural definitions are inclusive but also destructive of the finer pointed distinctions that make each group unique and textured as a people. In comparing Black and Jewish experience, certainly there are similarities, but I think in a way it trivializes each of these experiences by not allowing the full, diverse breadth of expressions of cultural identity that each person can experience. I would also be interested in looking at communities of crossover, Black AND Jewish, and how those layers both sync and wrestle with each other inside of one person''s experience. TCG's 2012 Young Leader of Color, Yolanda Williams, responds to Drew Barker's question on diversity and inclusion. "How do institutions and artists negotiate between sincere attempts at 'bridge-building' and creating productive 'multicultural' explorations without falling into the potential traps of audience pandering or cliché?" Serve Your Audience: Embrace Diversity Know your audience. The idea is for you to diversify your audience for the theatre not for one particular production. It becomes a trap of audience pandering or a cliché when you have “one multicultural show” or “one diversity show” in a season. If your theatre or institution truly wants to tackle bridge-building and creating productive multicultural explorations, you must embrace the diversity in the theatre world which includes your artists, your audience, your community, and your board. |
My BlogI'm a playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist. It is here where you'll find my queries and musings on life, theater and the world. My posts advocate for diversity, inclusion, and equity in the American Theatre and updates on my own work. Please enjoy!
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